By Pishtaz | 2023-10-25

The Islamic Republic has turned many average Iranians against the very principles they used to believe in, observers say.

The regime's actions and propaganda have caused many ordinary Iranians to see issues in black and white, to the point that many do not feel or show much empathy toward civilian Palestinians in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, they say.

"I was in my 20s when the Islamic Revolution took place in 1979. From the time I was a kid until 1981, I was a devout Muslim, prayed and fasted, and felt sympathy toward my fellow Muslims," said Farah, a 72-year-old Iranian woman who lives in Mashhad.

"But I eventually grew tired of the regime's slogans and propaganda, of hearing about Muslims across the world and how we need to help them, of pro-Palestinian propaganda. I turned against all of that," she added.

"Hearing the regime's constant pro-Hamas propaganda these days is just like hearing nails on a chalkboard, and I am sick of it," she told Pishtaz.

Farah, who is from, and lives in, a city most Shia Muslims consider holy, said decades of being told how to feel toward Palestinians by the regime-affiliated media has turned her, and most of her relatives, friends and the people she knows, against them.

Support for Israel

In light of the war following Hamas's deadly October 7 attack on Israel, hashtags such as "Iranians stand with Israel" have trended on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Groups of expatriate Iranians have also gathered in several cities to manifest their anti-Hamas views and support for the Israeli government and people, including a sizable gathering of Iranians in Melbourne, Australia, on October 13.

In these gatherings, Iranians hold the flags of Israel and pre-1979 Iran to show their solidarity with Tel Aviv and the Israelis.

The anti-Palestinian sentiments that many average Iranians harbor toward civilians in the Gaza strip has surprised some non-Iranians.

The Islamic Republic's anti-West propaganda and blind support for militant forces in the Middle East have had the opposite of the regime's intended effect on many members of the public, said a Tehran-based journalist who wished to remain anonymous.

"Instead, it has actually stirred up support for the other side, to the point that a lot of average citizens are rooting for Israeli forces these days," she told Pishtaz.

Chanting in dissent

Last week, a video circulated on social media that showed a number of teenage boys at school, chanting the exact opposite of the slogan they were being directed to chant.

School officials instructed the students to chant "Death to Israel" when they queued up in the school yard, before going to class.

While half of the students did as they were told, the other half chanted "Death to Palestine!"

Arman, a 17-year-old student in Karaj, says, "Our lessons and school curriculum are anti-West and anti-Israel, especially these days."

"But we know that even most of the teachers who are teaching us the content do not believe in it. In fact, most of them are opposed to it," he said.

"This is nothing new. We've always been taught one thing at school and something totally different, if not the absolute opposite, at home. At home, most of us watch [expatriate] Persian-language or Western channels on satellite TV."

"Most of our parents are anti-regime, so we are used to receiving two different kinds of messaging. We're also used to ignoring what they tell or teach us at school when it comes to politics, including world politics," he told Pishtaz.

The stark difference between the Iranian regime's rhetoric and most ordinary Iranian people's viewpoints and sentiments is a familiar concept to those who have closely followed Iranian affairs over the past three decades.

After the Islamic Republic was founded and legitimized by the majority of Iranians following the 1979 revolution, the public was faced with a slew of the regime's broken promises.

Iranians faced an increasingly dire economic state, bitter relations with the West, harsh restrictions on personal freedoms and an eight-year war, among other woes.

All this made life difficult for Iranians in the early 1980s, and increasingly so as time went on.

Distortion of facts

The issue of Palestinians has always appeared to be more important to the regime than Iran and Iranians themselves do, said Arash, a 61-year-old high school history teacher in Tehran.

"What I teach in history classes is a distorted version of history that the Iranian government intends to push into teenagers' minds. Part of this distortion is the propagandized version of the conflict in the Middle East."

"What we are forced to teach at school has no nuance, and is certainly not factual. It's history interpreted according to the principles of the Islamic Republic, and based on the theories the leadership of the glorified force in the country believes in," he told Pishtaz.

"This force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), strongly supported by Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, is the true ruling power in Iran, and we are supposed to believe it, teach about it and virtually brainwash kids into believing in it as well," Arash added.

The regime has not only taken many personal freedoms and rights away from its own people, it has also robbed many Iranians of some of their human emotions and sympathy toward some of their fellow human beings, he told Pishtaz.