(Jerusalem Post) Ohad Merlin - Benni Sabti, 52, was born in Tehran seven years before the 1979 Islamic revolution. After suffering much persecution and harassment, Sabti and his family fled Iran by foot when he was 15, arriving in Israel through Europe. Later he helped establish the IDF Spokesperson Unit's Persian department and has been serving as the government's spokesperson in Persian. "Many Iranians are eager to hear about Israel in Persian - in their own language," he said. "The regime itself admits that 70-75% of the Iranian public watches the expatriate channels, including on social media, rather than the Iranian regime's outlets. Few watch the regime's channels." "Today, antisemitism originates almost exclusively from the regime. The pro-Hamas demonstrations are pushed by the regime itself - but the public is mostly not with them. At the start of the revolution, many were antisemitic, but the failure of the revolution and the totalitarian dictatorship it brought upon Iran led to a reversal and a rejection of antisemitism. Today, 50% of Iranians say that they are not hostile to Israel and even sympathize with it - and those are only the ones who dare to speak." "We need to push the West to stand up to Iran: not to give the regime any privileges or lift sanctions at our expense. This money translates very quickly into Hizbullah missiles. We must support Iranian youth. They are not in this game, they do not want the regime; they want freedom and happiness. Israel's only friends in the Middle East are the Iranian people."
2024-03-12 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive