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“It is incredible to hear Netanyahu call on the Iranian people to rise up against the very things he has subjected Palestinians to. But it is not surprising. I am all too familiar with the ways imperialists, occupiers and invaders weaponise Muslim women’s bodies and rights to justify their wars,” Egyptian author Mona Eltahawy wrote in an op-ed piece for The Guardian.

Her words come days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Iranians, “They’ve impoverished you, they’ve given you misery, they’ve given you death, they’ve given you terror, they shoot down your women, leaving this brave, unbelievable woman, Mahsa Amini, to bleed on the sidewalk for not covering her hair.”

“A light has been lit — carry it to freedom. This is the time. Your hour of freedom is near — it’s happening now,” he said in an interview with Iran International.

Netanyahu’s statement came after Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear sites on June 13 and Tehran retaliated. What followed was an Israel-Iran war, and on Tuesday, Israel agreed to US President Donald Trump’s proposal for a ceasefire with Iran after it achieved its goal of removing Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat, Netanyahu said in a statement posted by his office.

It is rather strange that Netanyahu, whose war on Gaza has killed over 28,000 women and girls according to an analysis by UN Women last month, is attempting to become a flag-bearer for feminism by ‘rescuing’ the women of Iran.

‘Hideous, hollow hypocrisy’

“I am against the Iranian regime for its human rights violations and the exploitation of women’s freedom. I remain strongly opposed to it. However, I am also against the US and Israel for bombing Iran, which has killed innocent children and women, and for the deaths of over 15,000 children in Gaza,” a social media user wrote on X, ending her sentiments with a hashtag calling for a free Palestine.

Eltahawy reminded people that Netanyahu was the same man “whose genocide of Palestinians in Gaza killed more women and children in its first year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.”

She added that Netanyahu “invoked the Iranian regime’s heinous women’s rights records to justify his heinous war on Iran.”

“Netanyahu is using Muslim women’s ‘rights’ to justify his war. What hideous, hollow hypocrisy. As his troops slaughter civilians in Gaza, he claims to be standing up for Iranian women’s autonomy. He is far from the first warmonger to do so,” an X user wrote.

Another netizen highlighted that claiming ‘Iran murders women’ to justify bombing Iranian women, while supporting Israel as it murders women and girls in Gaza, was “one of the most disgusting stances.”

A social media user said that if a person being Iranian and against the bombing of their people was ‘pro-regime extremist’, then “by that logic, every Israeli protesting Netanyahu must be a Hamas sleeper cell”.

“This isn’t about democracy or women’s rights, it’s about control. Zionists don’t care what kind of Iran you want, they just want it flattened. Sorry, but being anti-war isn’t extremism. Miss me with that double standard colonial trash. Being anti-bombing doesn’t mean pro-regime, it means pro-humanity.”

People also reshared a post from a TikTok content creator that stated, “I don’t want to see you posting ‘Iran has the right to protect itself’ if you were raising awareness about the Mahsa Amini protest two years ago,” and urged people to read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, “which was inspired by the Iranian Revolution in 1979.”

An X user said the original poster used “The Handmaid’s Tale to manufacture consent for imperialism.” Another person retweeting the post said that it was “proof that white feminists don’t actually care about women”.

“They don’t see the Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Yemeni and Iranian women being killed by Israel as people. They don’t see that stopping Israel from senselessly killing random people is a progressive position to take.”

‘As an Iranian woman…’

Iranian women also chimed in on the conversation, with one social media user saying, “As an Iranian woman, I don’t think they [Western feminists] can help because after living in Iran, they can understand the freedom that they are seeking is different than ours.”

She maintained that they did want to change the mandatory hijab rule and wanted to be “exactly equal to men.” However, the user said she did not “want to be sexualised like Western women and call it freedom.”

“That’s not freedom. I want the women in my country to be equal to men, and that is something that Netanyahu and his death cult can’t give it to us. So don’t use Iranian women as an excuse to slaughter them.”

Responding to a tweet claiming Iranian women had high literacy rates and that 70 per cent of STEM graduates were women, an X user said, “We Iranian women are oppressed by the government BUT we don’t need anyone to liberate us by bombing our country.”

“The concept of being an Iranian woman and having to see both leftist men and girlboss feminists give their opinions of women’s liberation in Iran all while wondering when my aunt is going to have internet so I can hear her voice,” a netizen wrote, highlighting the impact of Israeli strikes on the livelihoods of everyday Iranian women.

“As an Iranian woman, I condemn your white saviour syndrome,” a woman wrote in response to someone asking their X followers if they condemned Iran’s treatment of women.

‘Eyes on your own paper, US’

Many social media users pointed out that Trump, who quickly assumed responsibility for brokering peace in the Middle East, did not care about Iranian women.

“If you think Donald Trump cares about Iranian women, you don’t deserve to be take seriously ever again,” one person wrote.

Another said, “You think Trump and MAGA truly care about your rights as women?? They hate women and will never care about Iranian women!”

An X user told Americans to shut up about sexism in Iran after they “forced a dead woman to give birth”, referring to Adriana Smith, a brain-dead Georgia woman who was kept on life support to continue her pregnancy, gave birth via C-section on June 13 and was later set to be taken off of life support.

“Objectively discussing harms the Iranian government has caused women isn’t Islamophobic, but when US citizens breeze past their own deeply sexist policy and instead weaponise a narrative about Iran’s sexism to justify imperialist military intervention, that’s clearly rooted in Islamophobia,” the individual wrote.

If all the chatter on social media, this was perhaps the best take:

“I think Muslim women would be better off if you simply didn’t bomb them.”