The Iranian Foreign Ministry suggested Monday that the American public is widely opposed to Israel’s self-defense operations against Iran-backed terrorist organizations in the Middle East, most prominently Hamas, and suggested that Democrats lost the 2024 presidential race because they were too supportive of Israel.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described President-elect Donald Trump’s win to secure a second term in the White House as a “meaningful” expression of opposition to Israel, fueled by violent leftist protests on American college campuses.
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“Over the past year, public opinion in the US, both in the universities and in public circles, has openly expressed its opposition to the killing and genocide of the people of Gaza,” Baghaei claimed in an interview on Thursday, according to the Iranian state outlet PressTV. Iran refers to Israel’s self-defense operations against Hamas, which controls Gaza, as a “genocide.”
“Many Americans oppose their government’s complicity in [Israel’s] genocide in Palestine and Gaza and the dispatch of weapons [to the regime] to be used to kill innocents,” he claimed, adding that he and the Iranian regime expected Trump and his administration “adhere to their election promises” to bring about a rapid conclusion to the ongoing conflict.
An Iranian demonstrator holds a poster of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reading in Farsi: “Hezbollah is alive,” as a representation of the Israeli flag is set on fire in an anti-Israeli gathering at Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in Tehran, Iran, on October 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israel declared war on Hamas on October 8, 2023, a day after genocidal Hamas jihadists invaded the country and went on a killing, rape, and torture spree that resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, over 200 abductions, and widespread reports of infanticide, gang rape, and other atrocities. Iran, as one of Hamas’s most prominent financial backers, has enthusiastically supported Hamas, celebrating the massacre by branding it the “al-Aqsa Flood” and condemning the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for working to prevent a repeat of the disaster.
The administration of outgoing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in the November election, claimed to offer Israel “ironclad” support but routinely attempted to micromanage the war, irritating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration. The Biden administration proposed several deals in an attempt to end the conflict that Israel found unpalatable. Both Hamas and the Israeli government rejected Biden peace proposals.
A group of the Iranian demonstrators cover their faces in the Palestinian and Lebanese militants style as one of them holds a poster of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Narallah, right, and Hashem Safieddine, a powerful cleric who was expected to succeed Nasrallah and was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, in a ceremony commemorating the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hashem Safieddine, at the Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in Tehran, Iran, on October 24, 2024. (Vahid Salemi/AP)
Despite Biden’s poor relationship with the Israeli government, the United States has maintained its status as Israel’s closest ally, outraging radical leftists who support Hamas’s goal of destroying Israel and committing genocide against its people. Leftists organized a wave of violent riots nationwide in April and May on college campuses, prominently “occupying” buildings at Colombia University and clashing with security on campuses nationwide. The protests returned when classes began again in August; most recently, an antisemitic mob attacked the Harvard Hillel this week, the campus Jewish student center. The mob chanted “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” a slogan calling for the genocide of the Israeli people.
The Iranian government has encouraged more such incidents in America.
“See what is happening in the world,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s “supreme leader,” celebrated in April. “In Western countries, in England and France, and in states across the US itself, people are coming out in huge numbers to chant slogans against Israel and America.”
Khamenei wrote a letter addressed to American students in June proclaiming them to be part of the “resistance front” – Iran’s term for the network of jihadist terror organizations it supports – and declaring them to be on the “right side” of history.
“You have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front and have begun an honorable struggle in the face of your government’s ruthless pressure — an administration that openly backs the usurper and brutal Zionist regime,” Khamenei wrote.
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Anti-Israel sentiment on the left became a prominent issue during the 2024 campaign. Opponents of Biden’s claims to “ironclad” commitment to supporting Israel organized movements of “uncommitted” voters in the Democratic primaries, which were largely uncontested given that Biden, the incumbent president, was the party’s candidate at the time. By the time the party ousted Biden and replaced him with Harris, who received no votes in the 2024 Democratic primaries, “uncommitted” voters had become a vocal sector of leftist voters, demanding speaking positions for pro-Palestinian voices at the Democratic National Convention. The Party ignored those calls, omitting any pro-Palestinian voices from the event.
President-elect Trump decisively won the 2024 election. Republicans notably improved their numbers significantly among Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and Jewish voters, including increasing voter turnout for their party in neighborhoods where Biden performed well in 2020.
Trump did not campaign on a pro-Hamas platform, however. As president, Trump maintained close relations with the Israeli government and made historic efforts to contain Iran’s terror threat, most notably approving an airstrike to eliminate Iranian terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. Speaking to Breitbart News, Trump condemned Harris as being weak on the issue of defending Israel.
“She hates Israel. She is very bad to Jewish people. It’s incredible how badly she treats Jewish people and Israel—it’s amazing,” he told the outlet. Democrats, he added, are now “pro-Hamas. Schumer has become a Palestinian. They are pro-Hamas. There’s no question about it.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Trump on his victory. He spoke to the president-elect via telephone later that week.
“Their conversation was warm and cordial. The Prime Minister congratulated President-elect Trump on his election victory. The two agreed to work together for Israel’s security, and also discussed the Iranian threat,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
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