Iran's state broadcaster was briefly knocked off air by an Israeli strike on June 16.-/AFP/Getty Images
Samira Mohyeddin is a Toronto-based journalist and the 2024-25 inaugural journalism fellow at the University of Toronto’s Women and Gender Studies Institute.
I was born in Iran. My parents fled to Canada in 1979 because they opposed the coming of clerical rule in the country.
The brutality of the Islamic Republic of Iran is well documented – its repression of women, its jailing of dissidents, its executions of protesters. I oppose the Iranian government. I also don’t want my country bombed and Iranians killed. That position is one shared by millions of Iranians in the diaspora, but it is also a political inconvenience for Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet, who want to bomb Iranians into freedom.
Exchange of attacks between Israel and Iran has reopened old wounds for Iranians who lived through an eight-year war of attrition with Iraq in the 1980s.
For Iranians in the diaspora, this war is not a distant geopolitical event. It is deeply personal, as we fear for the friends and family we’ve left behind, and now find ourselves in the strange position of watching the very same government we loathe protect the families and land we love.
On June 16, Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, posted on X: “The residents of Tehran will pay the price, and soon.” But the residents of Tehran have been paying the price for decades. Crippling sanctions. International isolation. Domestic repression. And now the Middle East’s only weaponized nuclear power is raining bombs down upon them. Mr. Netanyahu has had Iran in his crosshairs for decades, and since Israel’s attack on Iran last week, over 200 Iranians have been killed, as well as two dozen Israeli citizens. How is this war making Israeli citizens feel more safe and secure?
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Israel’s bombs have killed many of the commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – some of the very same men responsible for the killings of dozens of Canadians in the downing of Ukrainian Flight 752 in Tehran in 2020. That case was referred to the International Court of Justice by Canada and its international partners in 2023 but thanks to Israel’s form of justice, those men will never be held accountable for their crimes. They will never have to face the families whose lives they ruined. As we have seen over the past few days, bombs falling on Iran do not differentiate between a general in the IRGC and a teenager in Shiraz.
Make no mistake, Iran’s leaders want this war. It lets them cloak their repression in nationalism and their failures in external blame. The regime that massacred protesters during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising now wraps itself in the flag of resistance. This war gives them cover to crack down even harder. The people who will pay the highest price for Israel’s escapade in Tehran will be the very same Iranian dissidents that Israel claims to support. Israel has foolishly given a lifeline to the Islamic Republic of Iran with its actions. At the end of the day, Iranians may hate their government, but they love their country more.
This tit-for-tat exchange of attacks between Israel and Iran has also reopened old wounds for Iranians who lived through an eight-year war of attrition with Iraq in the 1980s, which saw hundreds of thousands killed. Iranians don’t want war. The international community must come together to stop this immediately. There is no other option.
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As I was writing this on Monday, two things happened. Israel issued evacuation orders for Tehran’s district three – a hilly, affluent neighbourhood in the north end of the city that houses most foreign embassies and international diplomats, and is also home to Iran’s national library, which contains some of the world’s oldest written documents. In addition, Israel bombed Iran’s state broadcaster live on air. Hundreds of people work inside that building. I may not like the content of Iran’s state broadcaster, but the targeting of that building and those journalists likely meets the threshold for a crime under international law. Israel must not be allowed to continue to run roughshod over international laws and norms as it unleashes endless wars with its neighbours.
The day after Israel first attacked Iran, Mr. Netanyahu spoke directly to the people of Iran in a video. “As we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom,” he said, urging the Iranian people to rise up. But how can Iranians rise up while they are under attack? Bombs don’t bring freedom. They bring death and destruction, no matter the purported intentions behind them.
The West needs to find a new way of standing with the Iranian people – one that understands that opposing a government does not mean inviting war. I do not support the Iranian government. I never have. But I still love my country. And I refuse to accept that the only future available to us is one written in fire.