Revolutions are seldom sudden; they are rehearsed long before the curtain rises. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 is perhaps the most chilling illustration of this truth. It did not appear overnight but unfurled through the slow capture of language, the infiltration of institutions, the mobilization of the street, and the careful manufacture of enemies. Khomeini and his clerics understood with demonic genius that no tyranny survives on bayonets alone.
It thrives when words are bent to false meanings, when universities and unions are captured, when mobs can be summoned at will, and when hatred is given a face. For them, as for so many before and after, the Jew became that face: the ancient scapegoat, made to carry the weight of grievances until annihilation could be framed as justice.
To those who witnessed Iran’s descent, the markers of revolution are unforgettable. To those willing to look at our own Western capitals today, they are recognizable still. London, Paris, Berlin, New York – the architecture is different, the skyline modern, but the music playing in the background is hauntingly familiar. It is the music of language corrupted, of institutions faltering, of mobs gathering, and of hatred repurposed as a unifying cause.
The beats of revolution
The theft of language is the first drumbeat. In Tehran, “freedom” was made to mean submission to clerical diktat; “justice” was rewritten as revenge cloaked in piety.
In London and Paris today, “resistance” is scrawled across banners glorifying the murderers of Jews. “Solidarity” is demanded with movements that elevate Hamas and Hezbollah as heroes. The word “Zionism” has been so mangled that to speak it aloud in certain lecture halls is to court censure. A civilization that loses command of its own vocabulary is a civilization halfway to surrender.
The second beat is institutional capture. In Iran, universities became hothouses of revolutionary zeal, judges were repurposed as clerical functionaries, and even the professional guilds became mouthpieces for doctrine. Today, the same process is underway here.
Universities once devoted to free inquiry are now staging grounds for intolerance, where Jewish students are hounded into silence and professors issue apologies for having spoken factual truths. Medical professionals are caught praising terrorist groups, yet remain entrusted with the care of Jewish patients. Charities and cultural institutions that ought to defend pluralism are instead paralyzed by fear, unwilling to resist ideological colonization.
Then comes the street. Revolutions always move from lecture halls to the pavement, from whispered rhetoric to shouted slogans. In Iran, it was marches and religious processions repurposed as political theater until Tehran itself seemed possessed by a single voice.
In our capitals today, it is the weekly marches where placards bearing swastikas are waved without shame, where chants of “Death to Jews” and “From the river to the sea” reverberate under the windows of parliaments. These are not harmless protests. They are rehearsals, dry runs for the normalization of hatred, the public conditioning of a populace to regard the Jewish neighbor not as citizen but as contaminant.
The fourth beat is the cult of victimhood, without which no revolution can gather momentum. In Tehran, America was cast as the “Great Satan,” Israel as the “Little Satan,” and the Jew – again – as universal corrupter. Today, the narrative is repeated with eerie fidelity. Islamist groups and their Western fellow travelers cloak themselves in the rhetoric of oppression while systematically erasing the voices of others.
Palestinians are portrayed as the sole victims of history, while the expulsion of 850,000 Jews from Arab lands, the slaughter of Yazidis, the persecution of Christians, and the silencing of dissenters are cast aside. In this theater, the murderer is recast as martyr and the martyr as oppressor. Truth itself becomes another casualty.
A dangerous alliance
What makes this dance possible is not the strength of the zealots but the weakness of their opponents. In 1979, Iran’s monarchy collapsed not because its enemies were strong but because it was paralyzed, corrupt, and incapable of acting decisively.
In the West today, the same paralysis prevails. Governments issue lukewarm condemnations while allowing hate marches to dominate our streets. Police hesitate to arrest those who glorify proscribed terrorist organizations, even as they rush to detain a pensioner for waving an Israeli flag. Cultural institutions cower, terrified of being branded intolerant by those who themselves tolerate only submission.
At the heart of this grim choreography is an alliance once thought impossible: the radical Left clasping hands with theocrats. That the heirs of secular socialism and feminism should now chant in unison with those who stone women and indoctrinate children is not paradox but revelation.
Hatred of the Jews and West
What unites them is hatred: hatred of democracy, of the West, of pluralism, of continuity, and most of all, of Jews. For the Jew has always been the most malleable of symbols: blamed for capitalism and communism, for globalism and nationalism, for modernity and tradition alike. To despise Jews is to despise survival itself, to loathe the stubborn refusal of a people to vanish when told they must.
The rhythm of this deadly dance is hatred of the Jews. It is not incidental but essential. It provides the common tongue through which the Islamist and the radical leftist may speak, the fuel with which both may seek to burn down the edifice of Western civilization. Make no mistake: It is Western civilization itself that is the prize. Its institutions, its freedoms, and its cultural inheritance are the shores toward which this tide surges.
We stand now at the cliff’s edge. The signs are clear, the markers legible. The chants echoing in our capitals are not background noise but warnings. The infiltration of our institutions is not mischief but method. The twisting of our language is not clumsy but calculated. This is revolution rehearsed, staged, and waiting for its moment.
If history has taught us anything, it is that revolutions do not ask politely. They seize, they silence, they erase. In Iran, the cost was liberty, truth, and the blood of minorities. In the West, if we continue our blindness, the cost will be the very civilization we pretend to defend.
The time for hesitation is over. The only question that remains is whether we have the courage to see this revolution before it triumphs and to stop it while we still can.
The writer is executive director of We Believe In Israel.