I Was There When This Happened; It Could Again

The cover of the November 15, 1977 New York Times read, “Clashes and Tear Gas Mar Shah’s Welcome in Capital.” As Israel continues to prosecute the Western World’s war to disarm Iran’s theocratic dictatorship, I recall that day in 1977 clearly. I was there. It taught me some of what one needs to know about the precious strength of America’s democratic republic, the rule of law, the First Amendment, civil liberties, and the relationship between the United States of America, Israel, and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

As a seven year old American born child, PS 221 Queens student, I was absent from school. Along with my mom and many members of my family, I was clubbed and teargassed on the South Lawn of the Capital in Washington DC.

My family and I were there, along with thousands of others, of many faiths, cultures and backgrounds, for a permitted visit between two Heads of State, United States President Jimmy Carter and the Shah of Iran.

However, the permitted exercise devolved into a riot which was caused by the Mujahadeen. This group was a precursor to Hezbollah and Hamas.
The riot was allowed to go on, without intervention. In broad daylight. Until the Capital Park Police broke it up. Not before the bleachers, baseball bats, and metal chains, were used to beat unsuspecting, unarmed people like my family gathered on the White House Lawn.

Looking back on it, I have no doubt that, John Stuart Mill and the founders of the United States Constitution turned in their graves that day as the First Amendment was perverted: jihadists infiltrated Washington DC to interfere with a lawful visit of by a Head of State from a United States ally. Surely, the right to peaceably assemble was not to beat others, also, gathered.

Less than years two later, the Shah was overthrown in a Coup d’etat. 52 Americans were taken hostage in our own US Embassy in Iran for 444 Days. The United States entered a deep recession with the price of oil and other goods skyrocketing, and inflation in double digits. The United States and Iran are no longer allies.

Not unlike many other children, I was a little girl surrounded by economic and political turmoil as my father and so many others were forced to change jobs. Our family members moved as part of a larger diaspora.

For the Jews in Iran, the execution of Habib Elghanayan, a titan and scion of industry, in May 1979, was another crack in Iran’s veneer, a major inflection point. Some had fled ahead of the 1979 Revolution. Ironically, chillingly, Elghanayan had refused to abandon Iran out of loyalty to Iran, Persia. Some Jews made their way to Israel. Others to Europe. Many to the United States.

This forced diaspora meant we met family members and ways we had not known. Some thousands remained in Iran and do to this day, God help them. Iran’s women, LBGTQ+, and religious minorities have been treated brutally for decades by the Regime.

Though the November 15, 1977 melee cleared, and the teargas stopped stinging my eyes, the focus on the geopolitics, history, law, civil liberties, and what happened that day in 1977 day on the South Lawn of the Capital remained clear eyed harbinger.

Make no mistake: Iran’s people have been hostage to the jihadists who would beat my family and others on the South Lawn of the Capital that day in broad daylight. The same despotic mullahs overthrew Iran’s government, held Americans hostage in 1979 and 1980, brainwashed and created terror proxies all across the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis.

May Israel’s IDF prevail justly, expeditiously and with as few casualties as possible, to  disarm that Regime, free the world,  and the Iranian people of their menace IYH.