In the shadow of Israel’s ongoing military campaign against Iran, a powerful and painful truth is emerging from within the Islamic Republic: Iran’s own dissidents—activists, students, poets, and freedom fighters—are not cheering from the sidelines. They are terrified.
These are not supporters of the regime. They are its fiercest critics—many of them women who led the Women, Life, Freedom protests that captured the world’s attention in 2022. They have been beaten, arrested, silenced, and imprisoned. They oppose the Islamic Republic with every fiber of their being.
And yet, they are not welcoming the bombs.
“I know that war won’t bring democracy,” says Sepideh Qolian, a labor activist recently freed from Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison. She survived years of state repression, yet when asked about Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s call for Iranians to rise up, she was unequivocal: “The life that we wanted is the mirror opposite of the terrible events that are now happening.”
Israel’s recent strikes, while strategically aimed at military and nuclear sites, have unintentionally taken the lives of civilians—people like Parnia Abbasi, a 23-year-old poet and English teacher, and Zahra Shams, a devout Muslim who opposed Iran’s forced hijab laws. Both were outspoken against the regime. Both are now dead, collateral damage in a war they never asked for.
Between Two Tyrannies
Many of these Iranian voices say the regime brought this war upon the country through years of aggression, deceit, and terror, not only toward Israel but toward its own people. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s obsession with power and hostility toward the West has isolated and impoverished Iran. But Israeli airstrikes, they argue, are not liberating the people. They are silencing them.
“I oppose the Islamic Republic and Khamenei with all my being,” said a 24-year-old woman still living in Tehran. “But now I can’t even think about the regime or overthrowing it. I am scared. I am worried. I fear for the life of myself and everyone around me.”
This fear is echoed across the Iranian opposition. Activists describe fleeing cities, hiding with elderly parents, and bracing for a humanitarian disaster—economic collapse, medical shortages, infrastructure destruction. Their message is clear: They don’t want war. They want change. But not this way.
War Is Not the Path to Freedom
From inside Iran and across its diaspora, voices are rising against the violence. They reject the regime’s warmongering, but they also reject Israel’s military approach. Nobel laureates like Narges Mohammadi and Shirin Ebadi, filmmakers, students, and exiled intellectuals have issued urgent calls for a ceasefire and a peaceful transition to democracy. They know that airstrikes do not nurture civil society; they destroy it.
“When I see the Israeli strikes on Iran today, I feel like I am seeing the burning of my very own house,” said Mehrangiz Kar, an 80-year-old human-rights lawyer forced into exile. “This isn’t acceptable, no matter who is doing the attacks.”
This is not appeasement. These are the words of people who have risked everything to fight tyranny. They are not defending Iran’s regime—they’re pleading with the world not to mistake military action for moral clarity.
A Christian and Jewish Response
As Christians and Jews United for Israel, we affirm the right of Israel to defend itself from existential threats. Iran’s leadership has made it abundantly clear—through its funding of terror, pursuit of nuclear weapons, and direct attacks on civilians—that it poses such a threat.
But we must also listen to the cries of the Iranian people.
The Iranian opposition is asking not for bombs, but for solidarity. They are asking us to distinguish between the regime and the nation, between resistance and recklessness. Their courage is not rooted in firepower, but in the quiet, stubborn defiance of those who risk everything for the dream of freedom.
We stand with the people of Israel. We also stand with the people of Iran. May we have the wisdom to pursue a future where both can live in peace, without missiles overhead.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Pray for the liberation of the Iranian people. And let us never confuse war with hope.
— CJUI Editorial Team