Iranian Students Return to Protests Despite the Regime Bullets, Hope for Israeli Attack

Peloni:  The strength and resilience of these young Iranians is impossible to quantify.  At some point, their sense of independence must be met with a similar sense of resolve from around the world to support them beyond rhetorical refrains from thousands of miles away.  The Iranian people deserve to be free, and an opportunity to be free from their state of political capture of the Mullah.  At the very least they deserve the chance to be more than counted among the regime’s latest death statistics in its drive to suppress the will of the people and to vanquish the spirit of freedom spiraling out of control among their subjects.

By Hugh Fitzgerald | Feb  26, 2026

After a one-month closure, Iran’s universities have opened again, and the students, unbowed and uncowed, have returned to protesting against the supreme leader (“Death to Khamenei”) and his regime. They also have let it be known that they would prefer that Israel, not America, bomb targets in Iran because of the Israeli Air Force’s “greater precision” and ability to minimize civilian casualties. Would Antonio Guterres care to comment?

More on the latest from Iran can be found here: “Iranians prefer ‘precise’ Israeli strike over US attack as protests resume at universities,” by James Genn, Jerusalem Post, February 22, 2026:

Iranians, while “waiting every minute and second” for a US strike against the Islamic Regime, would prefer an Israeli strike due to the precise nature of the Air Force’s strikes in June, while there is a perception that US strikes would “bring terrible destruction, like in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a local, identified as Ali told KAN Reshet Bet on Sunday.

Ali added that the Israeli strikes in June focused on targeted hits against “the mercenaries of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” and the Iranian regime’s leadership, and did not cause harm to “ordinary citizens” or any economic infrastructure.

Additionally, he told KAN that the regime has “brutally murdered and dismembered” over 40,000 people, and injured hundreds of thousands more during the anti-regime protests over the past two months.

Ali, discussing the resumed university student protests, said that the regime has used brutal and savage force, murdering and kidnapping students to “choke the protests in their infancy.”

Israel’s public broadcaster also asked Ali if he was afraid to be interviewed by Israeli radio. In response, he quoted a Persian proverb, including that if the regime kidnaps and kills him, then “at least I will rest, at least I won’t feel hungry.”

Further, he added that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has grown in popularity in Iran, with everyone calling him “Bibi-Gol [Bibi the flower],” while telling Ben-Ami that he has been learning Hebrew and that the regime has kept Hebrew-learning platforms open.

The regime has intended these platforms to be used to further its hopes that it will conquer Israel, wanting citizens to know the language, possibly aiding in espionage. “This will help you,” the regime tells citizens, according to Ali….

The Iranian students have returned to their just reopened campuses, and to the battles with the Basij and with the man who sent them, the one they curse with “Death to Khamenei.” They hope, along with 85% of their countrymen, for an attack that will bring down the regime. And some hope that the attack will come from the Israelis, because of the greater “precision” of the IDF attacks as compared to those of the Americans during the 12-Day War last June. Zohran Mamdani wants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he comes to New York. The Iranian protesters want to give him — “Bibi Gol” — a hug.