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NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Nermeen Shaikh, with Amy Goodman.
As we continue to look at the U.S. and Israel war on Iran and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, we go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Orly Noy. She’s an Iranian Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. She’s also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. Her new piece for The New York Review of Books is headlined “Longing for My Tehran.”
Orly, welcome back Democracy Now! If you could talk about this piece you’ve written and why you chose to write it now, “Longing for My Tehran”?
ORLY NOY: Yeah. I mean, as you can imagine, it’s been a very emotional time since the beginning of the war, not just because we are constantly running in and out of shelters, but because this time, the footage of the bombing that I grew accustomed to seeing for over two years from the genocide in Gaza was now coming from my homeland, from my hometown, Tehran, the city where I was born and grew up in. The cries of people were in Farsi this time, which was — which hit, you know, much closer to my heart. And for me as a writer, as someone whose main tools to understand the world are words, I started writing mainly in order to make some sense of this madness, first of all, to myself. And then I was asked to publish something, so I sent this. But this was really an attempt to, you know, bring some sense into this chaos that is now our lives here.
AMY GOODMAN: Orly, you have talked about the majority of Israelis supporting the war at the moment. But there is opposition. Can you talk about the Israeli objective, and at the same time this threat to turn Iran into Gaza and this increasing violence against Palestinians in the West Bank?
ORLY NOY: Yeah, so, there is — I mean, like every circle of violence that Israel initiates, mostly against Palestinians, there is always a margin of protest and of objection. It’s not small, but it exists. This time, any attempt — the very few attempts to protest against the war were brutally crushed and dispersed the Israeli police, which now became almost entirely — almost like the private militia of the minister for homeland security, the Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir. It is not against the law. It is not illegal to protest. Still it is not illegal to protest in Israel against the war. But trying to please the Kahanist minister, the police very brutally dispersed these protests almost immediately after they began.
In the West Bank, the situation is beyond — I mean, it’s terrifying beyond anything that words can express. You mentioned in your opening the execution of the four members of the Bani Odeh family, including the two parents and two very young kids, in the village of Tammun. We published yesterday a heartbreaking, really disturbing, one of the most disturbing pieces I’ve edited in my entire career as a journalist, where in one of the villages in the north of the Jordan Valley, settlers gathered the entire inhabitants of this Palestinian little village in one tent and tormented them brutally, hit them, severely sexually abused one of the Palestinian men, and all the while forcing the children to watch them as they torture the older members of the community. These things turned almost into daily events. Palestinians are now really — I mean, you know, up until now, our worry was about the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. Now it is just about executing Palestinians, both by the army and by the settlers. This is the reality now. They are just executing Palestinians in broad daylight, and nothing is being done about it.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, I’m afraid, Orly, we’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us. Orly Noy is an Iranian Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. She’s also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. Her new piece, which we’ll link to, in The New York Review of Books is headlined “Longing for My Tehran.”
Coming up, Mr Nobody Against Putin has won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. We’ll play our interview with the directors.
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NERMEEN SHAIKH: “Bofou Safou” by Amadou & Mariam, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.
