Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has many detractors. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Thomas Massie, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and so many others in the U.S. Congress and at the U.N. find him a suitable whipping boy. Zohran Mamdani says if Netanyahu shows up in New York City, he will have him arrested. But in Iran, it seems, it is a different story. More on Netanyahu’s growing body of Iranian admirers can be found here: “Iranians ‘have fallen in love with Netanyahu,’ Tehran resident tells KAN – report,” by James Genn, Jerusalem Post, January 7, 2026:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently the most popular person in Iran, a Tehran resident told KAN Reshet Bet on Wednesday.
“People have fallen in love with him. People do not trust America or [US President Donald] Trump, but they very much believe in and love Israelis,” the Iranian, who was referred to by a pseudonym, said.
They also told KAN that Iranians were “impressed” by Israeli strikes on Iran in June, as part of Operation Rising Lion, as the air force “focused only on regime infrastructure and did not harm civilians.”
However, Iranians are “mainly afraid” of American military intervention after seeing situations where Americans operated, including Afghanistan and Iraq. “Everywhere they went, they brought only destruction,” he said.
The Iranian is an opponent of the Islamic Republic regime and has participated in demonstrations over the past 11 days. He is not Jewish, but recalled Hebrew words he had learned in Jewish community classes he had previously attended.
The activist talked about the regime’s violent repression measures against protesters. “They arrest many, who testify that they were sexually assaulted in prison. The [regime] forces use a lot of tear gas against demonstrators,” he noted.
“I was affected by tear gas. I could not see or breathe properly for hours. Using tear gas has caused many people to stay away from the protests,” he claimed.
One of the main reasons for the current protests in Iran is the severe economic crisis.
“We have no water. We have no electricity. We are one of the richest countries in the world, but our people are the poorest,” he stated.
Iran is “one of the poorest countries” because its rulers chose to spend over $100 billion on its nuclear program, which was largely destroyed by Israel — with some help from the U.S. air force — in the 12-day war this past June. In addition, the Iranian government has been providing billions of dollars in money and weapons to its proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen — every year, and there, too, much of the expensive weaponry that Iran supplied has gone up in smoke thanks to IDF attacks. American sanctions have forced Iran to sell its oil, at a steep discount of $10 a barrel, to China. The historic drought in Iran has led lakes and rivers to dry up, dams to cease operation, and electricity generation to plummet. Money that might have gone to desalination plants, to drip irrigation, and to those WaterGen machines that Israeli scientists invented, and that produce water out of the ambient air, is instead spent on weapons, and to line the pockets of the corrupt leaders, with the supreme leader’s $95 billion being the most impressive pile of loot.
The protesters’ chants in more than 100 cities across Iran have gone beyond anger at the money spent on proxies abroad — “No to Gaza, No to Lebanon” — to a direct attack on the supreme leader, with shouts of “Death to Khamenei.” And now the latest call has been for the crown prince to return and reign as a constitutional monarch, on the English model: “Reza, Reza Pahlavi.” Will we now hear the demonstrators calling “Bibi, Bibi” in the hope that the Israelis will intervene militarily, to knock out the Basiji and the IRGC soldiers now tormenting the long-suffering people of Iran?
Daniel Dagovitz says
You can thank BiBi for a Nuke free Iran!
Israel would have never survived with a Crazed Iranian with a finger on the Button!
He has the courage of his beliefs, he believes in Greater Israel!
So do I, it is called the Holy Land and it belongs to the Jews!
End of Subject, nonnegotiable!
Make God Bless and Keep the USA and Greater Israel!
Sword of God Militia!
Walter Sieruk says
This jihad watch article reveals” Iran is “one of the poorest countries” because its rulers chose to spend over $100 billion on its nuclear program…”
Related to that statement, a young Iranian woman who now lives in an American city that I used to live in, had that city’s newspaper, she wrote an article how she and her mother had returned from visiting her sick and dying grandmother in the hospital in Tehran in Iran In that article this young women explained that the medical and health care in Iran’s hospitals is so terrible that the people of Iran view hospitals s place that people go to not get better but to die. The reason the this second point is brought up is that the mullahs and ayatollahs as well as others in power in this Islamic tyranny Iran will not invest those news funds from, Obama and Kerry, in better health care in hospitals but instead use that money to engage in more support for brutal and murderous militant jihad organizations For those tyrants in power in Iran don’t care, at all, about the Iranian people. They are only interested in furthering their mad jihad Islamic quest.
Walter Sieruk says
This article exposes that “ the Iranian government has been providing billions of dollars in money and weapons to its proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen — every year.’’
Therefore, that Islamic regime ignores basic needs of the Iranian people, all the while founding and supporting in many different insidious say jihad terror /murder entities ,as those just named above.
Furthermore, it’s no surprise that many Iranians do admire Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , For he does of the wisdom to understand that the only language that Muslim terrorists those jihad Islamic groups are able to understand is that of a strong power of the force of military might. Likewise a strong force of brute might is the only language that those cruel oppressive death inflecting despots of that tyrannical Islamic regime are able to understand, in order to force them to leave Iran forever and have a genuine government established in Iran in place of that Islamic tyranny.
In addition. about many of the Iranian people admiring Netanyahu for having the wisdom to knowhow and then to use military force at the right place and time may be his response to those murderous and maiming as well as kidnapping Muslim terrorists of Hamas when they invaded Israel on October7th 2023.
For Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier said that “Hamas should be destroyed” It should be destroyed.
For Hamas should destroyed, once and for all. As in “Get it over with and exterminate Hamas entirely.
For Hamas has proven to be a deadly plague against the Jewish people who citizens of the State of Israel. Hamas is also brought nothing but misery suffering death and destruction upon the people citizens of Gaza.
.
For Hamas started this war on October 7,2023 and those jihadist chiefs, top dogs of Hamas were so very foolish to stated something that they can’t finish. As one Israeli government official had , rightly , said. “They made a big mistake.”
Therefore, the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is right when he had declared that “Hamas must be destroyed.” More recently, he vowed to “End Hamas”
The reason why this is so is because when it comes to those brutal cruel vile heinous malicious and murderous jihadist savages of Hamas it’s “Either kill or be killed.”
So, Hamas needs to be hit long and hard and it should to hit with much military might and. struck great power repeatedly until it’s completely destroyed. As it had been also, rightly said “Half –measures is folly and madness.”
For the jihadists of Hamas will not respond to reason or logic , in others words, they cannot and will not be reasoned with. The only language that are able to understand is that of being the receiving end of a power of a great military might. As Thomas Jefferson had, rightly, written “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
Even the leftist US President Franklin D. Roosevelt with all liberal socialist had very wisely declared, “No compromise can end that conflict. There never has been—there never can be—successful compromise between good and evil. Only total victory can reward the champions of tolerance, and decency, and freedom, and faith.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu had revealed knowledge and wisdom by his statement about the need to about the very important and necessary need to engage in the “Elimination of Hamas.”
Kepha says
I am not in favor of interveining in Iran. We should be the well-wishers of liberty everywhere, but champions only of our own. Further, we should not get all starry-eyed over one tribe of totalitarian cannibals that might end up eating another tribe of totalitarian cannibals whom we happen to dislike more at the moment. I’m thinking at this point of groups like the Mojaheddin-e-Khalq and the Tudeh.
If the Iranians pull of a popular revolt and ovrthrow the mullahs, then want to mend fences with the USA, I’m 150% for this kind of international reconciliation. But, we do not have a good track record in saving democracy in various far corners of the globe; and might better be thinking of a less pro-active foreign policy.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Assuming that all the videos on YouTube channels like Atheist Republic and Tousi TV are to be believed, most Iranians on the streets are shouting and singing for Pahlavi, rather than MEK. I had no idea the Tudeh party still exists: I thought that Khomenei and killed them all and made them extinct
Reza Pahlavi has already stated in his transition plan’s foreign policy that he’d like to have friendly relations w/ all countries, but he would work w/ anybody and everybody in combatting jihad terror. A good start would be to declare Hizbullah, Ansar allah and Hamas as terrorist organizations, and making it clear to Iraq’s shi’a clergy as well as pilgrims that they are not welcome in Iran
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Indeed! Alongside Trump, the other popular foreign leader in Iran is Netanyahu. Just like they renamed a Tehran street after Trump, I’m sure there will be Bibi Streets (maybe they should just call it “Netanyahu”, since Bibi means woman in Farsi, from what I understand) either in Tehran or in other cities
One thing that Reza Pahlavi has made clear is that he wants good relations w/ all countries, but is willing to work w/ anybody to curb jihad terrorism. One thing he should do is while restoring diplomatic relations w/ Israel, he should put the Iranian embassy in Jerusalem and not Tel Aviv. Also make it clear to all of the islamic republic’s proxies, be it Hizbullah, Houthis or Hamas – that Iran has nothing more to do w/ them, and indeed, recognizes them as terrorist organizations. Also make it clear to the shi’a clergy in Iraq that they are unwelcome in Iran
Andrew Blackadder says
I would love to see Bibi fly into NYC and walk off the plane surrounded by IDF men in full military gear and watch that wee muslim socialist soy boy just try to do something…
The NYC Mayor has no legal right to arrest a gentleman with Diplomatic Immunity.