Israel Matzav

The truth about Iran?

Israel's Channel 2 interviewed a Tehran woman on Friday night, who spoke about how her fellow Iranians really feel about Israel, and about the effect on Iran of the economic sanctions. While I wonder how reliable this interview is (surely the Iranian government knows who she is and will arrest her if it so chooses), much of it does seem plausible.

Shaharanz said most of the people who demonstrated against Israel earlier in the day “have no idea what Quds Day is.” She said people were compelled and paid by the regime to demonstrate.

She and a group of her friends, she said, decided to remain at home. ”I am exposed to information from the outside world and talk about things to my friends, but most of the people are ignorant of what’s going on. The regime wants to keep people in the dark,” she said.

There were plenty of people in Tehran, “not simple people,” who didn’t even know there was an earthquake in Iran last week. Local news outlets were simply “full of lies,” she said.

She said the regime was feeding “senseless hatred of Israel” — that officials “go to the villages and talk about Israel” and “people believe what they are told.”

Asked whether people believed Israel would strike, Shaharanz said that the Iranian public was divided into those who consumed news solely from government agencies, who were convinced that Israel was about to attack Iran, and those who got their news from other sources, who thought it wouldn’t.

“Frankly,” she said laughing, “I don’t think many of the people would know what you mean if you asked them about uranium enrichment. They’d have no clue.”

If they anticipate an attack on Iran, she also said, they think it will come from America, not Israel.

The regime did not want war, she said, since it would harm its strategic objectives. But “the authorities” were not being hurt by sanctions; only the ordinary people were. She spoke of people “pleading for a piece of meat” and cried when describing a child who didn’t have the money to pay for vegetables.

More laughter came when she said that Israel “is not on the map” here — and it turned out she meant this literally. A Facebook friend in Israel’s father died and she wanted to phone him to offer condolences. But when she went to the authorities in Tehran to make the call, Israel was not on the list of countries. “They laughed at me. They thought I was playing a joke.”

Read the whole thing. Reading this interview makes me question even more strongly the assumption - by the Obama administration and others - that an Israeli strike on Iran would result in the Iranian people rallying around the regime. I just don't see that happening.

Labels: al-Quds day demonstrations, Iran, Iranian nuclear threat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:42 AM