Over 100 protesters took to the Village Green Park in Great Neck to cheer on the U.S. and Israeli war efforts on Sunday, March 15, as the Iran conflict stretched into its third week.
North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jennifer DeSena, Village of Great Neck Mayor Pedram Bral, and Nassau County Legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip spoke at the protest, organized by Port Washington activist Farshid Dror Bakhshi.
Great Neck is home to the second-largest Iranian community in the United States, consisting largely of Persian Jews and their descendants who fled the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Many from the peninsula’s Persian community came to the protest draped in the pre-revolutionary flag, waving American and Israeli flags, and singing Iranian songs.
Protest organizers placed several props around the gazebo where speakers addressed the crowd — a demon mask with a turban fixed atop its horns, an edited headshot of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with fangs and a red “X” drawn over him, and a cardboard cutout of the recently installed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei with bloody bandages.
Bral, who grew up in Iran, said the Islamic Republic has faced bipartisan condemnation in the United States and that no one should be opposed to this latest war.
“Everybody talked, but no one took action. President Trump said it, and he did it,” Bral said, to cheers of “Thank you, Trump!” from the crowd.
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] is an amazing leader! He has been fighting this war way before Oct. 7,” Pilip said, to which the crowd responded in cheering, “Thank you, Bibi!”
Despite the protesters’ fervent support for the war, it remains largely unpopular nationwide. Only a week after the war began, a Quinnipiac poll showed that 53% of Americans opposed the attacks, with 60% of Independents against the effort.
Bral blamed the media for the lack of support.
“For all these idiots who are sitting out there and complaining and yelling and screaming that they want to stop this war, they must realize that if this war ends without a complete change of the regime, America and all of our allies are in huge trouble,” he said
Bakhshi also said he believed Americans were not supportive of the war because either they were sympathetic to the Iranian regime, like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, or they were not informed about foreign policy.
“The majority of them don’t have enough information about the Middle East,” said Bakshi.
DeSena refused to say whether she supported the war.
“That’s not my job,” she said. “We are a patriotic country, and our military — they are prepared to fight — they are fighting to protect democracy.”
Bakhshi painted the war as the latest development in the long history between the Jewish and Persian people.
“In 539 BC, Cyrus the Great freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return to Israel and build a temple. Israel today is doing its part to assist the valiant people of Iran to free themselves from the tyranny of the regime of mullahs in Iran,” he said.
President Donald Trump has made conflicting statements about whether he will push for a regime change or if he is looking for a more pliant regime, as the United States aopears to have achieved in Venezuela after it abducted former President Nicolas Maduro in January. Still, the protesters were overwhelmingly insistent on achieving a complete regime change.
“Iran is not Venezuela,” Bakhshi said. “[The Iranian] regime is irredeemable.”
“They need a regime change there,” said Ohebshalom, one of the protesters. “I feel bad for them because a lot more people are gonna die … fortunately, I have a lot of hope. Hopefully, it’s gonna end soon.”
“There will be more sacrifices, unfortunately. That’s the reality. That’s the nature of revolution, but we want to prevent what happened two months ago,” said Bakhshi.
In January, Iran was engulfed by protests against the government, and the regime responded with a brutal crackdown, killing thousands of its own people.
“How long it might take, we shall see. We might have months of chaos,” he said.
The protesters displayed pictures of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the former shah of Iran, and his son, Reza Pahlavi, who lives in exile in Washington, D.C.
In 1953, a CIA-backed coup overthrew Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, and the Shah was reinstalled as the country’s leader. The shah presided over a period of prosperity in the country that many protesters reminisced about, but he also ruled the country with brutal, dictatorial force — torturing, imprisoning, and killing many dissidents, before his ouster in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Many at the event said they wished Reza Pahlavi to be similarly installed as Iran’s leader after the war.
Bral said he did not think this war would end up like other regime change wars the United States has waged in the Middle East because he said Iran is not a country with many sectarian, tribal, or ethnic wedges.
“I do believe it’s a lot easier in Iran to change the regime and be successful than it was in other places,” Bral said.
Iran, a country of 92 million people, is only 62% ethnically Persian, and the country faces two separatist movements in its Kurdish and Balochi majority regions. Bral said Trump could make promises for separatist groups to establish their own countries.
North Hempstead Receiver of Taxes Mary Jo Collins was also present at the event. Collins said her son is a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy stationed on the USS George H.W. Bush. The Bush is rumored to be deploying to the Eastern Mediterranean, which would become the third U.S. aircraft carrier in the region.
“I wish the press would be more receptive to what we’re fighting for. It’s freedom. It’s democracy. It’s the freedom to do this,” Collins said, pointing to the demonstration.
Collins said she did not have mixed emotions about her son’s deployment. “I’m very proud. It’s what he signed up to do,” she said with teary eyes.
Many spoke fondly about Iran. Village of Great Neck Trustee Eli Kashi said he left the country when he was just six years old, but he still misses it.
“Before the revolution, it was beautiful. It was very Westernized. The Iranians were very pro-America,” he said.
Janet Shahaeim, one of the demonstrators, said she never thought she would be able to return to her birthplace, Iran, but now she thinks there might be a chance.
“I was itching to go back to Iran,” she said.
Shahaeim said she was robbed in California a couple of weeks ago and that something like that would never happen in Iran.
“Iran was simple,” she said. “Completely different. All of those years that I was there, I’d never see something like that … I’d rather live there.”
