Israel and Iran at war until the 28th February
- While Israel and Iran have been at war since the 28th of February, about 200,000 Iranian Jews live in the state of Israel.
- The Iranian diaspora in Israel largely wishes for the fall of the mullah regime to return to their home country.
- A team from TF1’s 8 p.m. news program met with them in the neighborhoods of Tel Aviv.
She is one of the 200,000 Iranian Jews in Israel, exiled in the 1970s. Since she was 12 and the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iris Gadidi has never returned to Iran. The spices, imported through Azerbaijan and Turkey, that she sells in her store in Tel Aviv remind her of the scents of her childhood, in the bazaars of Tehran. “When the regime changes, I will be the first on the plane to show my daughters the country where I grew up,” she says in the TF1 report at the beginning of this article.
“I prayed for this war to change the regime”
Since the start of the war between Iran and the United States and Israel, Iris Gadidi has pledged unwavering loyalty to the Israeli state. “I am Jewish above all, and Israel is the most important place in the world for me. I prayed for this war to change the regime,” adds the owner of the Talvinsky spice store, without ever mentioning the 1,200 Iranians killed in bombings since the 28th of February.
In the Tel Aviv-Jaffa neighborhood, Shabbat prayers mingle with the Iranian imperial flag. A dual belonging to two enemy countries reconciled by Bijan Barchorderi with portraits of the former Shah and his wife in his restaurant. “His son, Reza Pahlavi, is missing,” he remarks about this opposition figure widely supported by the Iranian diaspora.
“I hope to see Israel and Iran united one day”
From this war depends his inner peace, ensures Bijan Barchorderi, whose sons have served in combat units of the Israeli army. “I hope that one day we will see Israel and Iran united, that we will regain a union like in the time of the Shah, when the two countries loved each other,” believes the owner of the Gourmet Sabzi restaurant, in the country’s second-largest city.
Some put their mother tongue at the service of Israel
Others have chosen to use their mother tongue and culture in the service of Israel. “On social media, the Israeli army has accounts in Hebrew, Arabic, and surprisingly, also in Persian, run by the so-called ‘Uncle Kamal’,” explains Florence de Juvigny, special envoy of TF1-LCI in Israel, referring to Kamal Pinhasi, spokesperson for the Israeli military in Iran.
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“We repeat: we are not at war with the Iranian people,” proclaims the lieutenant colonel in a video on social media. An example of communication campaigns to the extreme and heavily relying on artificial intelligence intended for the Iranian people, in the hope of an uprising against the mullah regime.
