Only a short time ago, Israelis were applauding a holocaust in Gaza. Today, they dare to celebrate the courageous uprising of the Iranian people.
Forty seven years ago, on this very day, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran, left the country, never to return. On that same day, forty-seven years ago, my family and I also left Iran, without knowing that our departure would be final. Amid the chaos of the revolution, nothing was clear except the chaos itself.
We only learned that the royal family had left while we were on our way to the airport, through the headlines of special newspaper editions proclaiming, “Shah raft”, meaning “the Shah has left”. The Shah left, and so did we.
For forty seven years, I have followed from afar the homeland we left behind, its rare moments of joy, and its disasters and suffering beyond all limits. Like others around the world, I have watched in recent days the heroic uprising of the Iranian people in their struggle to free themselves from the oppression of this brutal and cruel regime. As I witnessed the heavy price that protesters were forced to pay, my heart nearly leapt from my chest in sympathy.
The footage showing Basij forces firing relentlessly at demonstrators is chilling. I still have several relatives in Iran, and since the protests began, I have not dared to contact them to check on their safety, as any call from someone living in Israel could place them in danger. I therefore follow events from a distance, praying that the days pass with the least possible loss.
In Israel, as across the world, the Iranian uprising has dominated headlines and occupied a significant share of public debate. This is not only because of the potential repercussions of these developments, or the possibility of an American strike, on Israel, but also because these protests have provided the Israeli public with an opportunity to “stand on the right side” and attempt to repair its image, to itself and to the world.
When I see Jewish Israelis who, until recently, supported the brutal genocide against Palestinians in Gaza with full enthusiasm, or with calculated zeal, or with indifference summed up by the phrase, “this is war”, and then see them today celebrating the courageous uprising of the Iranian people, a wave of nausea grips me from deep within.
Is there any group on earth that embodies collective brazenness more than the Zionist group? After dragging their feet in the face of infants dying of hunger, the bombing of entire neighbourhoods, and complete indifference to the ongoing suffering in the Strip, they now dare to speak of a cruel regime, of a struggle for liberation, of democracy, and of freedom.
I see Israelis shaking their heads in moral superiority, claiming that no one knows the true number of victims among protesters in Iran. Do they know the true number of victims of the Gaza holocaust? And do they care at all?
Recently, I was struck by an influenza unlike anything I have experienced in its severity. It is said to be the worst flu wave to hit our region in decades, and I see no reason to doubt this. I know it is now hitting the people of Gaza with particular cruelty, without warm beds, without roofs for shelter, without medicine, and without dry places to recover. Yet the insatiable Israeli brutality continues to pursue these survivors, insisting on further torment.
While confined to bed, I could do little but watch more videos coming from Iran, especially from my city, Tehran. Each time I put my phone aside, my imagination carried me on a journey to a visit I might one day be able to make.
If I have one wish, it is to see Iran again: the street that once held our home and no longer exists, the Jewish school I attended, which still stands, the grand bazaar of the city, and the alley leading to my grandparents’ house in Isfahan. I can easily recall the scent of each of these places.
I recently read the memoir of Raja Shehadeh, We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I, in which he reflects on his father’s suffering, one of the most prominent Palestinian lawyers of his time, as he tried to adapt to the loss of his home in Jaffa after the Nakba. That enduring longing, the constant readiness to return, and the deep fracture born of its impossibility.
My parents never imagined that their lives would end outside their homeland. Ye,t unlike many who were forcibly uprooted, including the Shehadeh family, another state awaited us, opening its arms to grant us a new “homeland”, on the condition that we accept participation in erasing the history of the people whose land was generously handed to us.
It took me many years to grasp the meaning of this. Even before my feet touched this land at the age of nine, I enjoyed rights that far exceeded those of the people who had lived there for centuries. My rejection of this injustice stems not only from my position as an Israeli Jewish woman with all the privileges that entails, but also from a moral duty imposed by my Iranian identity and my identity as a migrant.
My family and I did not experience a Nakba. On the contrary, we chose to leave our homeland voluntarily. No one expelled us. Unlike Palestinian refugees, we could return at any time. Our fate would not have been worse than that of tens of millions of other Iranians living under this nightmarish regime. We were not cast into exile. Instead, the land of another people was spread beneath our feet after its inhabitants were subdued and crushed.
For all these reasons, I will not claim any form of diasporic solidarity with Palestinian refugees, for I do not possess the brazenness of Zionists. But the pain of watching your homeland from afar as it is torn apart before your eyes and corrupted by a base and cruel regime is a pain I know intimately.
Freedom for the Iranian people, freedom for the Palestinian people, and freedom also for Israeli Jews from the shameful role imposed upon them by a system of supremacy. May the day come when all refugees return to their homelands with their heads held high, and when all the evils of this broken world are eradicated forever.
