Lawmaker Says Opposition To Hamas Is Not Islamophobia
An Iranian-born European lawmaker has condemned attempts to silence her with the label of ‘Islamophobe’, especially since the current conflict began in the Mideast.
An Iranian-born European lawmaker has condemned attempts to silence her with the label of ‘Islamophobe’, especially since the current conflict began in the Mideast.
Darya Safai, a member of the Belgian parliament, mentioned on her X account that some individuals are attempting to silence her by labeling her as an 'Islamophobe.'
Safai is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
“What the world is experiencing today is much broader than a war between Israel and Hamas. It is a broad war that shows the direction for certain Muslims to ultimately achieve their goals," she said, highlighting the Muslims’ promised goal to conquer the world and establish an Islamic rule.
“A goal promised to them in their holy book. In the eyes of Islamists, this is a war between Muslims and Israel/West in order to eventually form and conquer a great ummah as the ultimate goal,” said Safai, who has been one of the most vocal European politicians against the violations of human rights by the Iranian regime.
Expressing what many Iranians feel, Safai said, “Criticizing a religion or an ideology, like criticizing Islam, is not something that can be compared to racism or fascism.”
She touched upon an issue often discussed in Iranian social media and said that people who are in line with the Islamic Republic’s propaganda aim to silence all voices of reason. “These shouters do insinuate this and, in this way, try to silence the critics with their term 'Islamophobia’”, she added.
Safai also pointed out that phobia is an unreasonable fear of something, arguing that fear of what Islamist extremists can do is a genuine fear justifiable by the history of deadly attacks on peaceful activism by Islamists.
“Anyone who has grown up in a country where Sharia law is the law, and has experienced it first-hand, has reasons enough to be afraid of the destruction Islam can create," she said.
The regime in Iran killed about 600 people and arrested 22,000 people in 2022-2023 just to prove that the regime did not kill a 22-year-old girl for hijab defiance. “Despite what some naive people try to make us believe here in the West, Islam is not the religion of love and peace, but an ideology that promises its followers a glorious victory, and everything necessary to follow that path, even jihad and terror, is justified,” Safai said.
Vowing that she would “not be silenced by being intimidated with the label Islamophobe,” she said, “I am not afraid and will resolutely continue my work with everything in my power. As a politician it’s my duty to protect Europe and our society from these extremists and I will continue to do so.”
Her remarks echoed a similar sentiment by a large number of Iranians who have become especially vocal about their opposition to the Islamic Republic’s narrative of the Middle East conflict.
On Thursday, Ali Rabiee, a spokesman for former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, implicitly confirmed the high number of Iranians who support Israel in the war against Hamas, which declared war on Israel October 7, when its forces killed 1,400 Israelis and took over 230 hostages.
Rabiee described the Iranians’ pro-Israel stance as an act of oppositional defiance against the Islamic Republic, derived from decades of justifying hefty investment in militant Palestinian and other groups. Some Iranians stand with Israel in the conflict based on their “national oppositional defiance” against the Islamic Republic, he said.
Since the Hamas terror operation it codenamed al-Aqsa Flood (Storm in Persian), Iranians have become even more vocal about their distance from the Islamic Republic’s narrative of the conflict, making trendy hashtags like #IranStandsWithIsrael or chanting creative slogans about where the regime should put the Palestinian flag.
An emotional funeral for a young Israeli soldier of Iranian origin killed in the Hamas attack went viral earlier this week. People saw a video of Shirel Haeimpour’s grandfather singing a traditional Jewish love song and a wedding song with his Esfahani Persian accent for the young woman.
On November 4, 1979, pro-Khomeini Islamist and leftist students occupied the US embassy and took hostage more than 50 US diplomats for 444 days.
In their sermons, Iran's Friday Imams generally blamed the United States for the war in Gaza ignoring the fact that it was Hamas that launched the October 7 terror attack on Israel and the United States has reacted by expressing support for Israel.
In Qom, home of the country's largest Shiite seminary, Friday Imam Mohammad Saeedi claimed that "Iran has struck a hard blow against the United States with its Death to America slogan." Saeedi added: "This is not simply a slogan. It is a revolutionary strategy."
Pointing out that the Friday prayers came one day before the anniversary of the seizure of US embassy in Tehran, Saeedi said, "The takeover of the US spy den was a manifestation of this strategy."
The cleric echoed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's criticism of the United States for supporting Israel.
In Karaj, near Tehran, Friday Imam Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini said, "The Death to America slogan ensures the Islamic Republic's authority. If it is taken away from us, we will lose our international influence." He added: "This slogan has created a strategic link between Iran and other countries and created a large front."
Hosseini further threatened, "If the Supreme Leader allows us, we will create a storm in the region." He claimed that the confrontation during the past 40 years between Iran on the one hand, and Israel and the United States on the other is an outcome of the Islamic Republic of Iran's influence, power and strategic depth.
He stated that the current war in Gaza is not about Israel and Palestinians, it is a war between what is right and what is wrong.
The Friday Imam of Isfahan, Mojtaba Miordamadi expressed hope in his sermon that "The United States will be destroyed soon." He also included Israel in his hate speech saying, "I hope the America and criminal Israel are going to be destroyed soon, and God gives us the good news about the annihilation of the Zionist regime."
Referring to Khamenei's statement on Thursday that "Israel would have not been able to resist against Palestinians for even one week if it weren't for the US military support," Mirdamadi said, "Israel has been weakened and its death is approaching despite the arrogant world's support."
In Mashhad, firebrand cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda said the United States is so unclean that it is “not to be touched” and added, "The United States is the filthiest point in the world. It is hated by the whole world and no one sees any value in it."
Alamolhoda added, "None of the Islamic governments in the region dares to normalize their ties with America anymore." In one of his most elaborate anti-Semitic comments, he claimed that "Jewish people do not believe in God's power." He further stated, "It is part of Israel and the United States' philosophy that human beings should only think of their own desires." He added, "Zionism inspired United States imperialism and its world-devouring nature."
Alamolhoda utterly distorted Iran's modern history, saying, "It was the United States that sent Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, into exile in 1964." He continued his fabricated version of history by claiming, "The United States attacked Iranian students with machine guns on November 4, 1979, and then fled Iran." Iranian "students" on that date occupied the US Embassy in Tehran and took 54 US diplomats hostage for 444 days while calling on the US not to offer medical treatment to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was in a New York hospital with terminal cancer.
He further threatened that the United States should be held accountable for Israel's violence in Gaza.
However, the anti-US rhetoric in Iran ahead of the anniversary of the occupation of the US Embassy was not limited to clerics. Hossein Salami, the commander of the revolutionary guards (IRGC) also spoke against the US during a meeting with clerics and Basij militia and said: "The world is more united than ever against America and its policies."