“Which Iran are we supporting?”- asks the kid.

I don’t write political blogs, nor am I fluent in political rhetoric. But when a certain aged kid, who will not be named, asked me a question on the current Iranian situation, I realized it could be really confusing for some people, especially for young teens. So this is for that group of people!

“Why, Mommy,” he asked, “do you feel bad for the 12,000 Iranians killed if they are the head of the snake?” They have heard me talk about this a lot; how Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc. are all proxies (tentacles) of Iran. From what they have been hearing from me, Iran is the leader of bad. They are funding all the bad, cheering the bad, and they wear the crown of evil. So when I started talking about the innocent people in Iran and how angry and heartbroken I was over the loss of life, he was confused. That’s when we got into the discussion of the difference between the regime, the leaders, and the people. The Iranian people hate their leaders and have been trying to overthrow them for 47 years!

What is interesting is that Iran ranks as one of the lowest countries of antisemitism in the world. Huh? How can that be? Simple. It’s because the enemy of your enemy is your friend. The people of Iran, the ones who are protesting on the streets and getting killed for speaking their voices, are the enemies of their leaders, the regime. And the regime, Khamenei and his gang, are obviously  anti-Jews and anti-Zionists. (Interestigly, I wont say add “anti- Israel” becase he has never said the word “Israel” out loud- he doesn’t acknowelsge its existence).

So naturally, the people of Iran don’t hate Israel. And in return, we care about them deeply. That is why we are crying over the people killed for no reason and we are praying that the regime finally, finally falls!!! This is why Iranian people are holding Israeli flags in the streets. We believe in freedom of speech and choice and the people of Iran don’t have that, so we stand by them during these turbulent times and we say to them: we see you. We are with you.

One more point that needs to be mentioned that I am trying to teach my children is the concept of “no Jews, no news.” While the entire world was/is in an uproar over Gaza and the genocide Israel is committing, those very same people haven’t said boo about what’s going on with the Iranian people. Where is Greta? Tucker Carlson? Candace Owens? College campuses? Have we seen protests in the streets of America about this? No. It’s really telling.

And what does Iran want from Israel? We don’t share borders, we are a tiny dot next to them; they lost more land to Russia than Israel’s entire size—why not go pick a fight with them? And Jerusalem isn’t even their holy city! One answer is that the regime was not so popular when they were just preaching about hijabs and male authority over their wives, but when they started talking anti-Zionists, fellow Arab countries suddenly gave them respect because now they spoke the same language. It’s not so much that Iran had an obsession with Israel per se, it’s that Iran followed a trend that made them popular and got them attention, namely hating Israel. its’ that attention they have been eating up ever since. But today, being anti-zionist makes you a hero at the Muslim playground, and so they stay.

One thing is for sure. Even though my children know we spent 12 days in our mamad because of Iranian missiles, and even though they know Iran was behind the funding of Gaza and consequently October 7th, and even though they know Iran may send us back to our mamads soon because they restocked their long-range missiles, they now also know that Iran is the regime Iran, the terrorist Iran, and not the people who equally hate their leaders as much as we do. We hope for the fall of the regime and the freedom of the people! We mourn the thousands of people who have been killed. We share Erfan Soltani’s face on social media protesting his execution. And we pray for a better future.

In the meantime, lets make sure the kids understand which “Iran” we are talking about when we call them evil.