First-Ever Iranian Opposition Figure Speaks at the Knesset

Jerusalem, 3 January, 2024 (TPS) -- It took a war in Gaza for Vahid Beheshti to become on Tuesday the first Iranian opposition figure to speak in the Knesset.

“We have to get together, be united against this terrorism if we claim our hearts beat for humanity,” Beheshti, a journalist and human rights activist told the Tazpit Press Service shortly before he joined other Israeli officials discussing the war at a Knesset event.

“If we are claiming that we have to stand against terrorism, so this is the time,” Beheshti insisted to TPS “And it’s very important to me to do anything I can to not allow the only democracy in the Middle East goes on its knees in front of these terrorists. That’s why I’m here.”

Asked about the significance of being the first Iranian opposition figure to speak in the Knesset, Beheshti told TPS, “That shows the great relationship between the people of Iran and the people of Israel.”

He was one of several officials participating in an event organized by the Israeli Victory caucus, a group of coalition and opposition lawmakers who stress that a clear military victory over Israel’s enemies is a precondition for lasting peace in the Middle East.

Beheshti, a British-Iranian national, arrived in Israel on Monday as a guest of the Israel Victory Project and the Middle East Forum. He was most recently in the news for a 72-day hunger strike he launched in London in 2023 in an unsuccessful effort to get British authorities to label the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization. The IRGC is tasked with defending the clerical regime, preventing Iran’s army from seizing power and protecting the Islamic Republic from foreign meddling. It is believed to have more than 250,000 military personnel.

‘A Common Enemy’

Israelis and the Iranian people have a common enemy — Iran’s clerical regime, Beheshti stressed to both TPS and the lawmakers.

“The main enemy of Israel is the regime of Iran. Since 44 years ago they came in power, their main slogan, their first principle was the elimination of the state of Israel,” Beheshti told TPS.

“The main enemy of the Iranian people is the Iranian regime who killed them, tortured them, and put them in prison. So, if you look at this one simple great issue that brings the people of Israel and the people of Iran together,” he added.

“The Iranian regime draws and paints the flag of Israel on the street, especially on narrow pathways. You cannot step not on the flag. But the people of Iran jump over it, turn around and kiss it. That’s how the Iranian people feel about the people of Israel,” Beheshti told TPS.

In his remarks at the Knesset, Beheshti noted that Tehran’s support for proxy terror groups — such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Kataib Hezbollah, an umbrella group of radical Shi’ite terror groups operating in Syria and Iraq — is intended to threaten Israel from different directions.

“We have to destroy Hamas, we have to destroy Hezbollah. Don’t forget. But in the next couple of months, Hamas will be recreated, maybe under a different name, because the Iranian regime has access to unlimited funds, has access to resources,” he told MKs.

“We should not be afraid to attack Iranian bases, IRGC bases I’m talking about in Iran. We should not be afraid to attack and target nuclear sites of the Iranian regime in Iran. And we should be afraid to attack the homes of the high officials of the Iranian regime in Iran. That’s the only language they’ll understand.”

Should Israel attack, “80 million Iranians thirsting for freedom and democracy” would rise up against Tehran, Beheshti said.

Beheshti added that he doesn’t believe Tehran was unaware of Hamas’s October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis, asserting that it was organized and ordered by the clerical regime to derail Israeli-Saudi peace efforts.

“Imagine what Tehran would do with a nuclear bomb,” he added.

Beheshti then asked lawmakers to imagine what Israel and the Iranian people could do together without Tehran’s regime or its proxy terror groups.

“The message of the Iranian people is this,” Beheshti told TPS. “We love the people of Israel. We need them and they need us. We have to be together in this war against terrorism.”