I am writing this column from a shelter, sitting alongside my neighbors.
To be honest, I thought it would be more frightening. I wasn’t here during the 12 Day War, but I experienced it through my friends in Iran and my family in Israel, and the bottom line was the same: panic.
In Iran, events are often accompanied by outward displays of celebration. But this time, no matter where you are, the atmosphere feels different. Heavy. Historic.
It seems that all sides are eager to project seriousness. Fighting on such a broad scale in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf has never been seen before. News that feels as though we have been waiting decades to hear is flooding the internet, some of it already confirmed, some attributed to foreign sources.
But let’s talk about what is really happening.
Reactions on Saturday morning
Since 8:13 a.m. on Saturday, I have been receiving a flood of messages from Iran (perhaps that was the poet’s intention in using the term “al-Aqsa Flood”). And no, it did not surprise me. I knew it would come. I knew that if and when this moment arrived, it would meet an entire generation that had been waiting for it.
“Finally.”
“We’ve been waiting for this for so long.”
“The people of Israel and the Iranian people are alive.”
This is not rhetoric. It is not a slogan. It is a deep sentiment from a generation that feels history is giving it a chance to correct 1979.
Yes, Iran is united. United not around war but around a clear position: The regime does not represent the people. And when the regime is struck, Iranian identity is not being struck. On the contrary. Many see it as a necessary separation between the country and those who hijacked it.
Iranian hunger for change
My generation, somewhere between Millennials and Gen Z, does not feel bound by the narrative imposed upon it. It grew up on the Internet, on global comparisons, on protests, on women killed because a strand of hair was showing, on lives shaped by sanctions they did not choose. From their perspective, the strikes are not “against Iran”; they are against those who prevented it from becoming what it could have been.
They would be ready to take to the streets today. Not because someone paid them. Not because someone incited them. But because there is a genuine hunger for change. Yet at the request of Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince and leader of the “National Revolution of 2026,” they are waiting. Not out of weakness but out of an understanding that such a move must be strategic and well-timed.
Perhaps the hardest thing to process is this: While I sit in a shelter in Israel, I am receiving messages of support from Iran, not whispered, not hinted at, but direct and unequivocal.
The official discourse still tries to frame this as a confrontation between peoples. But on the ground, in the streets, in private chats, in closed comment sections, there is another story unfolding. A story of a people who do not recognize themselves in their leadership, and who are no longer willing to keep paying the price of an ideology they never chose.
I am not naive. I do not celebrate war (though perhaps a small part of me believes it could ultimately free the Middle East). I understand the risks, the consequences, the pain. But I also refuse to ignore what I see and hear in real time.
This time, at least from my vantage point, there is no confusion. Iran, the Iranian people, know where they stand. And if history is being written, then let it be written without apology.
The author is an Iran analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.