‘Fight against darkness’: Foreign Ministry appears to back Iranian protests
Ministers Gila Gamliel and Amichai Chikli post in support of demonstrations sparked by the Islamic Republic’s ailing economy, as Netanyahu stays silent
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A social media account run by the Foreign Ministry appeared to express support on Thursday for the mass cost-of-living protests in Iran, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refrained from publicly commenting.
A post on the Foreign Ministry’s Farsi-language account displayed a cartoon featuring a lion and sun — symbols that were featured on the Iranian flag until the 1979 Islamic Revolution — with the lion’s paw resting on an hourglass. At the bottom of the hourglass is the emblem on Iran’s current flag.
“The rise of Iranian lions and lionesses to fight against darkness,” read the post in Farsi. “Light triumphs over darkness.”
The growing demonstrations, focused on the cost of living and Iran’s ailing currency, are spreading across the country, and saw at least six people killed on Thursday.
Another post published by the Foreign Ministry’s Farsi account earlier on Thursday featured a cartoon image of Iran’s leaders panicking in the face of protesters. The caption, in Farsi, read, “The destruction calendar they had set for Israel has now been set for themselves.”
This sentiment was echoed by Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, who posted a video in support of the protests and predicted that they would lead to the downfall of the regime.
خیزش شیرمردان و شیرزنان ایرانی برای نبرد با تاریکی.
نور بر تاریکی پیروز است. pic.twitter.com/oyz4qpHdpf— اسرائیل به فارسی (@IsraelPersian) January 1, 2026
“Your protests, by women and men, young people and students, mothers and fathers, are justified,” she said in English. “The regime is weakening every day, and these are its final moments.”
On Monday, as protests in Iran entered their second day, Gamliel had posted a selfie wearing a “Make Iran Great Again” cap. She tagged the son of the deposed Iranian Shah, Reza Pahlavi, a leading critic of the regime.
Soon ????????@PahlaviReza pic.twitter.com/Q6mIvnmtY9
— גילה גמליאל – Gila Gamliel (@GilaGamliel) December 29, 2025
Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli also posted in support of the protests. His post included an apparently AI-generated image of a demonstration, with someone waving the lion-and-sun flag.
“I stand with the people of Iran,” declared the text imposed over the image.
Unlike some members of his cabinet, Netanyahu did not publicly comment on the protests sweeping Iran, despite having voiced support for the demonstrators in previous rounds of civil unrest in the Islamic Republic.
His decision to remain silent was reportedly due to concern that if he were to weigh in, it would offer the Islamic Republic an excuse to target Israel in order to distract from the country’s economic woes.
According to Channel 12, the decision came following a briefing Netanyahu held on the matter at his hotel in West Palm Beach.
“We’re watching dramatic domestic events in Iran, but it’s too early to tell what the ramifications will be,” a senior Israeli official told Channel 12.
Meanwhile, US Sen. Ted Cruz predicted that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would fall as a result of the protest movement and attributed that outcome to Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June 2025 and the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at that time.
“Losing wars has consequences,” he wrote. “Israel’s 12-day campaign against the Iranian regime & President Trump’s historic decision to destroy its nuclear program have exposed the regime’s weakness to the Iranian people & the world. The Iranian people are rising up & the Ayatollah’s days are numbered.”
— עמיחי שיקלי – Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) January 1, 2026
The protests, sparked by Iran’s ailing economy, have become the biggest in Iran since 2022, when the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody triggered nationwide demonstrations. However, the demonstrations have yet to be countrywide and have not been as intense as those surrounding the death of Amini, who was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.
On Thursday, Iran’s Fars news agency reported two people killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in the city of Lordegan, in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and three in Azna, in neighboring Lorestan province.
A separate demonstration Wednesday night reportedly led to the death of a 21-year-old volunteer in the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Basij force.
The state-run IRNA news agency reported on the Guard member’s death but did not elaborate. An Iranian news agency called the Student News Network, which is believed to be close to the Basij, directly blamed demonstrators for the Guard member’s death, citing comments from Saeed Pourali, a deputy governor in Iran’s Lorestan province.
The protests took place in the city of Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Tehran. Local prosecutor Kazem Nazari said twenty people had been arrested after the protests and that calm had returned to the city, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported.
Iran’s civilian government under reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has been trying to signal it wants to negotiate with protesters. However, Pezeshkian has acknowledged that there is not much he can do as Iran’s rial currency has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing some 1.4 million rials.
The protests have heard demonstrators chant against Iran’s theocracy as well. The country’s leaders are still reeling after Israel launched a 12-day war against the country in June. The US also bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the war.
Israel said its sweeping assault on Iran’s top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites, and ballistic missile program was necessary to prevent the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.
Iran has said it is no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, trying to signal to the West that it remains open to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease sanctions. However, those talks have yet to happen as US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned Tehran against reconstituting its atomic program.
The Times of Israel Community.