On October 26, hundreds from the Iranian community and the Jewish community in Brussels gathered for a special rally to support the State of Israel in the face of relentless rocket fire and attacks from Gaza. The event was organized by community leaders from both communities and is intended to send a message of solidarity to the entire world that Jews and Iranians stand united “for a new Middle East.”
Iranians and Israelis sing Hatikvah
(credit: Soroush Moradi)
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Footage from the event showed the two communities singing the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, in the streets of Brussels surrounded by Israeli and Iranian flags with the lion and sun symbols. In attendance at the event were Belgian MP Darya Safai as well as Crown Princess of Iran, Yasmine Pahlavi, who has been strongly vocal in support of Israel since the beginning of the war on October 7.
Ahead of the rally, Pahlavi wrote, “I will join fellow Iranians along with the Jewish community tomorrow in Brussels to show our unity against terrorism.” After the event, she also shared a video promoting Israel-Iranian relations on her social media, writing “democracy for Iran, security for Israel, peace for the Middle East.” Similarly, MP Safai wrote, “If there are people who know the threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its terrorist allies like Hamas and Hezbollah, it would be the Iranian people. Today, Iranians and Israelis are victims of these terrorists…”
Raouf Leeraar, of the Centre for Information and Documentation Israel in the Netherlands (CIDI) attended the event and told Ynet, “as a Jewish organization we want to show our solidarity to the Iranian people and the Israeli people during these challenging times…Hamas is operating through and financed by the terrorist regime of Iran with only one goal: killing the Jewish people, dissidents in Iran and everyone who thinks differently.”
Leeraar, who is also a first lt. (res.) in the IDF, also added that “Israelis need to know that many Iranians support them in their battle against pure evil and terrorism. We must stand together everywhere and especially today in Brussels where leaders of the European countries are coming together to speak about the war in Gaza. This also follows the proposal by French President Macron for using the International coalition against ISIS to defeat Hamas, because in fact there is no difference between them.”
Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the American Jewish Committee Transatlantic Institute, shared a message of solidarity from the rally stating, “We come here today together, Iranians and Jews, in solidarity against the terror from Hamas, Hezbollah, that’s being orchestrated by the Iranian regime…”
The rally was not the first event in which the Iranian community joined the Jewish community in support of Israel against Hamas and other Islamic Republic of Iran proxy groups. At Jewish community events in Canada, California, France, and Germany, similar displays were seen in recent weeks.