Useful Idiots and Normalised Antisemitism
There are moments when a political movement suddenly catches sight of itself in the mirror—and cannot bear to hold its gaze.
That moment has arrived for the European left.
For years, the streets have echoed with slogans like “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea.” For years, the left has marched side by side with Islamists, unwilling to confront what it was actually marching for. It spoke of solidarity, of oppressed peoples, of colonialism and imperialism—and, more than anything else, it made itself useful idiots for Hamas.
But it did something more.
Large parts of the left normalised a slogan that, at its core, amounts to a programme for the elimination of the Jews. “From the river to the sea” is not a call for peace. It is a call to erase Israel - and the Jews.
As a result, pro-Palestinian demonstrations—regardless of the individual motives of participants—have become an objective contribution to the growth of antisemitism in Denmark. Not because all participants are antisemites, but because the movement has turned itself into a conveyor belt for a message that, in practice, legitimises hatred of Jews.
That, in itself, constitutes a serious democratic failure.
Iran: A Reality That Shatters the Narrative
The fundamental problem facing the cadres of the left has now been exposed by reality itself.
For while they still cling to their Palestinian narrative, a far more uncomfortable reality has broken through: Iran.
In recent weeks, millions of Iranians have taken to the streets. Unarmed. Unprotected. Women tear off their headscarves. Men call for the clerical regime to fall. Young people chant the name of Pahlavi as a transitional figure towards a new, democratic Iran. They call for help from the United States. From Israel. From the West.
They call for a reckoning with Islam as a system of governance.
Here, the left’s worldview begins to crack.
For the entire story—the dangerous illusion in which it has comfortably floated for years—rests on a very specific claim: that Islam represents the oppressed; that the West is the true villain; that “resistance” is always justified, so long as it is directed against Israel, the United States, or “imperialism.”
But in Iran, it is not the West that oppresses.
It is Islam in state form.
Sharia as law.
Clerics as rulers.
Religious ideology as systemic tyranny.
And this is not a marginal minority rising up. It is an entire people willing to die to be rid of it.
That is the fact the left simply cannot accommodate.
City Hall Square, 19 January: Freedom Without Substance
This became strikingly visible on 19 January at City Hall Square in Copenhagen, where the Danish Free Press Society participated in what we believed to be a demonstration for Iranian freedom organised by Amnesty International.
It was not a freedom demonstration.
Instead, Amnesty International attempted to choreograph a new left-wing position, with those present reduced to stage props. The result was a demonstration that, at its core, evaded the political question altogether.
Amnesty did not support the Iranians’ right to rid themselves of an Islamist regime. It supported only their right to demonstrate—without being beaten to death.
That may sound like a nuance. It is not.
The distinction is decisive:
There was no support for freedom.
No support for dismantling the clerical regime.
No support for the right to abolish a religious tyranny.
Only a procedure was endorsed.
The political goal—ending Islamist rule—was systematically excluded.
When many demonstrators began chanting “Pahlavi!” and “Javid Shah!”—entirely legitimate political expressions at a demonstration ostensibly about Iranian freedom—the organisers reacted immediately, instructing participants to be silent on the grounds that political statements were not permitted.
When the chants continued, a voice from the stage shouted:
“Are you finished?!”
Freedom was acceptable—so long as it was stripped of concrete political meaning.
The Mask Slips in the Street
The same pattern appeared shortly afterwards in a video that quickly spread on X.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration passes a protest against the Iranian regime, and from the pro-Hamas wing comes the mocking remark:
“Ignore the lunatics—stay focused on us. They’re not important.”
It is a moment of unguarded honesty.
For the Iranian demonstrators, this is a matter of life and death.
For the pro-Palestinian wing, it is a narrative problem.
The video is a mask-slip—not merely for a handful of activists, but for an entire ideological construction. For when reality no longer fits the story, reality is not debated. It is dismissed.
An Ideology Without Answers
This is where the implosion becomes visible.
Because the Iranians are demonstrating something the left refuses to see:
That Islam is not primarily a persecuted identity, but a system of power.
That Islam in political form is systemic oppression.
And that this oppression has for years been relativised—and in practice indirectly promoted—by those who claimed to fight on behalf of the oppressed.
That is why the response is not debate, but denial.
Not reflection, but arrogance.
Not solidarity, but silence.
When the Story Can No Longer Carry the Weight
That is why the situation in Iran is not merely a tragedy.
It is an intellectual collapse of the European left.
For when the same movement simultaneously legitimises antisemitic mobilisation in Europe’s streets, relativises Islamic tyranny, and dismisses those now risking their lives to escape it, it can no longer claim to be fighting for the oppressed.
It has become an ideology that has lost the ability to distinguish between victim and perpetrator.
And when reality can no longer be contained within the narrative, it is not reality that must give way.
It is the narrative.
