Iranian exiles watch Israel's attacks with joy tainted by fear
BERLIN—Expatriates flock to the Hedayat bookstore, a hub of Iranian culture on Berlin's busy Kantstrasse, to sample saffron lemonade and sticky pistachio cake, read Persian poetry and criticize the Islamic Republic.
But Israel's strikes on the regime and its nuclear program have driven a wedge into Germany's 300,000-strong Iranian community, exposing a spectrum of hopes and fears for Iran's future.
One young woman who came to Berlin six years ago said the strikes filled her with optimism that the regime might fall. A friend discussing the strikes with her at Hedayat's cafe disagreed.
'I'm certainly no friend of the regime, but I have very little hope anything good will come out of Israel's aggression," said Sahar Mohammadi, a 29-year-old graduate student in architecture.
The Iranian community in Germany is Europe's largest, and while many of its members hope the Islamic regime could finally be collapsing, others are concerned about escalating civilian casualties, a repressive backlash if the regime survives, and civil war if it doesn't.
This ambivalence marks a strong departure from 2022, when 80,000 gathered in the German capital to protest the death in Iranian police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini—the biggest such protest outside Iran at the time. Today, there is no such singular focus among the diaspora.
'You have to picture essentially three groups," says Ebrahim Afsah, a law professor at the University of Copenhagen. 'There is a minority who support the regime…There are those who are hostile to the regime but don't like their country being attacked…And there is a third group who see themselves as more or less aligned with Israel in that they have a common enemy."
Afsah, born to a German mother and an Iranian father, added: 'If you ask me, the third position is the most logically convincing."
Many Iranians in exile cheered when Israeli strikes killed the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces and leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. There was exhilaration at the lackluster extent of the regime's response to Israel's volley.
Others were terrified their families could become collateral damage. Some say they struggle to comprehend aerial bombardments hitting Tehran. One woman at Hedayat said images of the devastated Gaza Strip after 20 months of Israeli bombardment are seared on her mind, making her question what Israel has planned for her birthplace.
Fatima Mokhtari, another Iranian expat in Berlin, was awakened at 5 a.m. on Friday by a text message from her sister in Tehran saying the family was OK. The 37-year-old architect and interior designer couldn't find news about the extent of the Israeli bombardment and began to panic.
She spent the weekend texting her parents and siblings while compulsively refreshing a Telegram channel offering news of the attacks. She alternated between crying and stress-eating ice cream.
On Sunday night, she and a dozen emotionally exhausted friends gathered around a large table at a burger restaurant. The war was the only topic of discussion.
'Something like this was always going to happen as long as this regime is in power," said Mokhtari, whose family has left Tehran for the countryside. 'There was some excitement mixed with fear when the attack started. But as time goes by, I'm growing more fearful."
The contradictory feelings can coexist in the same person, said Danial Ilkhanipour, who was born to Iranian parents and is now a lawmaker in Hamburg's state parliament. 'Sometimes you cycle through them—concern, fear, anger, hope—every minute."
Ilkhanipour thinks the regime, almost devoid of public support and exposed as weak, could collapse. The biggest mistake the West could make, he said, is to stabilize the Islamic Republic by offering its leaders a diplomatic off-ramp.
'Either the regime goes or it will exact a gruesome revenge on its enemies at home—all Iranians who want freedom and democracy," he said. 'And it will end in war anyway."
At Hedayat, three friends said it took a while to get used to discussing politics in public places, because doing so at home could be deadly. Iranian writer Abbas Maroufi opened the bookstore after he was arrested, was banned from publishing and escaped from Iran in 1996. His daughter, Mehregan Maroufi, took it over after his death in 2022. It is one of the first ports of call for newly arrived expats and exiles.
There are signs the diaspora is mobilizing around the unfolding war. Mohammadi describes one group as left-wingers: opponents of the regime, critical of Israel's attacks and distrustful of the supporters of Reza Pahlavi, the U.S.-based son of Iran's last monarch.
On Sunday, Mohammadi had joined some 20 to 30 of these regime opponents at Café Kardamom, a Persian restaurant in the district of Schöneberg, she said. On Tuesday night, Mohammadi and others at the gathering at Hedayat were planning to later attend a protest under the slogan 'No to War, From Palestine to Iran."
Before leaving Hedayat, she showed the gold pendant on her necklace: a tiny map of Iran.
'Every Iranian is a nationalist, but nationalism means something quite different for us," Mohammadi said. 'It isn't aggressive, it just means we defend our country when attacked."
Write to Bertrand Benoit at bertrand.benoit@wsj.com
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