While the squares of the West boil with selective fury, the world is splitting along a fault line that is no longer geographical, but anthropological. On the one side, theIran of the regime that today, 3 January 2026, threatens ‘total chaos’ by the mouth of Khamenei; on the other, the muscular populism of Donald Trump that promises a ‘freedom’ that risks being just another form of submission. In between, the peoples, crushed between the anvil of a faith made weapon and the hammer of a politics made show.

The Gaza paradox: a freedom already captive

We must stop with the hypocrisy of those who speak of the future of Palestine as a risk of theocratic drift. The truth is starker: Gaza is already in the abyss. We should not fear that it will slip into it; we should take note that it has been immersed in it for years. Under Hamas rule, dissent is already apostasy and women’s freedom is already a crime punished by force. To shout ‘Free Palestine’ while ignoring that part of that people is already hostage to an internal Islamist regime is an exercise in moral blindness. If liberation from external occupation does not coincide with liberation from internal theocratic oppression, we are only endorsing a change of captor. Those who demonstrate for Gaza but remain silent about the chains imposed by Islamic fundamentalism on the Palestinians themselves are not defending a people, they are defending an ideology.

Israel: the labyrinth of dogmas

Even on the Israeli front, confusion reigns supreme. We must distinguish in order to understand. On the one hand there are the ultra-Orthodox Jews(Haredim), paradoxically often opposed to the very existence of the State of Israel (as a secular entity that anticipates the Messiah) and refractory to civil duties such as military service. On the other, there is the religious nationalist right, which instead fuses messianism and state politics. It is this second force that pushes Israel into a dark limbo: a place where the boundary between rule of law and ethno-religious identity becomes porous. When nationalist dogma takes over institutions, liberal democracy falters, crushed between those who do not want the state and those who want to turn it into a theocratic instrument.

The new contemporary liturgy: populism

There is a lot of talk about Trump’s support for Iranian freedom. But beware: contemporary populism is not an alternative to theocracy, it is a secularised version of it. In the United States, this is fused with charismatic Protestantism, a religious force that has no equal in Europe and transforms the political leader into a messianic figure. If social media is not a literal sacred text, it has become its daily liturgy: a stream of unquestionable ‘truths’ that require no verification but only faith. The populist does not seek voters, he seeks believers. And when politics becomes a matter of faith in the Anointed One, critical thinking – the heart of democracy – is sacrificed on the altar of immediate consensus.

The convenient enemy and the silence on Tehran

Why do the squares fill up for Gaza and remain lukewarm for the women of Tehran? The answer lies in the ‘enemy’. Demonstrating for Gaza is ‘easy’ because it allows one to point the finger at an external and identifiable enemy – Israel – often reduced to slogans like‘genocidal state‘. It is a narrative that is reassuring because it puts in the crosshairs what many perceive as the armed wing of the Western or ‘Jewish’ value system.

To demonstrate for Iran, on the other hand, is uncomfortable. It means admitting that evil may be internal to a culture that the West has decided not to criticise out of a misguided sense of tolerance. It means acknowledging that an Islamic theocracy is a royal executioner. The ethical double burden is here: one accuses the West of all guilt so as not to have to face the horror of a regime that kills in the name of God. But to ignore the girls hanged in Tehran so as not to appear ‘intolerant’ is the most discriminatory act possible: it means deciding that those people have no right to universal freedom.

Sanitising the future

No people are masters of their own destiny as long as they have to choose between the bunker of an Ayatollah, the dogma of a settler or the social profile of a populist leader. Democracy must be healed with a return to secular reason and doubt. We must have the courage to be intolerant of those who use God to trample on man. Because freedom is not a dogma, nor a hit post: it is the right of every individual to live without having to ask permission from heaven or a leader.