Iran’s Uprising Won’t Die; What About Our Care and Attention?

There is a rhythm to modern Iranian history — a rhythm written in marches, in Internet blackouts, in gunfire, and in funerals dug before dawn. Every few years, resistance to decades of theocratic repression erupts upward.

Women step into the streets unveiled. Students chant truths the regime has outlawed. People demand change and freedom. For a brief second, history seems to tremble — as if the hinge might finally turn.

And then, as it has too many times, the regime crushes the movement. And the world — reliably — scrolls on.

This is Iran’s tragedy: not only the savagery of its rulers, but the astonishing brevity of the world’s attention span.

Iran rises in waves — each braver than the last — and each greeted with a flicker of sympathy, followed by silence. Outrage, like hashtags, burns bright only when fashionable — which usually means when the target of the outrage is Israel.

Remember the Green Movement in 2009.

Millions protested a fraudulent election. We saw grainy videos smuggled past censors; we watched Neda Agha-Soltan die in the street. The world offered “concern,” urged “restraint,” and then moved on. Tehran learned a brutal truth: the world forgets fast.

2019 brought another explosion — not just students this time, but working-class Iranians struggling under poverty while the regime funds Islamist supremacist terror worldwide. In days, more than 1,000 people were killed. The Internet went dark. Burials happened quietly. The world barely blinked. 

Then came 2022: Mahsa Amini, murdered for the “crime” of showing her hair. “Woman, Life, Freedom” ignited like a fuse. Girls tore down portraits of the “Supreme Leader.” Women burned hijabs not out of ideology, but out of rage. Even the regime looked shaken. 

But the headlines faded, and so did global attention.

And today, Iranians march again — not to annihilate another nation from river to sea, but simply to live. They risk bullets for rights that Western activists hashtag from brunch tables: speech, education, music, laughter, uncovered hair.

Meanwhile, the same influencers who coordinated “All Eyes on Gaza” and “All Eyes on Rafah” — complete with slick graphics and celebrity amplification — can barely spare a line for the thousands beaten, tortured, executed, or disappeared in Iran. The selective empathy is staggering.

All eyes on Gaza — but not on girls beaten for letting some hair show.
All eyes on Rafah — but never for gays and dissidents hanging from cranes.
All eyes where moral theater is easy — not where courage is costly.

Greta Thunberg condemns Israel almost daily, yet finds no breath for Iranian environmentalists rotting in Evin Prison. Hollywood posts infographics about alleged oppression in democracies while Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shoot teenagers in the street for merely protesting. This isn’t solidarity — it’s trend-based activism.

Authoritarian regimes understand this perfectly. Silence is their oxygen. The ayatollahs know outrage burns hot but brief, especially when neither Jews nor Israel can be blamed.

They wait for hashtags to fade — and they have been rewarded for their patience and brutality repeatedly. 

A free Iran would remake the Middle East more than any ceasefire or summit. It would cripple Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, at the source. It would end the world’s largest state sponsor of Islamist terrorism. And it would return Iran to its civilizational legacy — poetry, scholarship, music — instead of exporting murder and martyrdom purportedly in God’s name. 

But beyond geopolitics, Iran’s uprisings remind us of something deeper: the yearning for freedom never dies. Dictators can kill protestors, but not the memory of liberty. Repression delays freedom, but cannot erase the desire for its return.

So, this time — whether the streets swell or fall momentarily silent — our responsibility is simple: Remember. Amplify. Support. Refuse to look away.

Iranians take the risks. We must merely keep the lights on.

The media, celebrities, and the international community spent two years focusing everyone’s attention on Gaza. It’s their obligation to put the same focus on Iran — not only when the crowds roar, but when the streets fall quiet.

Freedom has a long memory. So must we. This uprising — or the next — may be the one that breaks the regime, if the world keeps its eyes open long enough to witness it.

Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.