NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
A Muslim scholar who was forced to flee Egypt after criticizing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks is warning America’s far left that its alliance with Islamist extremism could end the same way Iran’s did in 1979 — with an Islamic regime seizing power after partnering with leftist factions.
Dalia Ziada, a Middle East scholar and Washington, D.C.-based coordinator at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, later relocated to the United States and said she is now seeing similar and troubling dynamics take shape here.
Her warning comes as a global network of anti-Israel activist groups is mobilizing coordinated “Nakba 78” protests across the United States and around the world this weekend, with organizers using the anniversary of Israel’s founding to stage demonstrations that critics say challenge the Jewish state’s legitimacy, and, in some cases, call for its dismantling
“For five or seven years now, we have been seeing some kind of a ‘sinful marriage’ between the radical left and the radical Islamism, the groups that hate Western liberal democracies and desire to destroy them,” she told Fox News Digital.
SCATHING REPORT CALLS ON US TO LABEL ISLAMIST GROUP INFILTRATING ALL ASPECTS OF AMERICAN LIFE AS TERRORIST ORG
Left: Protesters gather in Tehran in February 1979 during the Iranian Revolution, carrying banners calling for an Islamic Republic. Right: Dalia Ziada, a Middle East scholar and Washington, D.C.-based coordinator at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, speaks during an interview. (Gabriel Duval/AFP via Getty Images; Provided by Dalia Ziada)
Ziada said Islamist movements, including groups tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, have for years sought to use the Palestinian cause as a way to mobilize support and build alliances with other activist movements in the West, a phenomenon some analysts have described as a “red–green alliance.
She also argued that Islamist movements have increasingly targeted Jewish communities in the West, which she described as a “pillar” supporting liberal democratic systems.
“They agree on one thing, that they need to destroy the West as we know it today and replace it with something else. For the radicalists, they want to replace it with the Marxist system. For the Islamists, they want to replace it with an Islamist system, which they think is the ideal system,” she said.
Global protest network
A Fox News Digital investigation found that approximately 425 organizations — including communist groups, Muslim advocacy organizations and anti-Israel activist coalitions — are operating within a coordinated transnational protest network with a combined funding footprint of roughly $1 billion in annual revenues.
The groups have organized an estimated 736 events across 39 countries this weekend.
Ziada said the alliance reflects what she described as a shared hostility toward Western liberal democracies and has intensified in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.
She argued the war in Gaza has provided what she described as a “moral umbrella” for the movement.
“They used that to give themselves some moral legitimacy to go on and accelerate the process of destroying the West,” she said.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest outside Columbia University in New York City on Feb. 2, 2024. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/VIEWpress)
Lessons from Iran
Ziada pointed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a cautionary example.
“We saw this exactly happening in Iran in the 1970s. The Islamists used the left because the legitimacy of the left is stronger, because they don’t come from a religious background,” she said. “They allied the communists there, made them believe that we all are going to change Iran and make it a better place. And how it ended in 1979, the Islamic Revolution happened. The Islamists took over the country and the first group they sacrificed … was the communists, the leftists in Iran.”
Ziada warned that similar dynamics could emerge in the United States if ideological alliances continue to deepen, arguing that movements built around shared opposition can fracture once power shifts.
She said that while the groups involved may appear aligned in the short term, their long-term goals are fundamentally incompatible — a pattern she said has played out repeatedly in the Middle East.
She said such alliances are often temporary, warning that once power is secured, more extreme factions tend to dominate.
A split image shows Americans held hostage during the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran alongside modern-day protests in Iran. (Bettmann/Getty Images; Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)
ASRA NOMANI: I WATCHED HATE CONSUME DEMOCRATS’ ‘NON-VIOLENT’ #NOKINGS RALLIES
She said the protests themselves are expected to follow a familiar pattern of anti-Israel demonstrations that she described as “very well organized worldwide.”
“I don’t think this time it would be any different in the general sense of demonizing Israel, trying to blame Israel for everything,” she said.
Ziada said protesters are likely to frame Israel using terms such as “apartheid” and “genocide,” language she argued points to a broader, coordinated alignment of groups operating with similar messaging and goals.
Ziada said the term “Nakba,” meaning “catastrophe,” has been reframed over time, arguing it was originally used in part to criticize Arab leaders for rejecting a proposed Palestinian state — a context she said is largely absent from modern protests.
“I wouldn’t say it’s kind of a bureau… but they all agree on one thing, which is destroying the United States or weakening the Western world,” she said.
A demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in Tehran on June 14, 2025, showing solidarity with the government against Israel’s attacks and marking Eid al-Ghadir. (Atta Kenare/AFP)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Ziada said she has already seen the consequences of such alliances firsthand in the Middle East.
“I have seen my native Egypt being destroyed by these groups, by these people, and I’ve seen the entire Middle East actually falling under this. And I don’t want to see the United States, the country that has given me my education, has given my career, has given me a refuge when these radicals tried to kill me — I don’t want to see being destroyed by the same bad guys.”
