A well-recognized slogan has echoed in the course of the streets of quite a lot of Iranian towns in contemporary days: “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran.”
That word has been chanted at protests that experience sprung up round Iran since Dec. 28, 2025. The spark of the rebellion and bazaar moves has been financial hardship and govt mismanagement.
However as knowledgeable of Iranian historical past and tradition, I imagine the slogan’s presence indicators that protests pass deeper than financial frustration by myself. When other people in Iran chant “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon,” they’re, I imagine, rejecting the theocratic machine in Iran solely. In different phrases, the present disaster isn’t almost about bread and jobs, it’s about who makes a decision what Iran stands for.
The origins of the slogan
The word “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran” first won prominence all through the 2009 Inexperienced Motion, when masses of 1000’s of other people protested a disputed presidential election in Iran.
It has since gave the impression in successive main demonstrations, from the 2017-18 financial protests to the 2019 gas value rebellion. It used to be additionally distinguished all through the 2022 “Women, Life, Freedom” motion, sparked by way of the dying of an Iranian-Kurdish lady, Mahsa Amini, following her detention by way of Iran’s morality police for now not dressed in a “proper” hijab.
The word ties in combination two key facets of successive Iranian protest actions: home financial, political or social grievances and an particular rejection of the federal government’s justification for that hardship – particularly, that sacrifice at house is vital to satisfy ideological objectives of “resistance” out of the country.
Specifically, the slogan goals the Islamic Republic’s decades-long reinforce for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Estimates recommend that the regime has channeled between US$700 million and $1 billion yearly to regional allies for the reason that Eighties – price range that many Iranians argue will have to as a substitute deal with home infrastructure, well being care and schooling.
From alliance to resentment
Figuring out the total that means of the slogan calls for historic context. Beneath the U.S.-aligned Pahlavi monarchy, which dominated from 1925 to 1979, Iran maintained diplomatic and financial ties with Israel whilst pursuing modernization.
The Shah’s warring parties, in particular leftist teams, exploited those connections, the usage of slogans like “Iran’s become Palestine, why sit still, O people?” to mobilize in opposition to the monarchy.
Certainly, most of the Islamic innovative leaders that ousted the Shah in 1979 had ties with Palestinian teams.
After the revolution, the Islamic Republic inverted each its ties to the U.S. and Iran’s courting with Israel, making anti-Israel rhetoric and reinforce for Palestinian reasons central to its identification.
Ruhollah Khomeini, the chief of the Islamic Revolution, declared team spirit with oppressed Muslims international, positioning Iran as the leading edge of resistance in opposition to what he known as “Western imperialism and Zionism.”
However this ideological dedication got here with considerable prices for Iranians.
Iran’s reinforce for Hezbollah all through Lebanon’s civil battle, its backing of Hamas within the Palestinian workforce’s battle in opposition to Israel, and its involvement in Syrian and Iraqi conflicts have contributed to global sanctions, diplomatic isolation and financial force on Iran. And those burdens have fallen disproportionately on strange electorate moderately than the ruling elite.
Financial disaster and political defiance
“Down with the Islamic Republic” could also be chanted along “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon” within the present rebellion – probably the most severe that the Iranian govt has confronted in years.
However neither deadly pressure – a minimum of 1,203 arrests and greater than two dozen deaths so far – nor preferrred chief Ali Khamenei’s Jan. 3 order for a harsher crackdown has quelled the unrest.
Preferrred chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in Tehran on Jan. 3, 2026.
Administrative center of the Iranian Preferrred Chief by the use of AP
As an alternative, protests have expanded to 110 towns and villages.
The demonstrations illustrate how financial and political grievances intersect in Iran. When demonstrators chant “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon” whilst protesting bread costs and unemployment, they don’t seem to be compartmentalizing problems – they’re drawing an instantaneous line between overseas coverage alternatives and home struggling.
The slogan makes 3 simultaneous arguments.
First, it rejects imposed team spirit. Many Iranians, together with the ones sympathetic to Palestinian rights, resent being conscripted into conflicts that don’t seem to be their very own. And the federal government’s insistence that Iranians should make sacrifices for far away reasons breeds resentment moderately than team spirit. Take the federal government’s effort to painting the 12-day battle with Israel in June 2025 as a second of nationwide resistance. Reasonably, many Iranians as a substitute blamed the management for both upsetting the struggle or failing to meaningfully shield the rustic from Israeli – or American – bombs.
The slogan additionally calls for responsibility for useful resource allocation. When state media announces funerals for warring parties killed in Syria or Yemen whilst Iran’s hospitals lack elementary provides, the disconnect between rhetoric and fact turns into evident.
And in spite of everything, the protest message reclaims political belonging rooted in Iranian nationwide historical past – and now not simply the ideological considerations of the Islamic Republic. Through invoking Iran particularly, “I sacrifice my life for Iran,” protesters assert that their number one allegiance is to their very own nation, to not transnational ideological actions, regional proxies or the ruling govt’s ideology.
The boundaries of team spirit
For all its longevity, on the other hand, the slogan has confirmed divisive. Whilst some see it as a vital statement of self-determination after many years of enforced sacrifice, others – together with some Iranian leftist intellectuals and activists – view it as leaving behind team spirit with oppressed peoples.
However it doesn’t want to be an both/or. Many protesters risking bullets to call for “Iran first” don’t seem to be expressing indifference to the struggling of Palestinians. Reasonably, they’re insisting that efficient team spirit calls for a functioning state in a position to supporting its personal electorate, and that authentic liberation starts at house.
Regardless, the Islamic Republic’s reaction has been to border grievance as betrayal, suggesting that those that query reinforce for Gaza or Lebanon are complicit with imperialism – a story enforced via a mixture of rhetoric and coercion.
However this framing more and more fails to steer a inhabitants that has watched residing requirements decline whilst billions of greenbacks waft to overseas conflicts. The consequences of sanctions and shrinking foreign-currency revenues have driven the Iranian state to boost taxes on families whilst shielding army and ideological spending. In the meantime, the greenback’s day by day surge and the rial’s fast cave in have sped up inflation and eroded buying energy.
Authoring one’s personal tale
For sure, financial grievances underpin the present protests in Iran. Then again, the slogans utilized in Iranian protests – be they over election disputes, financial crises or ladies’s rights – point out a broader critique of the Islamic Republic’s governing philosophy.
Within the present wave of protests, demonstrators articulate via slogans each what they reject – “Down with the Islamic Republic” – and what many now search to occur: “This is the final battle; Pahlavi will return,” a connection with the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
The “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon” chant asks: What does it imply for a central authority to prioritize overseas conflicts over home welfare? How lengthy can imposed team spirit change for precise prosperity? And who has the precise to decide which reasons are value sacrifice?
Such questions prolong past Iran. They problem assumptions about how governments invoke global reasons to justify home insurance policies and when electorate have the precise to mention, “Our story comes first.”
As such, the mantra “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran” is, I imagine, each protest and reclamation. It rejects the Iranian state’s narrative of obligatory sacrifice whilst saying the precise of other people to writer a countrywide tale concerned with Iran’s personal wishes, demanding situations and aspirations.
