{"id":156312,"date":"2026-03-07T18:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/156312\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:22:14","slug":"inside-new-york-citys-cosplaying-khamenei-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/156312\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside New York City\u2019s cosplaying Khamenei protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manhattan, New York City<\/p>\n

As the sun set over Lower Manhattan last night, a photo of the late Ali Khamenei stood beneath Washington Square Arch \u2014 a place normally packed with NYU art students, vagrants, and far too many rats \u2014 beside one of George Floyd. Another display exhibited Khamenei, his predecessor, Khomeini, and the Sixties CIA-deposed Congolese revolutionary Patrice Lumumba on a table of roses. \u201cDown with US imperialism\u201d and \u201cIran\u2019s missiles will reply,\u201d chanted the demonstrators, behind a makeshift barricade and a cadre of NYPD officers.<\/p>\n

This was<\/a> the \u201cvigil and community iftar for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and all martyrs of Amerikan imperialism\u201d (\u201cAmerika,\u201d as opposed to America, apparently signals the activists\u2019 rejection of \u201cwhite settler-colonialism.\u201d) The protesters \u2014 clad in intimidating face masks and keffiyehs \u2014 proudly flew numerous flags of the Islamic Republic. They ranged in age, some older, but the loudest were in their twenties: many of Arab descent, while others were girls who could have stepped straight out of Bushwick. There was also a large banner of Khamenei himself, while one of the \u201cmourners\u201d carried a display of the Israeli flag in which the Star of David had been replaced with the face of Jeffrey Epstein. (Many, certainly this crop of anti-Zionists, believe the Jewish financier-pervert acted as a Mossad spy.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Nikos Mohammadi<\/p>\n

This was, in other words, the full expression of the Palestinian omnicause, which, since October 7, 2023, has permeated American life: from elite institutions (my own university, Columbia, among the most visible examples) to electoral politics (with \u201cThe Palestine News Network\u201d harassing Capitol Hill interns<\/a> and asking whether they are \u201cAmerica First or Israel First\u201d), and even into debates about ICE and environmentalism \u2014 domestic issues reframed as part of the Palestinian struggle. It was not enough for these protesters to be merely opposed to the Iran War. Instead, the Ayatollah, a tyrannical and murderous leader, was praised because he was part of the anti-Israel \u201cresistance\u201d.<\/p>\n

Clashing with pro-Israel, pro-Trump, and pro-Pahlavi counter-protesters \u2014 a mix of diasporic Iranians, Zionist Jews, and others \u2014 one activist proclaimed bluntly, and gleefully: \u201cI don\u2019t give a fuck about Americans. I\u2019m Native. They\u2019re bombing Israel and I like that.\u201d Others on the pro-Ayatollah side shouted at the monarchist Iranians: \u201cYou\u2019re not fucking American\u201d and \u201cGo back to Iran \u2014 we don\u2019t want you here.\u201d One Iranian woman \u2014 perhaps the only one among them \u2014 was dressed entirely in black, with only her face visible, resembling a khale chadori (female religious police). This woman screeched at her compatriots: \u201cSaket sho!\u201d (Be quiet!).<\/p>\n

While the monarchists jubilantly sang \u201cJavid Shah, Javid Shah, Javid Shah,\u201d with placards displaying Iran\u2019s last Shah, another declaring the Shah\u2019s Maryland-residing son, Reza, the \u201cking\u201d. Their more controversial displays included a vulgar cartoon of Khamenei and a sign suggesting the pro-Ayotallah demonstrators should have been deported. They denounced the supporters of the Islamic Republic as \u201cterrorists, terrorists,\u201d and at times chanted: \u201cTrump, Trump, Trump,\u201d \u201cBibi, Bibi, Bibi,\u201d and \u201cPahlavi bar meegardeh\u201d (\u201cPahlavi will return\u201d). That is, despite the fact that the president has on multiple<\/a> occasions<\/a> appeared apprehensive about that very possibility.<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit: Nikos Mohammadi<\/p>\n

As the sky darkened and the temperature fell, I paused between the two camps. On the one hand, activists so absorbed in a \u201cpro-Palestinian\u201d subculture that they seemed detached from the most basic norms of behavior. On the other, monarchists who were oblivious to the calamity of war, awaiting a mythical US-Israeli savior and the sudden return of the long-vanished Pahlavi dynasty.<\/p>\n

It was a strange tableau of America in 2026: rival diasporas and imported grievances colliding beneath a triumphal arch built to celebrate the Republic. In a weird kind of way, the scene felt less like a protest than a staging ground for the performance of other people\u2019s \u201crevolutions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manhattan, New York City As the sun set over Lower Manhattan last night, a photo of the late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[62617,153,14670,60,6769,9,24,55,54,56,88,9498],"class_list":{"0":"post-156312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-ali-khamenei","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-city-news","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-uncategorized","19":"tag-zionism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}