NOTE: The following text is an abridged translation of a Persian-language statement regarding Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran. The statement was published on Saturday, June 14, on the Telegram channel of baray-e Felestin (For Palestine), a grassroots Tehran-based Palestine solidarity group. Formed earlier this year as a collective of independent activists, baray-e Felestin held its first rally on May 22  in front of the University of Tehran. 

Last night, the sound of explosions tore through the darkness of the night in our beloved Iranian cities, planting shock and disbelief in the hearts of the people. Last night, Israel struck at the heart of millions of Iranians—not merely targeting a geographic location, but attacking our historical memory, our emotional and political bonds, our hopes, and our future. Last night, the parasitic outpost and military base of the United States in the region—a stark embodiment of militarized capitalism, whose very nature is rooted in occupation and the killing of children—once again reminded us of our shared fate. Last night, homes were reduced to rubble, bodies remained trapped beneath the debris, and lives were claimed by dust, stone, and fire. 

We are still in shock—but not only from the roar of missiles and bombs. We are haunted by the recurring nightmare in the modern history of our region; the history of an imperialist conquest whose endless lust for domination has taken the lives of Palestinians in Gaza, Lebanese in Dahiyeh, Yemenis in Saada, Afghans in Kabul and Kandahar, and now Iranians in Tehran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Ilam, and Kermanshah. And perhaps tomorrow, it will strike again, in yet another wounded city of West Asia.

This was the nightmare that compelled us to take to the streets on 22 May. With flags in our hands, cries in our throats, and our eyes fixed on the horizon, we chanted: “From Gaza and Yemen to Tehran / Workers of the world, unite!”; and, “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon / Are separate from Iran.” We tried to remind the world that the fate of the working class and the oppressed peoples of West Asia is inseparably intertwined. We said that even if the suffering of Palestine may seem distant from where we stand, in the eyes of the Western colonizer, such distance does not exist. They do not see us as separate nations, but as a single threat—a threat to their domination, built on injustice, colonialism, and the so-called New Middle East Order.

Yesterday, we wept for the children of Gaza and for the Palestinian mothers who laid their children to rest in the arms of the earth. Today, we cry out for Tehran, Tabriz, Shiraz, Kermanshah, Ilam. We cry for Iran, standing beneath a sky stained crimson, on streets heavy with the scent of blood. But we, the people of the Middle East, are the children of resistance—risen from the ashes of occupation and coup d’état. We carry in our hearts the memories of pain and hope.

In these historic moments, as the people of Iran relive the bitter memories of war, we cannot remain silent in the face of those who, with hearts sold to the West, eyes fixed on the spectacle of global capitalism, and minds colonized by empire, repeatedly called for attacks on Iran. Instead of standing with the people, they beat the drums of war—and today, they sit back and watch as we mourn, spectators at the feast of our grief. These beggars at the gates of the West feign concern for human rights; but they eagerly offer human sacrifice in order to please their imperialist masters. They whitewash Israeli crimes in their poison-spewing media outlets. But we know all too well the demon who deliberately and knowingly targets both residential and military areas simultaneously. We know that at the same time as it spills blood in Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and beyond, the Israeli war machine also wages psychological warfare. Its overt and covert agents spread the filthy lie that the killing of our compatriots—civilians, military personnel, academic and nuclear elites—is an “acceptable cost” in pursuit of Israel’s military objectives, and that these military objectives are even legitimate! 

We shall not forget that amidst the carnage of a criminal war, there were those who betrayed our people. Not only the Westernized expatriates with their rented media; but also those who, for years, have enriched themselves by exploiting the working class, laborers, and the oppressed of this country. At this critical juncture in our country’s history, this group sees the path to salvation not in fighting for social justice and defending the historical rights of this nation, but in compromise and begging at the doorstep of the American empire and its allies. For this group, “negotiation” with Western powers is nothing but a ploy to continue class domination; not to lift sanctions, but to cement its own economic status, to continue the plunder of Iran and to serve imperialism. This group is as complicit in the ongoing crimes as hostile media and colonial megaphones; for they have eroded the backbone of resistance from within and held the will of the people hostage with their empty promise of “normalization.”

There exists an organic, structural, and strategic relationship between the pro-imperialist Westernized expatriates, and the exploiters of the masses within the prevailing structure in Iran. They are two arms of the same body: the body of dependency. They despise the 1979 revolution’s ideal of independence, and they want to fully subordinate Iran to the imperialist global exploitation system. Despite their superficial differences, these two currents ultimately stand for a shared goal: the destruction of the Iranian nation’s historical capacity to resist, the erasure of the memory of resistance, and submission to the logic of the market, capital, and imperialist power.

We take a firm stand against both of these forces. We reject the logic of internal plunder and the language of external betrayal. We oppose the mercenaries who have inscribed the name of diplomacy on the grave of resistance, and the class that has ascended to power and privilege on the broken backs of the working class. 

We, the people of the Middle East, must stand united; not as scattered nations, but as a single body, wounded yet alive, standing against the monster of colonialism, against the death machine of global capitalism, against Israel and America, and against their local agents and cheerleaders. 

We will neither be broken nor will we retreat in the face of this crime; we will become more resilient, more determined—just like our sisters and brothers in occupied Palestine. Our righteous anger against Israel will be passed down from generation to generation, like a blood-written testament, to our children; so they never forget how this blood was spilled on our land and how, together with all the peoples of the Global South, we are united and share the same fate in this resistance and struggle.

We shout: Tehran, Gaza, Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus — we are united in destiny, and “resistance” is the common chapter of all our lives, and unity is the secret to victory. 

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