Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign.
B (0:05)
Hello everybody. Welcome to Ask Khaliv Anything. This is going to be a very special episode. We're talking to an expert, a friend of ours, Dr. Sharon Hazalian Levi from the Allianz center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University, an Iran expert, someone who more and more Israelis are turning to to understand that country, to understand the enemy, but not just the enemy regime, the society, the trends, the struggles that that people is going through to no small extent because of that regime. Before we get into it, I just want to tell you our sponsor for this episode and to thank them. Many of you were able to catch our mini episode just before Pesach which was sponsored by Sapir, the quarterly journal edited by the Pulitzer Prize winning Bret Stephens. I mentioned that if you're in the US you can get this excellent journal sent to you absolutely free by going to sapirjournal askhaviv, which you should still do. It helps us a lot. It tells them we sent you. But they're also initiating the Sapir debates, which are a series of live debates on issues that face the Jewish people. The first debate is going to take place at the 92nd street why in New York on May 15th at 7pm and it'll be on the very slightly sensitive topic of Is Donald Trump good for the Jews? They're going right for the throat this time. Moderated by Bret Stephens, featuring former chief of staff for President Obama, Rahm Emanuel, who is also of course mayor of Chicago and Jason Greenblatt, Trump's former envoy to the Middle East. I'll give you one guess who will be arguing which side. To purchase tickets to the inaugural Sapir debate go to Sapir journal as S A P I R journal.org Sapir debate Shauna, thank you for joining us. How are you?
A (2:02)
Thank you for inviting me. Everything is okay, you know. Today we have the Holocaust Memorial Day. It's a difficult day but it also a reminder of the situation today we live in not only with Hamas, but only regarding the issue we regarded the we are here for to speak today another enemy, the modern day enemy that wants to destroy the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
B (2:32)
It's not an accident that we asked you to come on today. It's not an accident that we asked you to come on this month where we are at a moment when as I learned from you, the Iranian regime is arguably at the weakest point it's been in a generation and the Trump administration which Israeli leaders have trumpeted to the Israeli people, as you know, the great answer the Great solution will deal with Iran appears to be throwing them a lifeline. And that is something that you have said you are worried about. And I would like, so I would like to turn to you to try and get out a sense, a deeper or more analytical sense of where the Iranian regime is at, what American policy could achieve if they understood better the Iranian regime and why there might be this mistake. But let's walk this through systematically. Let's start at the beginning. First of all, your background, because your background on Iran is actually fairly rare, unique, even and extraordinary. What is your connection or your family connection to Iran?
