As we sit here holding our collective breaths waiting for the intolerable situation in Iran to undergo a history-changing transformation, we cannot but mourn the horrific loss of life among those brave Iranians who have martyred themselves to bring about this change. According to reports, the numbers of dead in Iran is approaching 40,000 (some say it will be 100,00 when a true account can be rendered; it’s unimaginable). The Palestinians claim 70,000 killed in Gaza over two years. This was over two days!

Abu Ali published the testimony of an Iranian activist against the regime depicting what was happening around January 24 according to conversations with family and friends:

“Many are attacked at night in their homes. For example, two nights ago in the Punak area, (Chahardivai, Teheran) gunshots were heard. The forces searched for wounded who had escaped and were hiding in the home of friends. If a chase occurs—they shoot directly at unprotected civilians. Last night also in Shiraz during a nighttime raid on the home of one of the protesters, he was thrown out the window and killed on the spot.

“In Southern Iran the situation is ever more severe: some have fled to the sea and are hiding on fishing boats, while UAVs and boats of the Revolutionary Guards search for them relentlessly. In the cities of Kurdistan, Mazandaran, Golestan, and West Azerbaijan provinces, people have been forced to live temporarily in the mountains.

“All of these are ordinary citizens, not guerrilla fighters and not military personnel: students, athletes and even doctors. This is not a normal situation. Nothing here is normal. At the same time, trucks continue to transport new bodies to the corpse identification center in Kahrizk (south of Tehran). Anyone who passed through the area could see this. The massacre has not stopped.”

The Iran International Channel, affiliated with the protestors, obtained internal regime reports circulated by the Iranian National Security Committee in Parliament estimating fatalities have surpassed 36,500. Protests erupted in 400 cities and villages across Iran, in 4,000 places. The channel reports numerous crimes against humanity, including the kidnapping of the wounded from hospitals and the execution of the wounded inside ambulances. It was also reported that the families of the deceased were forced to pay an exorbitant price for each bullet in the bodies of the victims as a condition for releasing the body for burial. Family members were lured out of their homes by various messages and then some were arrested/shot at the entrance to their homes.

Moreover, authorities in Iran do not register the names of detained protestors, in order to hide illegal executions and other crimes. Besides the killings, the Center for Human Rights in Iran reports that the regime is carrying out mass imprisonment of protestors in Karaj and Ein prisons. The lack of registered names gives the regime a free hand in torturing and murdering detainees and preventing them from receiving medical treatment. The deliberate shutdown of the internet by the regime has successfully masked most of these atrocities from social media.

This unspeakable massacre reveals a total breakdown of the regime, and the complete loss of any moral or political legitimacy for its continued rule. Whatever the Americans decide to do or not to do, the regime is over and its operatives must be treated like terrorists and criminals everywhere in the world they have embassies and conduct trade.

I give credit to the Trump administration that in that light, it is now throwing out members of the Revolutionary Guard and their families living in the U.S. Among them is Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani, daughter of Ali Larijani – senior adviser to Khamenei who is among the leaders of the butchery – from The Emory University Winship Cancer Institute. The German foreign minister announced all three of Iran’s consulates in the country are to close. Berlin will also seek EU-wide sanctions.

And in a shocking act of rare moral clarity, on January 12, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola announced that she had “taken the decision to ban all diplomatic staff and any other representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran from all European Parliament premises” in support of Iranian protesters. “This House will not aid in legitimising this regime that has sustained itself through torture, repression and murder,” she said.

If you ever needed any proof that all the pro-Palestinian college demonstrations had nothing to do with sorrow over the loss of life, you have it now laid out before you in capital letters, as not a college anywhere has erupted in demonstrations against this barbaric slaughter of Iranians by their brutal Islamic oppressors. How sickening! Without someone getting Qatari and Soros money to organize protests, there are no protests.

Hollywood too has suddenly lost interest. Ben Affleck, who directed the movie Argo about the Iranian seige of the American Embassy, has suddenly gone silent. Again, in case you had any doubt that Hollywood are moral midgets who should be ignored, this is your proof.

The organization Doctors Without Borders has in the end refused to provide Israel with the names of its doctors in the Strip, after receiving threats from Hamas’s Ministry of Health warning them not to hand over details. In consequence, Israel has banned the organization from operating inside the Gaza Strip. Here is all the proof you need that the altruistic organization was actually employing Hamas terror operatives.

Hamas has so many labels for terrorists: Physicians. Journalists. Teachers. And so many names for Hamas military camps and weapons dumps: mosques, hospitals, kindergartens. There is not one innocent person, place or thing in that debased, despicable place they created in the Gaza Strip, once home to Israeli hothouses growing tomatoes, flowers, and lettuce; synagogues; and civilian homes.

October 7 happened not because they were denied a State, but because we gave them one.

This Sabbath we read Shirat haYam, The Song of the Sea, sung by Moses and the Israelites as they escaped Pharoah’s pursuing hordes. I found its words particularly appropriate considering our current state of affairs in Israel: “The foe said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; My desire shall gorge its fill of them. I will draw my sword— and my hand destroy them.’ You blew with Your wind. The sea covered over them. They sank like lead….You reached out Your right hand, the earth swallowed them up. In Your love You guided out the people you redeemed….”

Let us hope that we too are on the edge, the sea crossed over, our enemies drowning in pursuit behind us.

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