IRGC Chief Commander Hossein Salami claims Iran's 'Resistance' ideology has infiltrated universities across the United States and Europe, referring to pro-Palestinian protests in Recent months.
"The resistance is so grand, beautiful, and captivating that its attractions have penetrated even into the universities of the US and into the cities of France, England, Germany, Spain, Australia, and everywhere," Hossein Salami said during a conference on "Resistance" in Mashhad on Saturday.
The "Resistance" generally refers to the Islamic Republic's ideology of fighting Israel and also the US through a coalition of Tehran-backed armed militant groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Iraqi Shiite militias.
Salami's remarks specifically point to the recent campus protests in the US and Europe by thousands of students who established encampments on campuses to decry Israel's military actions against the Iran-supported Hamas in Gaza.
Enraged by the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, students across the US have been organizing pro-Palestinian rallies and sit-ins to pressure their institutions to disclose and divest from funds and corporations that do business with Israel.
Triggered by a Hamas attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 individuals, mostly civilians, Israel's subsequent military response reportedly led to the deaths of over 35,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas figures.
The protests in Western universities have been praised and politically leveraged by Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly lauded the students' efforts as aligning with Iran's resistance against American and Israeli policies.
In a recent speech, Khamenei branded the campus protesters part of Iran's 'resistance front' against the US and Israel.
The campus protests across the US featured on the cover pages of many Iranian dailies, triggering a considerable backlash from ordinary Iranians who view the stunt as ‘glaringly hypocritical’ from a ruling system that suspends, beats and imprisons students for much less than what students have been doing in the US in the past ten days.
The Islamic Republic has always presented itself as the only true champion of Palestinians and their cause. This sentiment has become much stronger and prevalent since October 7 when Hamas, backed by Iran, rampaged border areas inside Israel.
The irony, as ordinary Iranians have been pointing out on social media, is hard to miss. It is a case of 'astounding hypocrisy', many say, of a regime who cheers on American students exercising their freedom of expression, while its prisons are humorously called ‘universities’ for hosting sheer numbers of students, graduates, and educators who have dared to speak their mind.
