Publicly championing Iranian protesters would therefore set an awkward precedent. It would legitimize the idea that sustained street mobilization can bring down entrenched regimes―an idea most Arab governments, and increasingly Turkey, have worked hard to discredit at home. In this sense, Tehran’s repression is not an aberration but part of a shared regional playbook: criminalize dissent, securitize society, and frame protests as foreign conspiracies.
The result is a moral asymmetry―one to which Arab states and Israel appear equally prone. Muslim leaders and institutions such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which have spoken daily about Gaza, have largely avoided condemning Tehran’s shoot-to-kill orders. Gaza rightly commands global outrage―but so does Iran. The silence on Iran suggests that, in today’s Middle East, solidarity stops where regime survival begins.