Iran’s weekend barrage of missiles fired into Israel has prompted Iranian dissidents based in the UK to speak emotionally of their opposition to the Islamic republic’s regime — and to call for the Jewish community’s help “in fighting our greatest enemy”.
But Vahid Beheshti, who has maintained a camp opposite the Foreign Office in Westminster for more than a year, and who spent 72 days on hunger strike in support of a campaign to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was in no doubt what should happen next.
He told Jewish News: “Immediate and strong retaliation [by Israel] is very, very important. Because if it doesn’t retaliate now, it is sending a signal of weakness, not just to the Iranian regime, but to their proxies.” If there were no immediate retaliation, he said, that would inspire other terrorist regimes to attack Israel again.
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Beheshti declared: “The Iranian regime is not what they are trying to show us. They are paper tigers. We all witnessed the 300 missiles and drones that they fired into Israel, but almost none of them could make their targets. This is who they are: they are good when it comes to proxy wars, or when it comes to infiltrating into countries, brainwashing our youth, influencing politicians. But their weakest point is their military force.
“This is the right time [for Israel to respond] because the Iranian people — more than 80 million of them — is waiting for this moment. They are writing slogans on walls in different Iranian cities, saying ‘Israel: hit them and we will do the rest’”.
Beheshti insisted: “The Iranian people are embracing the idea of retaliation. This is not the war of President Biden or Prime Minister Sunak. This is our war, a war between good and evil”.
He said that when the West told Israel not to retaliate, it was “an appeasement policy, a policy which has got us to where we are today. What has been done against [Iran’s] hostage-taking policy? Nothing. Israel’s retaliation will send the right signal to the Iranian people, and the regime”.
He believed that the West “had no idea” about the true nature of the Iranian regime, and likened the situation to the appeasement policy of Neville Chamberlain, which had ultimately led to the Second World War. Acting now, Beheshti said, “would avoid a third world war. We have to destroy them, and now is the opportunity. You cannot negotiate with these kinds of people”.
Meanwhile another Iranian dissident, a young woman who calls herself Lily Moo, is concluding a visit to Israel as part of a nine-strong delegation of anti-regime diaspora activists, invited by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Speaking from Tel Aviv, where she is the last member of the delegation still in Israel, the London-based campaigner, who won’t use her real name because of numerous death threats against her by IRGC agents, says she has spent the last three weeks in continued advocacy for Israel and Iran.
“I believe every right of defence is in Israel’s hands now,” she says. “If Israel wants to retaliate for the IRGC attacks, there are IRGC plants and artilleries that are far from civilian areas in Iran, that Israel can target and dismantle and take out — so that the force which is trying so hard to harm this country is much weaker, and hopefully, completely stopped”.
Lily Moo, who is a highly followed Instagram influencer, says: “The people of Iran want peace and do not want to have war that is imposed on them by a terrorist government that has taken them hostage for the past 45 years. We believe that Israel does not want to harm civilians.” When Iranian proxies such as Hizbollah had been attacked by Israel, she said, “it was done in very pristine conditions so that no civilian was hurt. Should Israel decide to take action [against Iran]which they have every right to do, we want the same thing”.
Angrily, she said: “There are people in Iran who are holding my entire country captive, destroying raping and torturing men and women in prison… they are murdering”. What she called “the disgusting exhibition” of those who had applauded the Iranian attacks against Israel on Saturday night, were, she said, “the same people who asked for a mass execution of the Iranian people who came out in favour of the Women, Life, Freedom campaign.”
She said she was “not prepared to sugar-coat this for the world — they need to know the truth. Forty-five years ago the sugar-coating allowed the entrance of the Islamic republic and the destruction of my country.” And she warned that Iranian influence was seeping into the West: “How many years are we going to wait before we have cranes on the bridges of London with people hanging from them?”
To those such as Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, who is against proscribing the IRGC in favour of keeping diplomatic channels open, Lily Moo has one answer: “You are doing your nation a disservice. Please step aside and give room to someone who cares. The people of the UK need to understand, this is not political correctness, there is danger on your doorstep”.
She had had plans to attend the Nova Festival on October 7 last year, but instead was in London marking the birthday of her late brother.
On Saturday night, after a day spent relaxing in Tel Aviv with her best friend, Lily Moo heard the sound of the missiles attacking Israel. “It was midnight. I got up, jumped in the shower, started my make-up and put on my work dress. I sent emails to all my media contacts that I was the final remaining Iranian delegate in Israel, asked them to call me. I haven’t slept since.”
