Hands Off Iran, “We Love the Ayatollah,” and “Globalize the Intifada” protests seem horribly misguided, the result of an advanced psyop campaign. Photo by Diane Krauthamer, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), via Wikimedia Commons.White liberal women are now marching in the streets of American cities holding photos of Ayatollah Khamenei and signs that read “Globalize the Intifada” and “Hands Off Iran.” They are supporting their own extinction, and they do so to spite President Trump.We are now living in an upside-down world where the Ayatollah, who tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of people over the past decades, is being defended by Western activists. Furthermore, women have almost no rights under strict Islamic law, yet these women are protesting in favor of a man who would have had them tortured, jailed, and possibly executed.Yudval David, a Fox News commentator and a member of the Middle East Forum, told The Gateway Pundit in an interview that there have been marches all over the world where members of the Iranian diaspora have gathered in front of American and Israeli embassies to lay wreaths of flowers and sing and shout “thank you,” because they believe they are finally being freed from a repressive regime that has killed so many innocent people.He went on to say, “Now, in contrast, we’re seeing people in Western countries, in democracies in Europe and the United States, people who claim to be progressive or woke or, in the United States, Democrats or left-leaning liberals, who have been so manipulated by the disinformation and misinformation propaganda of Iran that they’re saying, ‘Hands Off Iran.’ Meanwhile, they’re ignoring the human rights plight of Iranians. So I plead for them to meet the Iranians, to speak with Iranians, and to truly understand what this is all about.”He agreed that this was as irrational and unthinking as liberals protesting to send Maduro back to Venezuela. The Venezuelan people finally got rid of the dictator and might have a chance at freedom and democracy, but some person with green hair and a nose ring in New York or California thinks Venezuela would be better off with Maduro, and Iran would be better off with the Ayatollah.“There are different ways of understanding it,” David said. One explanation, he argued, is that many activists have been influenced by movements and forces that have effectively “brainwashed” them.“Iran has financed and supported Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said, adding that the regime has also funded movements that spread onto college campuses across the West.As a result, he argued, activists who claim to support the Palestinian cause and human rights are now largely silent because they cannot oppose the nation-state that helped fund and shape the movements that define them.“And I think that’s the reason why we’re seeing so much silence,” he said. “It’s utter hypocrisy, and it’s truly evil.”David concluded that more people need to challenge what he described as “the hateful, bigoted hypocrites of these far left-leaning movements, the Marxist, socialist, communist movements, the Islamist-supporting movements.”“Queers for Palestine” was one example David gave of what he described as a movement that is profoundly misguided and Darwinian. They are supporting an Islamist movement that would kill them.David argued that Iran understands it is unlikely to win a direct military war against the United States and Israel, even though its proxies continue trying. Instead, he said, Tehran is pursuing an ideological strategy. According to David, the regime seeks to weaken its adversaries from within by influencing political and activist movements in Western democracies.He said this strategy helps explain why some activists across Europe, the United States, and Canada support Islamist movements despite the contradiction with their own political values. In his view, they have been manipulated as part of a broader effort to reshape democratic societies.“It doesn’t make sense for people who enjoy the rights that a democratic country provides to support an Islamist movement and an Islamist country that would not only take those rights away but kill them,” he said.David added that the freedoms enjoyed by participants in the “Hands Off Iran” movement would not exist in Iran. “None of those freedoms would be allowed in Iran,” he said, arguing that they would also not exist in countries governed by Sharia law or radical Islamist movements.When asked who is funding the protests, he said, “We all know who the grand puppet master behind all of this is, the Islamic Republic, but it’s also Qatar, even though Iran has also fired rockets at Qatar. I don’t think these two nations, which fund Islamist and jihadist movements, should be trusted. We have organizations like WESPAC that funnel money into the United States from questionable sources, and there are other organizations like that which allow foreign money to come into the United States.”WESPAC (Westchester People’s Action Coalition) Foundation is a left-of-center nonprofit founded in 1974 that supports the BDS movement and has served as a fiscal sponsor for numerous anti-Israel groups. WESPAC previously served as the fiscal sponsor for Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Adalah-NY, and the Palestinian Youth Movement USA.WESPAC’s sources of income are mostly unknown, and its funding is largely obscured through donor-advised charities.The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which is closely linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), has had its leadership call on participants to salute the military wings of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, as well as Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed terror groups. WESPAC’s network overlaps with this ecosystem, though Samidoun is not listed as a direct WESPAC-sponsored group.Another organization of concern is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing trial, the largest successful prosecution of terrorism financing in U.S. history, where it was identified as an associate of the Muslim Brotherhood.CAIR received an early grant from the Holy Land Foundation, which was later designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the U.S. Treasury for funding jihadist organizations. CAIR was never charged with any crime.Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of the Texas branch of CAIR and a leader of the Holy Land Foundation, was sentenced to 65 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, money laundering, and related charges.The FBI suspended all formal contacts with CAIR due to evidence it says demonstrates a relationship between CAIR and Hamas.“How this organization is still allowed to thrive is beyond me,” David exclaimed.“CAIR has funneled money into many different organizations as part of an Islamist, which is different from jihadist, cause,” he said.. He explained that Islamism seeks to spread a radical Islamic movement through sociopolitical means, including politics, social-justice campaigns, and activist organizations.David added that the movement has also manipulated public discourse by promoting the term “Islamophobia” whenever critics raise concerns about other forms of racism, bigotry, or hatred, which he argued does not make sense.“It’s still shocking that these white, non-religious, liberal progressives are practicing performative activism,” David said. He argued that the activism cannot be genuine if it is limited to slogans placed on protest signs, without deeper efforts to understand the issues involved.David said the Iranian regime has remained in power for 47 years largely through repression. “They survived through fear, execution, prison, torture, and violent crackdowns on peaceful protest,” he said.He urged Western activists to listen to Iranians living abroad. “They need to speak to the Iranian diaspora,” he said, describing it as essentially “a nation in exile,” made up of millions of people forced from their homeland but who have not abandoned the dream of a free Iran.He added that the recent U.S. and Israeli strikes have created a sense of hope among many in the Iranian diaspora that they may one day be able to return to a free and democratic Iran. But apparently white liberals want the Ayatollah and the repression to continue.The post Hands Off Iran Protests: The Left Mourns the Ayatollah appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.