Seyed Hossein Mousavian is Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University and former head of Foreign Relation Committee of Iran’s National Security Council. He is the author of many books, including Iran and the United States: An Insider’s view on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace.
In his speech before a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “we all know Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building…I have a message for these protesters: When the Tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.” While hundreds of members of Congress applauded him 79 times, the substantial number of Democratic no-shows included Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, who later described the speech as “by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States.”
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demanding the U.S. stop military aid to Israel hoisted Palestinian flags and burned American ones outside Union Station in Washington, D.C. in demonstrations against Netanyahu’s appearance. On July 9, Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines said that the Iranian government is one of several covertly encouraging American protests over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza in a bid to stoke outrage ahead of the fall election.: “Iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their foreign influence efforts, seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.” While Netanyahu claimed that Iran is “funding” protesters, Haines reiterated that “using social media platforms, groups linked to Tehran have posed as online activists, encouraged protests and provided financial support to some protest groups.”
On July 25, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller clarified some of those remarks made by Haines: “We understand that the vast majority of protesters in America are not taking their orders from Iran and that most of the people who might have received support from Iran wouldn’t even know that that’s where it was coming from.” Nevertheless, the claims of Iran supporting the protests in the U.S. includes both truth and distortion. The truth is that for the past 40 years, the United States and Iran have both exerted efforts to maximize the exploitation of contentious internal issues in the other’s country to their own geopolitical advantage.
Protests swept across Iran in recent months after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in September 2022 while being held by the “morality” police for violating the country’s strictly enforced Islamic dress code. On the anniversary of her death, Joe Biden said “the United States remains committed to standing with the Iranian people—including by providing tools to support their ability to advocate for their own future.” It is no secret that, since the 1979 revolution, the U.S. has consistently supported opposition groups to bring about regime change in Iran.
On the other side, in a message to American student protestors, Ayatollah Khamenei said: “You are now on the right side of history. You are now part of the resistance front, and under the ruthless pressure of your government — which openly defends the usurping and ruthless Zionist regime — you have embarked on an honorable struggle.”
Despite this opposition, the claim that Iran is organizing and financing demonstrations by the American people in defense of Palestine should be doubted for six reasons.
First, the protests are about one of the worst humanitarian crises in the past 50 years. Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said it was worse than “awful scenes” he witnessed during the civil war in Syria and the “horrors” of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s; he has referred to it as “the worst [crisis] in my 50 years of experience.” As of June 2024, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israel’s ground and air campaign has driven most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people from their homes, killed more than 39,000 people, mostly civilians, and, based on a study published in the Lancet journal, the accumulative effects of the war could mean the true death toll is more than 186,000 people.
Second, not only have millions of Americans participated in dozens of large demonstrations in cities across the U.S., but hundreds of millions of people in countries around the world have demonstrated in support of the Palestinian people. Neither Iran nor any global power is capable of organizing and financing such widespread protests in the U.S. and around the world.
Third, the claim that Iran is coordinating these demonstrations in the U.S. implies that Iran has been able to build such a powerful network that it can mobilize millions of Americans to undermine internal security and stability. Such a claim would mean a failure of 17 American intelligence agencies to contain Iranian influence, allegations that are serious accusations against the intelligence community.
Fourth, for years, the strongest and most influential pro-Israel, anti-Iran groups, such as AIPC, UANI, and FDD, have played a key role in imposing sanctions and pressure against Iran and intensifying hostilities between Washington and Tehran. On the other side, the Iranian government has completely failed to counter this process. Even Iranian-Americans who have worked for peace between the two countries have faced severe pressures. With such evident weakness, the Iranian government certainly cannot establish a powerful network within the U.S. capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Americans to protest.
Fifth, the worldwide demonstrations are in support of international rules and regulation and not Israel. The United Nation International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Israel has plausibly committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention and ordered it must ensure “with immediate effect” that its forces not commit any of the acts prohibited by the convention. Based on the six provisional directions the ICJ gave on January 26, Israel must: take all possible measures to prevent genocidal acts as outlined in Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention; prevent the destruction of evidence of war crimes in Gaza and allow fact-finding missions to access it; and ensure the delivery of basic services and essential humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. These provisions align closely with the demands of many activist groups organizing protests in the United States.
Sixth, several student activists who spoke to NPR cited the organizing of students in 1968 as inspiration for their own movements. Matthew Vickers, a junior at Occidental College in Los Angeles said “most of the Palestinian solidarity movement has taken direct tactical and moral inspiration from the movements of the sixties (Vietnam War). I think the parallels cannot be more obvious.” Since pro-Palestinian demonstrations rocked U.S. college campuses this spring with protests of the war in Gaza, more than 3,100 people have been arrested or detained on campuses across the country. “In that sense, it is an uncanny resemblance to what transpired in the late sixties in this country, where U.S. students and other people in this country were inspired to speak out and mobilize against what they saw as an unjust war in Vietnam,” Frank Guridy, a professor of history at Columbia University, told NPR.
At the end, to strengthen peace and security in the Middle East, the United States and Iran need to establish a new relationship based on mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, and, at the same time, it is crucial to establish a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.