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Iran Protests Escalate as Pressure Mounts on Regime
Protesters march in downtown Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Iran is again in motion. Four days of strikes and protests have unfolded across the country, from Tehran to Mashhad, from Isfahan to Kermanshah, from Shiraz to Arak, since Sunday.
In Fasa, in Fars province, protesters broke through the gates of the governor’s office on Wednesday and attacked a government building, an act that carries weight in a system built on the choreography of fear. Each day has brought new reports, new cities, new confrontations. Each day has also revived the familiar, painful question: Could this finally be the moment when the Islamic Republic loses its grip?
The protests did not begin as a single ideological uprising. They emerged from economic pressure and daily suffocation. Bazaar merchants, money changers, workers, and ordinary residents reacted to a currency in freefall, to inflation that devours salaries, to a state that extracts obedience while offering little in return. Students have since joined. Chants have hardened. Anger has spread geographically and socially.
These details matter. In Iran, unrest confined to campuses can be isolated. Unrest that reaches bazaars, provincial towns, and state offices strains a different set of nerves.
Even figures within the system acknowledge this fragility. Fatemeh Maghsoudi, a spokesperson for the Economic Committee of the Iranian Parliament, said last week that the collapse of the rial owed less to any concrete economic development than to an atmosphere of fear driven by the prospect of conflict, remarking that when US President Donald Trump so much as tells Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “let’s go and have a coffee,” the exchange rate suddenly collapses. And when Netanyahu makes any statement, Maghsoudi added, prices in the market immediately rise, despite the fact that nothing substantive had changed in Iran’s economy.
Yet the regime, too, is moving. According to the Iran specialist Kasra Aarabi, sources inside the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) indicate that the state has raised its internal threat posture to a “yellow” level, defined as an abnormal situation within a four-tier (white, yellow, orange, and red) national security system. That architecture, built methodically since 2007, reaches into every province, city, district, and neighborhood.
Under higher threat levels, layers of security are activated: checkpoints, patrols, phone searches, internet restrictions, Basij deployments down to the street and apartment block. When a “red” level is declared, infantry units fold into domestic suppression, and the IRGC’s operational security headquarters assume sweeping authority over provincial life. This apparatus exists for one purpose. It has been used before. It has not yet fractured.
History teaches restraint in moments like this. The 1979 revolution did not triumph because crowds filled streets for a few dramatic days. It succeeded because strikes paralyzed oil production, administrative systems failed, and elite loyalty dissolved under sustained pressure. Today’s thresholds have not yet been crossed. There is no confirmed nationwide shutdown of core industries. There is no evidence of defection within the IRGC or the regular military. There is no alternative authority capable of coordinating power. These absences do not negate the tremendous courage of those protesting. They define the uncertainty of what comes next.
The international environment sharpens that uncertainty. Speaking in Florida alongside Netanyahu this week, Trump warned that Iran may be attempting to rebuild its nuclear program after US strikes in June damaged three nuclear facilities. His language was characteristically blunt. Any renewed nuclear buildup would invite rapid eradication. Missile production, too, was placed under explicit threat. The message was typically blunt. Negotiations remain open. Deadlines, Trump reminded his audience, have consequences.
The last time Trump issued a deadline to Iran, he gave Tehran 60 days to reach an agreement over its nuclear program. When that deadline expired, Israeli strikes followed the very next day, with clear US permission.
Strikingly, this convergence of internal unrest and external pressure has received only limited attention in much of the international media, treated as background noise rather than as a meaningful shift. The result is a failure to register how significant it could be for economic protest, regional spread, and explicit great-power deadlines to coincide in Iran like this.
For Tehran, this external pressure intersects dangerously with internal unrest. The regime faces a population increasingly willing to test red lines and a strategic environment in which miscalculation could invite devastating force. It is within this context that documented evidence from IRGC-linked academic institutions should be noted with great concern: the development of incapacitating chemical agents, including medetomidine and fentanyl derivatives, appear to have been adapted for crowd control munitions. During the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests of 2022, demonstrators described effects inconsistent with standard CS gas. The implication is grim: The state has invested not only in batons and bullets, but in yet more insidious, chemical tools of repression.
And still, hope persists. It persists among Iranians chanting on rooftops and in streets. It persists among families who have buried the dead and returned anyway. It persists across the Iranian diaspora, for whom memory and longing blur into expectation. Each cycle of protest carries the belief that this time the accumulation of anger, courage, and exhaustion might finally converge. Each cycle also carries the memory of how brutally that belief has been punished before.
Prediction is a temptation best resisted. Revolutions are legible only in retrospect. While they unfold, they present as disorder, hesitation, advance, and retreat. What can be said is narrower and more honest. The protests of these four days show breadth, persistence, and a willingness to confront symbols of authority. The regime’s response shows preparedness, experience, and an arsenal refined over decades. Between these forces lies a struggle whose outcome remains unwritten.
The future of Iran will be decided neither by foreign speeches nor by analytical frameworks alone. It will be decided by whether pressure can move from streets into the systems that allow the state to function, by whether fear can be transferred from society back to those who govern it, by whether the machinery of repression can be strained beyond its capacity. Those conditions may yet emerge. They may also recede.
For now, Iran stands in that familiar, aching space between possibility and reprisal. The chants rise. The checkpoints loom. The world watches, hoping, doubting, fearing. The question remains suspended, unanswered and unavoidable: How many times can a people rise before rising becomes irreversible?
Jonathan Sacerdoti, a writer and broadcaster, is now a contributor to The Algemeiner.
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A poet’s reaction to this summer’s terrorist attack in Berlin
דעם 25סטן יולי איז דער פּאָעט דזשײק שנײַדער געפֿאָרן קײן װײַמאַר כּדי צו מאָדערירן אַ כּמו־טעלעװיזיע־פּראָגראַם אױף ייִדיש מיט דער אַקטריסע עלענאָר ריסאַ, אַן אונטערנעמונג אין משך פֿונעם פֿעסטיװאַל „ייִדיש־זומער װײַמאַר“. אױף מאָרגן איז ער אַהײמגעפֿאָרן קײן בערלין, װוּ ער האָט מאַרשירט אינעם יערלעכן שטאָלץ־פּאַראַד – אײדער אַ טעראָריסט האָט אַטאַקירט דעם פּאַראַד, דערמאָרדעט אײן פֿרױ און פֿאַרװוּנדיקט מער װי 30 מענטשן. אָט דער „פּאָעטישער באַריכט“ דאָקומענטירט כראָנאָלאָגיש זײַנע פֿראַגמענטאַרישע געדאַנקען און אײַנדרוקן פֿון דעם דאָזיקן מעת־לעת.
װאָס איז טײַטש „לײַװ“?
פֿון דזשייק שנײַדער
פֿאַרבײַגעגאַנגענע רעקלאַמעס׃
פֿאַרטאָפּלט אײַער עקראַנצײַט!
װערט אַ זעלנערין פֿאַר דײַטשלאַנד!
אײַער דירה־געלט איז צו טײַער!
איך דאַרף נאָך מסרן מײַן ראָװער־גנבֿ.
כאַפּן די פֿאַרלאָזלעך פֿאַרשפּעטיקטע באַן.
שױן זיצט מײַן סטודיאָ־עולם און װאַרט.
פּונקט אַזױ װי די װערטער פֿון דער װאָך.
אונטערװאַרטן, אָפּװאַרטן, צוּװאַרטן.
פּונקט אַזױ װי יאַנקלס נײַער װערטער־װידעאָ.
עס װאַרט אַ שיסל מיט ברױנע עם־ען־עמס.
איך האָב שױן אײן מאָל פּראָבירט דעם קלאַנג.
אַ שמועס־שעה אױף פֿאַרשטומטן ייִדיש.
אַ טעלעװיזיע־פּראָגראַם אָן טעלעװיזיעס.
אַ לעבעדיקע לאַכטאַשמע, דאַנקען גאָט.
„אונדזער עולם“ איז דאָך דאָ אין װײַמאַר.
איך דאַרף נישט איבערחזרן אױף כינעזיש.
פּאָסטקאַרטלעך פֿון װאַרשע, סאַו־פּאַולו.
אַכט מדינות… אָבער נישט דײַטשלאַנד.
עלענאָר באַװױנט אונדזער נישט־טעלעװיזיע.
ליבע־בריװ פֿונעם אונטערװעש־שופֿלאָד.
דאָס טײַערסטע קלײד פֿון אַ גאַנץ לעבן.
אַז מען דערמאָנט פֿראַנק לאָנדאָנען…
כּדי צו שטראָמען באַדאַרף מען נײַעס.
אַזאַ מין איצט באַדאַרף אַן איצטיקײט.
אַנישט קומט דער נעטפֿליקס־עפֿעקט.
אָן־סופֿיקע אַפֿישן אַדורכצובלעטערן.
בײַ ממשותדיקע נײַעס קומען שטױס־מעלדונגען.
די מאָבילקעס, טאַבלעטן און זײגערלעך װיברירן.
און שױן איז אונדזער שמועס־שעה פֿאַרבײַ.
שױן האָבן מיר געבענטשט עלעקרטישע ליכט.
געריסן די חלות, געגעסן די אוגערקעס.
אֵין כּל, אֵין כּל, אֵין כּל…. „טײַ“.
נישטאָ קײן צײַט פֿאַר אַ חצות בײַם טײַך.
די באַן פֿאָרט אומהײמלעך איצטיקיסטיש.
אינסטאַגראַם האָט פֿאַרגעסן זײַן ייִדיש.
שױן אַהײמגעפֿאָרן מיטן דינג־ראָװער.
שױן געגלעט מײַן הינטלס קאָנוס־קאָפּ.
שױן אָנגעטאָן מײַן בער־קאָסטיום.
שױן געפֿאָרן צום פּרײַד־לחײם.
שױן געקװעטשט אױפֿן נײַנטן קנעפּל.
שױן איבערגעקערט אַ טעלער מיט נאַשן.
שױן געהערט מעשׂיות פֿון נעכטן בײַ נאַכט.
שױן פּאָזירט אינעם יערלעכן באַלקאָנבילד.
אַלע טראָגן װי תּמיד די סאַמע מאָדישע זאָקן.
אַ פֿרײלעכן פּרײַד. פֿרײלעך צו זײַן פֿרײלעך.
אַראָפּ און אַרױס מיט די אַנדערע פֿײגעלעך.
אַן אַנדער שׂימחה־גרופּע װאַרט שױן אין דרױסן.
איך טאָר נישט קװעטשן דאָס פֿרײלעך־קנעפּל.
איך טאָר נישט נאַשן קײן שװאַמעלע־שאָקאָלאַד.
מיר יאָגן זיך נאָך די אַנטלאָפֿענע פּאַראַד־װאָגנס.
הײַיאָר פּראָקלאַמירט מען כּמו־פּאָליטישע לאָזונגען.
דעות זענען רײצנדיק. די „גוטע גבֿירים“ בלײַבן.
מיר מאַרשירן טאַנצעװדיק, טאַנצן מאַרשירעװדיק.
ס׳איז דער הױפּטשטראָם־פּרײַד, דער באַנאַלער.
נישט דער לעסבישער, נישט דער פּאַלעסטינישער.
מיר פֿאַרלירן אַ חבֿר אַלע פֿינף מינוט.
מיר װאַרטן אױפֿן קלאָזעט־הײַזעלע.
מיר האַלטן זיך אָפּ בײַ נאָלנדאָרף־פּלאַץ.
דאָרט אױבן אַרבעט מײַן צײנדאָקטער!
דאָרט װוּ עס הענגען די נחת־פֿענער!
אַ ביר פֿון אָרגאַנישן סופּערמאַרק.
כּדי אַרײַנצוגײן דאַרף מען זיך אָנטאָן.
איך דאַרף נאָך ענדיקן דאָס „לײַװ“-ליד.
איך דאַרף שפּאַצירן מיטן קאָנוס־קעפּל.
איך דאַרף נאָך שרײַבן עטלעכע רשימות.
קודם־כּל, פֿאַר װאָס נישט אַ שניצל?
די קיך פֿאַרמאַכט זיך צען אַ זײגער.
מיר באַשטעלן אין דער לעצטער מינוט.
מיר עסן דאָס אױסגעפּלאַטשיקטן פֿלײש.
מיר שפּאַצירן אַהײם דורך די געסלעך.
צװײ פֿײגעלעך פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָר מיט אַ הינטל.
שױן קומען די שטױס־מעלדונגען.
שױן שטײען מיר אױף דער שװעל.
איך דאַרף זיך שױן „מעלדן בשלום“.
איך דאַרף נאָך מעלדן מײַן ראָװער.
איך דאַרף נאָך ענטפֿערן אױף די בריװלעך.
צי בין איך בשלום? װער איז בלשום?
די מלחמה קעגן מלחמות איז אױס.
עס בלײַבן אונדז בלױז מײנונגען.
יעדער אײנער האָט זײַן אָפּרוף.
יעדער אײנער האָט זײַנע דעות.
יעדער אײנער האָט קלוגע פּירושים.
װער זשע װיל זײַן אין די נײַעס?
בערלין קײן װײַמאַר קײן בערלין, 26-25 יולי
The post A poet’s reaction to this summer’s terrorist attack in Berlin appeared first on The Forward.
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These Bundist pioneers were heroes in their time. Would they be in ours?
Academic stars in high school, Abrasha Blum and Luba Bielecka shared a slow burn romance and fervor for radical change. That hardly set them apart amid the ferment after the tsarist empire crumbled in 1919. No one would have predicted that Bielecka would go on to be awarded global nursing’s highest honor and Blum Poland’s equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
But their story poses a provocation in today’s hyper-polarized politics: Blum and Bielecka were devoted Bundists, and as such, they were not only socialists but anti-Zionists.
That combination can get you labeled today as anti-Israel and antisemitic, and even anti-American. Yet at the time they were Jewish heroes.
Bielecka repeatedly risked her life smuggling children out the Warsaw ghetto under Nazi occupation while directing the sole Jewish nursing school, sustaining its rigorous professional standards even as it was squashed into oblivion. Blum, a physically frail man, was dubbed the “ideological father of armed resistance” in the Bund; he led his band of militants into joining forces with the detested Zionists in the historic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. When the insurgency was crushed — as all the combatants knew it would be — Blum, an engineer by training, led the surviving remnant through the cavernous sewer system to safety. But soon thereafter, in fleeing the police, he plummeted three stories from an apartment building. Badly injured, he was taken to Gestapo headquarters and never seen again.
Blum and Bielecka engaged the world as they found it and fought for justice for Jews and humanity. Blum’s photo is on display at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust museum.
A lot has changed in 85 years. In 1939, most Americans Jews opposed Zionism and feared it would be misused by antisemites to justify allegations of dual loyalty. At the time, twice as many Jews lived in Warsaw as in all of British Palestine. The Bund swept 17 of 20 Jewish-designated seats on city council (Blum held one of them), far outdistancing all the Zionists parties together. Socialism made sense to Jewish voters, who were overwhelmingly “blue collar.” And so did doikayt (“hereness”), the doctrine that Poland’s three million Jews belonged there, not in a far-off desert, as the Zionists maintained.
The Holocaust radically and irrevocably changed the landscape. Ninety percent of Polish Jewry was exterminated. Even after the Nazis were vanquished, Jews continued to endure pogroms and were largely purged from Poland’s ruling communist party. By then, Israel was the sole destination in the world that welcomed large numbers of Jews.
Blum and Bielecka’s daughter, 17-year-old Aviva (née Victoria), was among the pioneers who migrated to a kibbutz in the new State of Israel. Zionism offered her the promise of milk and honey in a sanctuary free of antisemitism.
For years, her younger brother, Olek, held fast to his parents’ politics. But he too ultimately exited Poland, not for Israel but for the US, saddened that his father’s dream of “a prosperous Jewish minority inside Poland was impossible to realize.”
Like their parents, Aviva and Olek too engaged the post-WWII world as they found it and sought a better world.
Today, socialism and anti-Zionism are each experiencing something of a revival in the U.S. Self-described socialists have won mayoral elections in New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C. DSA-supported candidates won the Senate Democratic primary in Florida and narrowly lost Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary. A recent CBS News poll found that 58% of Democrats now hold a favorable view of socialism, whereas only 32% view capitalism positively. The gap is even wider among young people. Jews, despite their relative affluence, remain among the most liberal voters in the U.S., although their current views on socialism have not been scientifically surveyed.
Anti-Zionism looks quite different in 2026 than in 1939, at least to Jews. Israel, approaching its 80th anniversary, is far from the desert mirage ridiculed by pre-war Bundists. While only a minority of American Jews self-describe as Zionists, an overwhelming majority support Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Yet they are deeply troubled by Israel’s direction: Polls show that Zohran Mamdani, a socialist and anti-Zionist, is more popular among American Jews than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
We’re left with this thought experiment: What if Abrasha and Luba resided in America today? What would they view as justice and how would they engage to achieve it? What if they resided in Israel?
And finally, a question about the rest of us: Would we recognize them as heroes?
The post These Bundist pioneers were heroes in their time. Would they be in ours? appeared first on The Forward.
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AIPAC couldn’t stop Michigan’s El-Sayed in the primary. Now it’s trying again.
AIPAC’s super PAC has re-entered Michigan’s closely watched U.S. Senate race less than a month before the general election, spending nearly $100,000 on mailers attacking Abdul El-Sayed, despite earlier concerns by allies of his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, that it would boost the Democratic nominee.
The spending of $94,620 by United Democracy Project (UDP) on direct mailers was disclosed in a Friday campaign finance filing. It comes after Rogers publicly welcomed AIPAC’s support during a televised debate last week, reversing the position initially taken by people close to his campaign who worried the pro-Israel group’s involvement could hurt his chances.
A spokesperson for the group told Jewish Insider that the mailers target 130,000 identified Jewish voters in the swing state. It focuses on El-Sayed’s response to an attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield earlier this year. El-Sayed drew criticism for saying “hurt people hurt people” when discussing the attacker, whose brother was reportedly a Hezbollah commander killed in an airstrike on Lebanon. El-Sayed later apologized, saying he had been trying to provide broader context for the attack.
UDP spent more than $30 million trying to defeat El-Sayed in the Democratic primary this summer and in support of Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost by about one percentage point.
Following the primary, allies of the Republican nominee reportedly asked AIPAC not to run ads to boost him, fearing that the group’s involvement would give El-Sayed the same political foil that helped him overcome its massive spending in the primary. Axios reported that AIPAC officials didn’t take that rejection easily.
But Rogers appeared to change course last Thursday when asked whether he’d welcome AIPAC’s support.
“Anybody that wants to help my campaign stop a guy who can’t condemn terrorism in our own country because he’s so close to the people who are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, again, I’ll take all of that help,” Rogers said at Thursday’s televised debate. El-Sayed interrupted to say he had condemned terrorism.
A new super PAC, Together for Michigan, aired an ad during the debate featuring Taylor Weintraub, whose child attends the Temple Israel preschool that was attacked in March.
Rogers went further on Friday at a campaign event with Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, accusing El-Sayed of being “so anti-Jewish” that a single mailer had upset him. Rogers said he welcomed help from Jewish supporters seeking to defeat his opponent. Kennedy also attacked El-Sayed, saying AIPAC would not be involved in the race if the Democrat did not “sleep in a Bin Laden jersey.”
El-Sayed, an Israel critic who has made opposition to AIPAC a central part of his campaign, responded by accusing Rogers of desperation. “You know Mike Rogers is in trouble when he begs AIPAC to start spending against me,” he wrote on X.
Some Jewish Democrats are publicly supporting Rogers, saying El-Sayed has failed to assuage concerns in his outreach to Jewish voters and in campaign appearances in recent months. If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim member of the U.S. Senate.
Recent polls show El-Sayed with a narrow lead in the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Recent elections in Michigan have been decided by narrow margins. Trump won the swing state in 2024 by about 80,000 votes, while Democratic incumbent Elissa Slotkin defeated Rogers in the Senate race that year by fewer than 20,000 votes. Four years earlier, Joe Biden won Michigan by about 2.8 percentage points.
The post AIPAC couldn’t stop Michigan’s El-Sayed in the primary. Now it’s trying again. appeared first on The Forward.
