Thousands demonstrated from Athens to Zurich demanding to stop U.S. bombing of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, ironically, with Palestinian, not Iranian flags aloft. In America, blood-and-soil isolationists and the far left are leading a campaign against American involvement in Iran. Demonstrations to “Save the Ayatollah!” pop up from San Francisco to London. Those who demonstrated for Hamas, now demonstrate for their paymaster.
One of their flag-bearers, Zohran Mamdani, is running for the Mayor of New York. Mamdani never denounced the Hamas October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Another leftist leader, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is entertaining US Presidential ambitions for 2028.
Violence and instability have been hitting America in waves. It is easy to just focus on the specific issues, demands, flags, and slogans, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free”, “It is right to rebel. ICE can go to hell,”“System change, not climate change,”“Hands off Iran.” But behind all of these is a network. Nota simple spider’s web with one key figure at its center. More an ecosystem based on mutual interests, agendas and relationships. Resources and training are provided by a variety of actors, including the Muslim Brotherhood and its primary backers, Erdogan’s Turkey and Qatar, home to propaganda mega-channel Al Jazeera; the Shi’a Islamist theocratic dictatorship in Iran; and U.S.-based foundations built by uber-progressive ultra-high net worth families and individuals.
This is the Green-Red Alliance, a loosely-knit international collection of Islamists and far Leftists,focused on weakening, destabilizing and underminingAmerica and the West.
We must connect the dots. As Sun Tzu said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat…” Identifying the intelligence collectors, operations planners, financiers, propagandists, and leadership requires a substantial counterintelligence and law enforcement effort, including language and political-ideological expertise that some doubt our authorities possess.
We must close the knowledge and capabilities gap, quickly. Absent clarity, we will waste time and resources reacting to apparently disconnected issues and incidents while failing to perceive or strategically defeat the network behind them.
Looking back over the last two years, a picture of progressive destabilization unfolds. A big wave began October7, 2023. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a blood-thirsty Gazan mobmassacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 250 in a spreerecorded and broadcast to social media from body cams worn by the eager terrorists.
Such an attack was hardly organized overnight. Neither were the demonstrations celebrating the carnage that “erupted” starting October 8th, escalating in numbers and ferocity.Hamas’ galvanizing act of supreme violence became an organizing tool.
Indiana University’s report, Anti-Israel Campus Groups: Online Networks & Narratives, notes: “As soon as October 8, 2023, National SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] called for a nationwide ‘Day of Resistance’ and circulated organizing toolkits that framed the violence as an act of legitimate liberation. Local chapters echoed this messaging...” Clearly,advance preparations paid off.
Increasingly anti-Israel, anti-Jewish demonstrations on U.S. campuses 2023-2024 were organized byNational Students for Justice in Palestine (“Supporting over 350 Palestine solidarity organizations across occupied Turtle Island [so-called North America]”), the Young Democratic Socialists of America (“We campaign to divest our schools from fossil fuels and Israeli apartheid”), the relaunched Students for a Democratic Society (“Smash Trump’s anti-Palestine task force”), and others.
The battle cry “Globalize the Intifada” surfaced early. Intifada means uprising or rebellion in Arabic. Israel and Jews are not the ultimate target. The ultimate target was and is the U.S.A. and the West. The 2024 policy paper The Student Intifada in the United States concludes, “The student Intifada is a mere drop in a larger flood that must grow and flow more strongly.” This is a work in progress.
The pro-Iranian and anti-Israel vitriol is shared on the populist and far right by several prominent influencers, who together command tens of millions of eyeballs. Reports of Qatar spending billions on buying influence, including pro-Trump social media personalities, are abound.
Mass movements have their own momentum, and develop extreme wings, especially when they include professionals trained to spot and cultivate shock troops. We began to see successive waves of instability break out in the U.S. during 2025.
On May 25, Elias Rodriguez flew from Chicago with a gun in his bag and allegedly killedSarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in Washington, D.C. Both worked for the Embassy of Israel.After shooting his victims in the back, Rodriguez followed up with close-range control shots. If his gun hadn’t jammed, likely many more would have been killed before the terrorist was dragged off by police, screaming “Free Palestine”.
On June 2, a terrorist burned twelve Jewson a walk-a-thon in memory of the Israeli hostages in the tunnels under Gaza. The alleged perpetrator, Mohammed Sabri Soliman, lives in Colorado Springs, over one and a half hours’ drive from the attack site in Boulder. An Egyptian who illegally overstayed his visa under the Biden Administration, Soliman was videoed wielding Molotov cocktails whiles creeching “Free Palestine."
It is unlikely that these alleged attackers were simply lone wolves.Both traveled to the target sites and apparently had detailed information about the security arrangements.
There are reports in the Egyptian media linking Soliman with the Muslim Brotherhood. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) has introduced a bill designating the Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Recent leaks exposed a multi-decade effort by this organization to penetrate institutions in the EU, including France. The close relationship that the super-rich Emirate of Qatar has with the Brotherhood, given Qatar’s controversial funding of Hamas and top U.S. colleges and universities,cvmust not be swept under the rug. Influence operations take a lot of sophistication and money. Qatar has both.
The third wave broke out in the U.S. starting Friday, June 6th.Demonstrations against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spiraled into violence in Los Angeles. Protests spread to several other cities, and the network of anti-Israel organizations directed their followers to join. Efforts are also underway to launch demonstrations in support of the Iranian dictatorship. Whether it is Gaza, Iran, climate change, or immigration, this aggressive organizing needs to be understood as part of a well-funded, sustained push to drive wedge issues as far as they will go, cultivating hardliners along the way.
This will be a long war.The free society will need the capabilities to protect itself from extremists on the far right and the far left. Refusals or failures to connect the bloody dots are increasingly myopic, hypocritical, and dangerous.