Pride in Resistance, not U.S. Genocide!

Speech given by Sonja Tomasko, a member of the Anti-War Committee, at the Taking Back Pride March on June 29, 2025

For over 20 months, the world has been forced to watch as Israel and the United States have committed a nonstop genocide against the Palestinian people. Iran, one of the only countries in the world to provide Palestine with direct material support, has now been threatened by direct war with Israel and the United States, which bombed Iran just the other week.

But, the U.S. wanting to wage war on Iran is not new. Something else that has been painfully consistent, is the western media’s nonstop demonization of Iran. The ruling class is desperate to convince us that their war is our war.

For example, they are  trying to convince us that attacking the people of Iran is somehow helpful for women’s rights. They want us to believe that sanctioning Iran for decades, assassinating its leaders, and possibly exposing Iranian civilians to nuclear radiation is about saving women! This is the disgusting way that they try to appeal to us! 

We have some twisted forms of feminism in this country, which ask us to bomb Iranians while admiring women such as Hillary Clinton or Amy Klobuchar.

But we do NOT look up to women who gloat about murdering our Muslim brothers and sisters, or give multiple standing ovations to Benjamin Netanyahu!

We look up to women like Sahar Emami, an Iranian news anchor who was delivering a report when her building was bombed on live television by the Israeli regime. You could actually see the dust and debris flying around her as she was forced to leave her desk.

And what did she do after she was nearly murdered on live television?

She came back later that day, and finished reporting in defiance of Zionist aggression! These are the kinds of women we look up to, that we admire. And we know that we are the side that stands with women, because the side that stands with women does not want to bomb women to death.

It is surprisingly simple!

The imperialist media also likes to claim that war with Iran is about protecting gay rights. We’re supposed to believe that regime change in Iran, potentially causing millions of deaths in the process, would be just wonderful for the LGBT community! They think we want the world to be like Israel! After all, they have Pride parades in Tel Aviv! How progressive!

These people think that we are stupid! They still don’t understand that when we look at Israel, when we look at the 20 months of gleeful, sadistic genocide, we know that we have nothing in common with people like that–with monsters who intentionally starve out children and gun them down in the streets, and brag about it in tiktok videos! 

We have not forgotten November of 2023, when a gay IDF soldier stood in the ruins of Gaza that he helped destroy, smiling proudly while he held up a rainbow flag.  We feel nothing in common with anyone who is capable of  that kind of evil!

Who we find common cause with are the people who are attacked, demonized, who are STRUGGLING against the forces of U.S. aggression–from the Palestinian doctor who dodged sniper fire to help a wounded man last year, to the Iranian baker who refused to stop baking, even minutes after he found out that his brother was killed by Israel.

He said that the bakery was his frontline. Baking was his way of fighting. I think we can all learn something from that.

Because each of us has our own way of fighting.

In the Anti-War Committee, one thing we fight for is Divestment of Minnesota from Apartheid Israel. Tim Walz and the State Board of Investment have over 5 billion dollars of Minnesota money invested in weapons companies and companies that profit from the genocide of Palestinians. Tim Walz has made public workers unwillingly complicit in the very violence that Donald Trump is inflicting in the middle east, and we fight against that. 

But there are other anti-imperialist organizations here today who also have their ways of fighting. 

And I think each of us, as individuals, can think of more ways we can use our skills to help in this fight.

But what matters is that we do fight, because the United States has been allowed to run rampant in the Middle East for far too long. And the sickening crime that is the genocide of Palestinians still continues, every second of every day. It is our responsibility in this country to do everything we can to put an end to this madness. So we will not be distracted. And we will not be confused!  We say NO WAR ON IRAN.

GAZA GAZA YOU SHOULD KNOW, WE WILL NEVER LET YOU GO