On June 12, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu placed a handwritten note at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Revealed only after Israel’s strikes on Iran, it read, “The people shall rise up as a great lion. He shall not lie down until he eats the prey and drinks the blood of the slain.” Initially interpreted as a call for Israelis to rise against the Iranian regime, some observers now suggest the line could just as well refer to Iranians rising up against their own leadership.
The timing adds weight to this reading. Just a day after Netanyahu placed the note, Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion” on June 13, deploying over 200 warplanes and Mossad-controlled drones in a massive preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, missile sites, and military infrastructure across Tehran, Natanz, Shiraz, Kermanshah, and Esfahan.
The two nations have been trading strikes since then.
Amid the escalating conflict, on June 17, Israeli forces said they had killed Iran’s wartime chief, Ali Shadmani, in an airstrike on a command centre in central Tehran. Iran has not confirmed the strike.
And yet, amid the military strikes, another aim appears to be surfacing, one that goes beyond the battlefield.
Netanyahu has hinted at a broader ambition: regime change. “I can tell you this,” he said on Saturday, “we have indications that senior leaders in Iran are already packing their bags. They sense what’s coming.”
The question is: could the Iranian people themselves be the ones to bring about that change?
RISING LION COULD BE IRANIAN PEOPLE
Voices from Iranians and Israelis began framing how the Iranians might rise against the Khamenei regime.
“Cyrus the Great once freed the Jewish people from captivity. Perhaps today, it is Israel’s historic turn to help the Iranian people win their own freedom. I firmly believe that a day will come when Iran and Israel will stand together as inseparable friends. A free Iran is on the horizon (sic),” Iranian analyst Navid Mohebbi wrote on X.
Supporters of Operation Rising Lion have emphasised the symbolism behind its name.
“Rising Lion is a beautiful name for the operation, reminding the people of Iran that Israel is not their enemy, and looks forward to peace and friendship as the Lion rises to where he was before ’79,” wrote Professor and Senior Research Fellow Eugene Kontorovich.
Another person echoed the sentiment.
“‘Rising Lion.’ The name of the operation in Iran. I think of the name and history of the Persian and Jewish people and see the current connection of fate between the Jewish people and the Iranian/Persian people, two cultures of lions. Cultures that are similar in courage and strength,” a person shared on X.
“We meet again in an era when the Iranian people are captives of a murderous, jihadist regime that took over 47 years ago and whose main goal is global ethnic cleansing that begins with the Jews and religious coercion in Iran and later in the world,” they added.
COULD IRANIANS RISE UP AGAINST THE KHAMENEI REGIME?
In a country of over 90 million where dissent is tightly controlled, it’s hard to know just how widespread the anger is.
But many Iranians, especially the young, have grown deeply disillusioned with the Islamic Republic. Their frustration isn’t just about repression; it’s also about economic ruin and corruption that have shattered everyday life.
The 2022 protests after Mahsa Amini’s death made clear just how deep that anger runs.
With strict religious policing, shrinking freedoms for women, and a violent grip on dissent, the regime has alienated a large part of the population. For many, its claim to moral authority is long gone.
Former Israeli National Security Council head and IDF reserve major general Giora Eiland told Newsweek that Israel may already be receiving help, directly or indirectly, from Iranians.
“We can assume that there are three levels of Iranians that, directly or indirectly, might help us,” Eiland said.
“First, when we located some of the Israeli groups that were inside Iran and launched drones from short distances against Iranian facilities, they might have been given some assistance from locals. I cannot verify it, but this makes sense.”
He added, “Secondly, Israel is probably encouraging some groups in Iran, and I cannot exclude even an approach to some of the military forces in Iran — not the Revolutionary Guard, but some of the conventional military or regular Iranian army — that maybe the time is now for them to do something. It might be done in a very, very tacit way, but I cannot exclude it.”
“And number three,” he continued, “in a way, Israel is even formally calling the Iranian [people] to try to rise against the government.”
As Israeli warplanes struck Iran, exiled opposition figures scrambled to seize the moment. Reza Pahlavi, the late Shah’s son, endorsed the strikes from Washington and called on Iranians to rise. Maryam Rajavi’s Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), based in France and Albania, released last-minute claims of Iran’s covert nuclear work and hinted at fresh underground activity.
IRANIAN UPRISING AGAINST REGIME MIGHT SEEM UNLIKELY
But many remain sceptical. Iran’s domestic opposition is not only suppressed but fragmented, from secular dissidents and ethnic militias to Islamist factions and monarchist supporters.
Most operate from exile, and none have yet demonstrated the organisational strength or popular backing to pose a serious existential challenge to the regime, according to a report by The Guardian.
Inside Iran, these groups are classified as terrorist organisations, and their networks have been repeatedly dismantled or neutralised by the regime’s security apparatus over the past four decades.
“It is important and deeply traumatic and embarrassing for the Islamic Republic, but it would be a little too triumphant to think that it means the regime is going to collapse as a result,” Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, told The Guardian.
The historical evidence of regime change brought about through war suggests that it is rarely the result of aerial attack alone, Vakil said.
“Unless the United States suddenly decides that it wants to roll in with boots on the ground, and that it is prepared to engage in a military operation like the one in Iraq, it is very hard to see the Islamic republic being toppled overnight,” she said.
Even if the Khamenei regime is toppled, the outcome might not be favourable for many Iranians.
Vakil noted the possibilities following a regime change: a North Korea-style pariah state, sanctioned but unshakeable; a Syria-like descent into civil war; a military regime like Sisi’s Egypt; or an Iraq-style dictatorship, brutal and enduring.
As Israel carries on strikes on Iran, hopes of an Iranian uprising remain clouded by uncertainty. While symbolic gestures and exiled voices stir debate, real change from within might take some time. And if it comes, it might not be without chaos.
