"We Are 100 Percent Behind You."
"We Are 100 Percent Behind You."
Meet the Iranians who support Israel.
Last Saturday, members of the local Iranian community came together for a candlelight vigil in support of Israel. Just minutes away from where, a week prior, a rally supporting Hamas had devolved into shouting and people hitting each other with flags, this vigil in a pavilion on the edge of Lake Washington was peaceful. Iranian, Israeli, and Ukrainian flags hung side by side, along with posters of the faces of Israeli hostages still trapped in Gaza. In the center of the pavilion, a Star of David formed out of tea lights created a soft glow. Iranians and Israelis and others shared their grief and prayed for the return of the kidnapped.
Iranians might seem like an unlikely group of people to openly support Israel, but they may turn out to be some of our strongest allies. Pockets of friendship already exist, like the Israel Loves Iran social media campaign. And of course, America has a large population of Persian Jews. Some human rights activists in the Iranian community, like those who have been vocally protesting the treatment of women in Iran, especially following the death last year of Mahsa Amini, see in Israel the freedom and abundance that existed in Iran before the 1979 revolution. They see the connection between terror groups and the Islamic regime and what they have done to innocent people to embitter their lives, feed children on hate, and divert wealth to terrorism.
I talked at length to two organizers of the vigil, Homeira and Behrooz, about why they support Israel. These interviews took place separately, but there were so many points of connectivity I have stitched them together as one. They have been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your life and how you came to support Israel.
Homeira: I remember when I was going to school—all of the students remember—every morning they forced us to say, “death to Israel, death to America.” Every single morning. Somehow I was always late. I hated to say that. Many students hated to say that. From the bottom of our heart we feel they [Iran] are doing this for their own benefit. They want to create an enemy. They need to brainwash Muslims and put them against innocent people like Israeli people. We cannot tolerate this. We are under sanctions. We have oil, we have gas, we have everything, but whatever Iran earns goes to support terrorist organizations…We know what the people in Israel are going through. We feel that, just dealing with this regime for 44 years.
It gets very hard to live in Israel, and every moment feel like a rocket is coming and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Lots of things that have happened we relate to. We have a historical connection to the Jewish people. Cyrus the Great saved the Jews, and we relate ourselves to Israeli people, because it’s coming from our hearts. We have been through a lot.
Behrooz: Since I was a child I have been in a classroom and neighborhood with different backgrounds and faiths. Jewish, Christian, Baha’i. The child is very innocent, and as adults we try to judge people. The child sees everybody as equal. I saw everybody equally. They were like sisters and brothers. I always tried to be fair and loving and helpful with all of them. I want to promote support solidarity, hope, love, and peace. I want to spread this to everybody. I want to plant the seed of hope and love for everybody.
What do you see as Iran’s role in this conflict?
Homeira: We know whatever Israelis are suffering is just coming from Iran. They are planning. They are making a group like Hamas to attack Israelis. The master of all of these plans is coming from Iran.
We all are saying that Iran is an octopus. The head of the octopus is in Iran. The hands are all around the world. One hand is going to move Russia. The other hand is going to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then Hamas, they have some proxies in Yemen, in Iraq. Iranians are so undermined by this regime. I cannot say that Khomeini is is our leader. He is a leader of terrorist organizations.
Behrooz: When an individual has cancer, you have to take the cancer out. We have to get rid of the Islamic Republic and the cells and destroy Hamas, because they are just feeding for money and military hardware. They’ve been brainwashed.
Before 44 years ago, Iran was one of the most beautiful countries in the whole world. We were the best country in the whole Middle East. Everybody respected them. JFK met with the Shah. There were so many people in the street celebrating. When I see that video, I cry to see what happened. Look at Iran now. They sold everything. All the government people have so many houses, in Canada, in US, all over the world, while children don’t have food. Children are looking for food in the garbage. When I see that it just breaks my heart. They plant this seed of hate in our hearts.
[The Iranian regime] doesn’t value anyone’s life. All the money, they give it to Hezbollah, they give it to Hamas to protect them. They want to be powerful.
The people of Palestine are innocent. They don’t have anything to do with this. They’ve been influenced, they been brainwashed. In Iran, they go to the kids, they tell them “death to Israel.” They plant the hate, and they are on the payroll. They give them the money and they give them the ammunition to fight.
How did you feel when you saw people here in the Seattle area demonstrating basically in support of Hamas right after the attacks?
Homeira: I’m so upset. To be honest with you, I’m upset with some governments that let this kind of action happen. They opened up the doors, in Europe and in the United States, and we are witnessing something like this. I understand that the Black Lives Matter community are involved and pro-Palestinian, or pro-Hamas. It is hard for me to see that people cannot see the truth. They saw that these Hamas terrorists went to Israel. They killed the children. They kidnapped many children and women and men and they went to the music festival. They killed them. They burned them.
Behrooz: I’m not surprised, because I knew they existed… Everybody thinks it’s about the land. It doesn’t have anything to do with land. Hamas, it just wants to destroy Israel, which is wrong.
We are here for humanity and human rights, period. We stand behind our friends. How can I face my [Israeli] friend? He lost his aunt and her husband, and the kids are kidnapped. How can I face them? Because I was a coward? They are my family. I don’t turn my back on my family.
What’s the way forward?
Behrooz: This is not something that we can do overnight. In Iran they killed us for 44 years. They killed our children, our teenagers, poisoned their lunches, sprayed gas on the young girls. What government does that?
In Iran, two generations were wasted. In Palestine, they plant the hate in them. They try to destroy Israel. This is wrong. This is going to take years to step by step heal the people, try to help them, try to be united with then, give them the hope, give them the kindness, to say that they’re not that bad. It’s going to take time to heal that process. It’s not going to be overnight.
The old man plants a very small fruit tree when he knows that he’s not going to see that fruit to eat it. He’s not doing it for himself, he’s doing it for the next generation. We cannot ignore it and let go.
Homeira: We are saying Palestinians have their own lives. They have enough for their own lives. They are provided for by Saudi Arabia and this Iranian regime and by many people. They are saying, no we are so poor. No, you are not poor. You have everything, but you want to fight. After they learned to walk they were taught how to fight. Unfortunately, some countries are happy for this conflict to be going on.
I want to say a very important thing: I wish Europe and America [would see] that there is only one solution. Just get rid of the head of the octopus in Tehran. There is no other way to solve this problem. That’s why all the Iranians are supporting Israel.
Behrooz: Intelligence is with you and me and it depends on how we use it. Do we use it for a good purpose or a bad purpose? They think they are doing the right thing. That’s why I want to plant this seed of hope and love. Israeli people, I know them, they have brilliant people. They have so many advances in medicine, in technology, same as the Iranian people. Engineers, doctors. Same in Arab countries, in Ukraine, in Russia. Imagine if it all came together, what kind of world we could have.
At the end of the day I have to say, what did I do today? Did I put a smile on somebody’s face? I’m not Jewish, I’m Muslim, but religion to me is very personal and I respect all my friends and I do the same thing now that I’m 67 years old. I still respect every one of them. There’s no difference between me and you. I don’t see a difference between us. Maybe my skin is a little darker than yours, but it doesn’t matter, our blood is red.
I have a duty for all of you. You are my family. If you have a headache, I have a headache. I’m 100 percent behind you.
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Thank you for posting. So well stated.
Nice article. An interesting perspective that I hadn't expected and reminds me of my own prejudices. Not all Iranians are theocratic madmen. Some are actually decent people, as we might find across all cultures.