“The people of Iran are truly happy and grateful to Israel for taking out the murderous goons of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp,” an Iranian American activist told JNS.

By Karmel Melamed, JNS

Iranian Americans support Israel’s attacks on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and other military sites, and on scientists who are part of the regime’s nuclear program, leaders and activists in the expat Iranian community told JNS.

“After years of failed diplomacy and hollow warnings, Israel’s decision to act was not only justified. It was necessary,” Amir Hamidi, an Iranian American activist and board member of the southern California-based Institute for Voices of Liberty, told JNS.

“When enforcement collapses and the international community hesitates, those who are threatened must defend themselves,” Hamidi said. “Israel acted not out of aggression but necessity. Its targeted strikes were intended to prevent a much larger conflict—one that the regime in Tehran has steadily provoked.”

Andrew Ghalili, a senior policy analyst at the Washington nonprofit National Union for Democracy in Iran, told JNS that many Iranians and Iranian Americans in Iran blame the regime leader Ali Khamenei for the destruction in the country. They believe that the regime’s “supreme leader” has refused to dismantle its nuclear program and has provoked war with the Jewish state for years, according to Ghalili.

“No Iranian asked for this war,” Ghalili told JNS. “The Iranian people have been saying ‘no’ to this regime for years—in the streets, at the ballot box through mass boycotts and in every act of civil resistance.”

“They want jobs, dignity and peace,” he said. “Not missiles flying over their cities because of a regime chasing a nuclear bomb and ideological supremacy.”

Other Iranian American activists said that people in Iran have expressed joy openly on social media, as Israel eliminates leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp, a U.S.-designated terror group that has violently put down protests for freedom in Iran for many years.

“The people of Iran are truly happy and grateful to Israel for taking out the murderous goons of the IRGC, who for more than 20 years have the blood of our innocent compatriots in Iran protesting on their hands,” Tony Hosseini, who leads the Iranian American group D.C. Protests for Iran, told JNS.

“Criminals like the IRGC’s leader Ali Shamkhani had, in the past, ordered his forces to shoot protestors in eyes, to rape women arrested for protesting and to execute protestors,” Hosseini said. “So we thank Israel for eliminating him and getting justice for us.” (Israeli forces killed Shamkhani on Saturday.)

Iranian opposition activists in Europe told JNS that they have spoken to friends and relatives in Iran who have celebrated the Israeli strikes quietly and who have long seen Israel as an ally.

“The Western nations have never been supportive of the protesters in Iran over the years demanding freedom from the Islamic regime,” Niyak Ghorbani, an Iranian-British activist and podcaster in London told JNS.

“Israel and the Israeli people have, for decades, always strongly supported the defenseless Iranian people, who have had no weapons to fight back against this murderous regime ruling,” Ghorbani said. “When Israel strikes back and kills their oppressors, it’s no surprise that Israel is viewed as their genuine friend.”

JNS sought comment from several Jewish Iranian organizations in Los Angeles and New York. Jewish Iranian American leaders have, for decades, largely avoided public comments about the regime, for fear that it would take revenge on the Jews who remain in the country.

Jewish Iranian activists in the United States told JNS that their communities stateside support Israel’s preemptive attacks on the regime and that the communities remember experiencing the regime’s genocidal Jew-hatred 46 years ago, during the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

“Our community’s memory leaves us no doubt about the intentions of the Islamists and the Islamic government,” George Haroonian, an Iranian Jewish activist in Los Angeles who is part of the National Union for Democracy in Iran advisory board, told JNS.

“Their hatred for Israel and their denial that Jews have the right for self-defense and independence is not an issue for diplomatic negotiations,” he said. “We know that is an intrinsic and in-depth religious belief.”

Yehuda Gerami, the chief rabbi of Iran, and the Tehran Jewish Committee, which represents an estimated 8,000 Jews who remain in Iran, issues statements decrying Israel’s attacks on the regime.

Haroonian and other Jewish Iranian American activists told JNS that Jews in Iran live under constant duress and must issue such statements or face the regime’s wrath.

“Without exception, whenever suitable for the regime, the Jewish community has been used as a propaganda tool” in Iran, Haroonian said. “Their deceiving narrative that they distinguish between Zionism and Judaism has lost its cover.”

“For the regime a good Jew is one who is under protection and flag of Islam,” Haroonian added.

Many Jewish Iranian American activists are optimistic that Israel will eliminate the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and that the people of Iran will topple the weakened regime and usher in a new era of peace between Iran and the Jewish state.

“The coming days and weeks will be difficult, but as Iranian Jews, we hope that Israel’s preventive attacks on the fascist Iranian regime’s leadership and military will help bring forward a day soon when the Iranian and Israeli people can once again be joined in unity,” Sam Yebri, a former president of the Los Angeles-based Iranian Jewish nonprofit group 30 Years After, told JNS.