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There are Iranians who trust Israel more than they trust their own government — and some even hope the Jewish state will attack Iran again and help topple its leadership, according to Iranian dissident, journalist, and influencer Pantea Modiri. Speaking on the ILTV Podcast during a recent visit to Israel with the Sharaka organization, Modiri said, “We know that when they [the Israelis] are targeting, they are targeting those people that they should target.” Modiri explained that nearly every Iranian wants to “get rid” of the Islamic Republic but many feel powerless to do so. “They would love any foreign help and intervention,” she said. “But no one wants war. No one wants human cost. So this is the dilemma.” According to Modiri, Iranians are “doing their best” to overthrow the regime without violence because, although it may not seem that way from the outside, the Iranian people deeply value life. She believes that journalism, storytelling, and human connection can be even more powerful than weapons. “Iranians are very creative,” she told ILTV. “They love humor. They love to make ridicule of the power. So we need a movement that breaks that fear in the people, fear that the dictator has injected into society over the past 40 years. When that fear breaks, then the society will definitely stand and just get rid of the dictator.” Modiri was in Israel for a weeklong Sharaka mission, conducted with the support of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The trip, dubbed the “Cyrus Delegation,” ran from November 4–10, and aimed to foster dialogue and understanding between Iranian and Jewish communities — a bond rooted in shared history dating back to the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great and revived through strong ties before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Modiri described being in Jerusalem as both “surreal and poetic.” “It is surreal because I have been brought up with propaganda that Israel is the enemy,” she said. “Yet here I see a shared hope, a shared exile. It is very poetic in that sense, because it is what I feel in the streets. There is a kind of humanity, a love connection that we are sharing, maybe even more than any other nations.” She added that the Jewish and Persian communities are deeply connected through their shared history, and through the many Persian-born Jews who now live in Israel. Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s Jewish community was robust and active. Today, only about 8,000 Jews remain in the country. Many of Modiri’s followers — she has more than 400,000 on Instagram — supported her decision to visit Israel. They asked her to share a message with Israelis: The people are not the government. She, in turn, said she was eager to share Israeli culture with her Iranian followers. Modiri admitted she is afraid of potential repercussions from Iran, but fear is nothing new for her. She and her family escaped the regime in the 1980s when she was just 12 years old. Today, she lives in the United Kingdom. She has been speaking out against the regime for decades as a journalist. “Me and fear have coffee together every morning,” she said with a smile. “Courage doesn't mean you don't have any fear, but you don't let fear make the final edit. I think curiosity has made me fearless, because it taught me that we all have fears. Every morning, when we wake up, you're dealing with several kinds of fears, but it depends how you're talking to it and whether you're letting the fear make the decision for us or not.” In closing, she said: “Public diplomacy is the front line, and we as storytellers are the soldiers holding the lights.” Watch the full discussion
