Episode 11: Iran is imploding - A conversation with Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi

Summary

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Episode Summary: “Iran is Imploding – A Conversation with Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi”

Podcast: Ask Haviv Anything
Host: Haviv Rettig Gur
Guest: Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi, Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University
Date: April 28, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Haviv Rettig Gur speaks with Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi—an Iran expert with deep personal and academic ties to the country—about the state of Iran in 2025. Together, they explore Iran's economic and social collapse, the regime’s ideological priorities, the widespread popular discontent, and the international response, especially from the US and Israel. Dr. Mazalian Levi offers a nuanced portrayal of Iran’s challenges—internal crises, a regime clinging to power through brutality and ideology, and the dissonance between the Iranian people’s suffering and the regime’s antagonistic foreign policy.

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Guest Background & Personal Connection to Iran

[03:46–07:43]

• Dr. Mazalian Levi has dual heritage: Israeli and Persian. Both parents were born in Iran, and she grew up speaking Farsi at home.
  • “A great deal of my identity is Persian because both of my parents were born in Iran...” (03:46)
• Her father was sent by the Shah’s government to Paris to study engineering and coincidentally met Khomeini there during Khomeini’s exile. An anecdote: Khomeini dismissed the need for a metro, saying, “as long as we have donkeys, there’s no need for a metro.” (06:25)
• She gained a PhD focused on Iran and remains fluent in Farsi, following Iranian developments closely.

Notable Moment:
Haviv jokes about Israel not having used her father’s metro engineering expertise:
“We made poor use of your father as a country, and I apologize for that in the name of all Israelis.” (07:43)

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The Collapsing Iranian Society

[09:43–18:25]

Economic & Social Crisis

• Currency collapse: The rial has plummeted from 71 to the dollar (1979) to over a million rials/$1 today. "Forbes newspapers checked and...the rial was the weakest currency in the world." (11:40)
• Poverty and Despair: One-third of Iranians live under the poverty line, with an official (and likely understated) extreme poverty rate of 5%.
• Dire conditions: Hunger, unemployment, hyperinflation, and severe drug problems (crystal meth, heroin) are rampant.
  • “People are selling their kidneys. …Someone offered his heart.” (14:57–17:47)
• Brain Drain: “The finest mathematicians in the world are being just bought away from Iran for 30 years now. And also doctors, by the way.” (18:06)
• Infrastructure Decay: Despite natural resource wealth, many Iranians lack basic services—regular gas/power/water outages, environmental crises, and severe pollution.

Human Rights Abuses

• “Violations of human rights, executions, the hijab laws that only women have, political arrests…” (12:45)
• Story of mass protests sparked by the murder of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, and brutal regime repression:
  • “They shot at the breast and the genitals of the people, and hers as well. …They shot in purpose in people’s eyes to blind them.” (21:23–22:36)

Loss of Hope

• Public disillusionment after the failed protest movements.
• “Once they saw no one is helping them and they are [being] oppressed, so why should they go out to the streets…and risk themselves?” (23:40)

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The Regime’s Logic and Ideology

[23:51–33:00, 26:19–30:24]

Theocratic Imperative

• The Shi’ite clergy perceives itself as the vanguard of Shi’a Islam, using both spiritual and political means to unite oppressed Muslims against the West.
  • “They believe that they must be active…to fast forward the time and to bring [the Hidden Imam] and make justice.” (26:45)
• Iran’s identity is tied to resistance against “oppressors”―first and foremost, the USA (the “Great Satan”) and Israel (the “Little Satan”).

Regional Adventurism

• The IRGC (Revolutionary Guard Corps), a parallel military structure, owns ~50% of Iran’s oil infrastructure and spearheads Iranian imperial projects.
  • “The IRGC…has its own air force, its own navy, its own missile command. …One of its jobs is to preserve the regime…” (25:00)

Anti-Israel Focus

• The regime appropriates the Palestinian cause to bolster legitimacy and build regional alliances—even though its own population suffers.
  • “Since the Revolution of ’79, Iran actually adopted the harshest anti-Israeli policy than any other country in the region, calling for the total destruction of Israel.” (30:24)

Embedded Antisemitism

• The idea of Jews as “najis” (impure) persists in some religious and social contexts in Iran.
  • “Najis is unpure. And you and I as Jewish people, we are unpure. …If you walk down the street and it’s raining, you cannot walk under the rain because you make it impure.” (31:46)

Notable Quote:
“If he looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…it’s probably [in Iran’s case] a duck.” (22:17) — Dr. Mazalian Levi, on the regime’s unambiguous intentions.

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The People vs. the Regime

[18:25–22:36, 33:00–37:13]

• Many ordinary Iranians do not share the regime’s hatred of Israel or Jews. Personal stories and encounters show warmth where allowed:

  • “The woman was so happy, was so excited…‘We love you so much! ...Please just take care of yourself.’” (34:30)

• Contrasting the oppression imposed by the regime and the decency of many Iranians.

• “No wonder they say they kidnapped the clergy, just kidnapped their country.” (36:30)

• The sense of abandonment by the world, particularly after being crushed in protests, breeds despair and inaction.

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US & Israeli Policy: Negotiation or Regime Change?

[37:13–50:23]

Trump Administration’s Dilemma

• The Trump administration’s policy appears incoherent: negotiation or maximum pressure. There’s concern about making the same mistake as Obama—propping up the regime at its weakest.

• Trump’s earlier “maximum pressure” policies and the assassination of Soleimani were viewed as deeply damaging to the regime.

• Dr. Mazalian Levi’s warning:

  • “The Islamic Republic regime is weaker and fearful more than ever. …This could be one of the greatest diplomatic deception operations we’ve seen from the Iranian side.” (39:30)
  • The regime openly uses “taqiyah” (religious-sanctioned deception) to survive and will say whatever is necessary to buy time:
    • “It would be very naive to believe that they are abandoning their ideology or their plans.” (41:20)
  • “I’m afraid that one day historians will look back and wonder how…when this demonic regime, this Hitler of the 21st century, was at its weakest, the United States handed it a lifeline.” (42:55)

The Israelis’ Calculus

• Israel may appear calm outwardly, but its interests diverge from those of the US. Israeli leaders may feel powerless or trust that Trump’s track record indicates toughness.
• “Trump has already proven that he knows how to take a tough stance against Iran.” (46:30)

Endgame

• There is skepticism that any negotiation can resolve the nuclear issue—sanctions relief may only sustain the regime.
• “There’s no doubt this oppressive regime must come to an end. Otherwise, there will never be peace in the Middle East.” (49:32)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:46 Guest background, Persian heritage & family story
• 09:43 The scale of Iranian collapse (economy, society)
• 14:57 Extreme poverty, selling organs, social unraveling
• 18:25 Brain drain, winter suffering, regime indifference
• 21:23 Human rights abuses, crackdown on protests, Mahsa Amini
• 23:51 The regime’s ideology: Shiite vanguard, anti-US/Israel, IRGC
• 30:24 Anti-Israel ideology, antisemitism, religious doctrine
• 33:00 Ordinary Iranians’ warmth to Jews/Israel
• 37:13 US–Iran nuclear talks, Trump’s policy confusion
• 39:20 Regime’s weakness & diplomatic gamesmanship
• 46:30 Israeli strategy and apprehension
• 49:32 Dr. Mazalian Levi: “This oppressive regime must come to an end…”

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Memorable Quotes

• Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi:

  • “People are selling their kidneys. ...Someone offered his heart ...He says, ‘I know, but I need to make sure I could provide my kids a future.’ …Unbelievable.” (16:00–17:47)
  • “This is why they went up and made this revolution: under the promise to have a better future. The tragedy is that it’s a poor nation in a rich country.” (18:25)
  • “80% of the public is opponent to the regime...” (19:41)
  • "[The regime] divides the world to oppressors and oppressed. The main oppressor is the USA and everyone...standing next to her...is an oppressor." (27:08)
  • “It would be very naive to believe that they are abandoning their ideology or their plans. …Can a Persian leopard change its spots?” (41:20)
  • “We’re talking about the Hitler of the 21st century.” (42:55)
  • “There’s no doubt this oppressive regime must come to an end. Otherwise, there will never be peace in the Middle East.” (49:32)

• Haviv Rettig Gur:

  • “We made poor use of your father as a country, and I apologize for that in the name of all Israelis.” (07:43)
  • “Lying in diplomacy, lying in grand strategy is part of grand strategy. Sun Tzu says it and the Bible says it…” (44:08)

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Tone & Takeaways

• The episode offers a sobering, empathetic, and deeply informed portrait of Iran.
• Dr. Mazalian Levi is somber but personal, bringing both heart and scholarly authority.
• The major through-line: Iran’s regime is brittle and illegitimate, kept alive by violence, repression, and a revolutionary ideology obsessed with anti-Westernism. The Iranian people are weary—and the world, including the US and Israel, faces difficult, fraught policy choices.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

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]

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]

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?

[A]

Well, obviously I am a patriotic Israeli and I'm very proud of my Jewish heritage. But a great deal of my identity is Persian because both of my parents were born in Iran. And when I grew up, I grew up on several languages. My mother was speaking to me in Farsi. And even today, when, when we do not want the kids to understand, you know, little things, that we will speak in Farsi together. And I was lucky enough to go to the university and to learn how to write and to read while I was learning Middle Eastern studies. And I've accomplished my Ph.D. also about Iran. So the Persian heritage is very rooted in me. And we are very, you know, it's quite unique. Habib, when you'll come to Israel, when someone from abroad will come to Israel, he'll see that the Israelis, many of them were coming from different parts of the world. Some were born and raised in Israel, but some of them were like from Europe, from Poland, from Myanmar, from Morocco. And you see that the Persians, they left Iran, but in a way they are still Persian, so very proud of their heritage. When the crown prince just visited here two years ago, he was amazed by the love that he got. He felt like in his own home due to this,

[B]

I should say there's some very prominent Persian Israelis. Shaul Mofaz was chief of staff of the Israeli army when I was in the army. And he's a very prominent born in Tehran. There are, we don't talk about it much, but the former president of Israel, Moshe Katsav, who of course went to prison for sexual assault, but nevertheless Persian Israeli. There are force commander.

[A]

What in the air force commander as well. If you remember, Dan Khalut. Yes, Dan Khalut is Persian, also is Persian.

[B]

So Persian Israelis is already quite a noble connection. It's quite, quite an amazing group of Israelis that has contributed tremendously. Your family is even closer, possibly because you were telling a story about sort of your, your dad was sent by the Shah's government.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To Paris to study engineering.

[A]

Yeah. So my father was supposed to. He came. He came to Paris to study engineering. To what year was that? The late 70s. And that was the same time that Khomeini was in exile. And he was sent there in order to learn how to build the undergrounds, to build the metro and go back to Iran to build the metro. And during that time, Khomeini was there as well, and he met several students. And one of the students he met was my father. So when I was growing up as a child, I kept hearing, I had lunch with Khomeini and we spoke. And, you know, as a child, you don't understand the meat, the meaning of it. So they had lunch there. They had madjadra, which is lentils and rice with caramelized onion. My father asked him several questions, and Khomeini told him, well, as long as we have donkeys, there's no need of metro and these kind of things. So afterwards, a year later, he got back, Khomeini got back to Iran, the famous revolution occurred, and then my parents just stayed there and immigrated to Israel several years afterwards.

[B]

So your dad had lunch with Khomeini, and Khomeini told him, we don't need a Metro because we have donkeys. I feel like that's a thing that. A small thing that can be unpacked into a very large thing. Also, I'm learning that, in fact, a Persian Jewish metro engineer came to Israel in the early 80s or in the late 70s, and we still don't have. We made poor use of your father as a country, and I apologize for that in the name of all Israelis. Let's get into your expertise. So you have. You are a Farsi speaker, a Farsi writer, someone who follows very closely what's happening in Iran. One of the interesting things for me, following you, by the way, on Twitter, where you have quite a following and write fascinating deep dives into the Iranian economy, Iranian society. I want you to walk us through this moment in Iranian history and Iranian culture and Iranian society. Maybe the single biggest story. And again, I learned this from you. Just to clarify to people where, you know, I'm not coming with initial expertise here. I don't know much about Iran. The Iranian economy is in free fall. Iranian society, for many Iranians, feels as though it is falling apart. The regime is basically managing a kind of internal decline. There are anywhere between 4 and 10 million. They're different. There's a lot of propaganda trying to cover up the Scale of it, Shia Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban take over Afghanistan and kicking a lot of Iranians out of low paying jobs. So there's a real profound sense of crime crisis. They just went through a winter with a bad winter without enough gas. What can you tell us? In other words, can you lay it out for us? How should we understand this moment for Iranians and the knock on effect that's having on the Iranian trust in the regime and all of that story?

[A]

That's a very wonderful question and we can speak like ours analyzing this question, but I'll start with from the beginning the things that you've mentioned. The Iranians are a very proud nation. We're talking about an ancient history going back at least 2000 five years ago. They have a very rich culture and history and they are very proud. So today you see Iran domestically in I think the worst crisis they ever had. Trump, thanks to Trump and his sanctions. I think that he has already proven that he knows how to take a tough stance against Iran. And a part of the things that he did was the sanctions. And also thanks to the sanctions, the maximum pressure as we know it put Iran to the place that it is today. So and also their behavior when they spread, when the regime spread terror across the Middle East, Europe, South Africa, South America, et cetera and the U.S. it comes with a tag price on it. Okay, but when we, when we want to speak domestically, what's happening in Iran? Let's talk about the finance. Okay? It's all about the money. Or let's say for the money back then at 1979, $1 equivalent, something like 70, 71 real. Okay. Do you want to have a guess how much it is? It is today. It's five figures.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So it crossed the million. Million real per $1. It's a demolition of the currency. Forbes newspapers checked and they saw it was the weakest for 2023. The real was the weakest currency in the world. First of all, the poverty line. The government, government official announced that one third of the Iranians are under the poverty line. And when we say poverty line, it's not the same poverty line we know in the West. Second, there is a real hunger. People are starving. Third, we have a high unemployment rate in Iran and hyperinflation, the inflation in the past, in the past five years, we're talking about something like 40% of hyperinflation every year. Alongside this, there's increase in, in, in the crime and the drug use. And it's not, it's not like weed or something like that. We're talking about the hard drugs like crystal meth and herring, acid cocaine. Last year they found a truck with over one ton of crystal methane. And it has severe implications on the society. So let's continue. We've got brain drain, a severe water shortage, which is something that could cause a great unrest in Iran and even put the regime under danger of stability. The urbanization, a lack of gas and electricity, although they have the greatest resources in the world, earthquakes, air pollution, severe air pollution, sandstorms, obviously lack of environmental protection, corruption. And also this is one of the major things that we hear today, violations of human rights, when we speak of executions, the hijab, the laws that only women have, political arrest, etc. Etc. So this is on general to be today a citizen in Iran. It's not an easy thing.

[B]

So just, we're talking about 1/3 poverty rate, which I have read from you includes 5% listed as extreme poverty. Yes, Extreme poverty is literally homeless, hungry, unable to. That's 1 in 20 Iranians are classified by Iran itself by a regime that usually covers its problems rather than reveals them. And it is revealing that it's 5%. Is it safe to assume it's higher? The extreme poverty is actually higher?

[A]

Absolutely. You'll go, you'll go, you'll, you'll walk the streets. You see the pictures are coming out from there. There are several opposition stations, press stations. There is Iran International and there is Manoto. They sit in London and they get from inside of Iran, like videos of people describing what's happening inside. It could be the situation of the water. Like for hours every day, they do not have water from their taps or like dirty water is coming down the taps that they cannot drink. And also they are showing you people looking for food in the trash. You can see babies, newborns, just in the trash. And you can see signs across the country. People are selling their kidneys. And this is something, it's a phenomenon that exists for years now. I witnessed something really horrible. I couldn't imagine, I couldn't believe what I hear and see in a video. There was a message. Someone offered his offer. Offer the heart. Okay, A heart. So the man calls to the phone number to see what's, what's going on with this, with this message. And he asked, I'm sorry that I'm, I'm asking, but I'm calling regarding the heart now. Once you want to have an operation, you want to make a transplant. When we're talking about a kidney, it's something that you pre. Organize, you Set up the surgery in the hospital. It could be in a week, it could be in two months. Everything is set. But once we're talking about a heart, it's something that's going to happen immediately. So once someone dies, you've got from now to live. Everything that you do, if you're going to this transplant and you've got to run to the hospital and make this to transplant the heart. So the guy calls the number and he says, okay, so I'm sorry, I'm calling regarding this ad. Can you please tell me whose desire it is? And he says, it was a man on the phone. He said, it's mine. And he said, I'm sorry, mister, but you're gonna die. He says, I know, but I need to make sure I could provide my kids a future. They could have a future. These kind of things are unbelievable, Unbelievable. And when we say that the, the, the Iranians are in, in the worst situation they've ever been domestically. Those are kind of the examples that they live in during every day.

[B]

So we're talking about a country that has been so catastrophically mismanaged by this regime with a massive drug problem, hard drug problem, with a brain drain to the west. The finest mathematicians in the world are being just bought away from Iran for 30 years now.

[A]

And also doctors. And also doctors, by the way.

[B]

And doctors. And you know, it's a society with tremendous amount of energy that doesn't have energy in the winter, the air pollution. These are solvable policy problems, but there's nobody doing policy.

[A]

There is a regime, no one cares. You know, there was, they have a severe, severe winter in Iran. It's snowing there in some parts it's snowing. So I saw a video of someone walking and there was a girl, she was a teenager, lying on this board with a little bit of snow on her, and she froze to death. He kind of kicked her, trying to wake her up, but she froze to death. And this is the daily basis. That's what's going on there. But Iran is a very rich country and this is its own tragedy. This is why they went up and made this revolution, because under the promise to have a better future. The tragedy is that it's a rich, it's a poor nation in a rich country. You can see the situation could continue on because the regime still has the reservoirs of oil. They've got gold, they've got crypto. And they are a group of people that are taking care of each other, especially the IRGC when they belt, when Khomeini came up with the idea of the irgc. Their main goal was to protect the Islamic Republic and its leader, the supreme leader. And this is what they do. They got stronger. So today, if you go to the polls and to see what's going on in the polls, we have something like 80% of the public that is opponent to the regime, okay? 80% of the people are opponent to the regime. And this is why they were so happy to see Trump coming back to the president office, because they said, okay, so that's going to be the end of it. He's our savior. He's our messiah. And you could see them spreading candies to the people in the street after the elections when they found out that he was elected. The great thing that they have is the hope, okay? And they got. They. They had a great hope that they will be a regime change, that they will be finally free. You know that the number of the executions in Iran is the highest in the world. And, and the world is not doing anything, anything. It just passes by. When they say death to Israel and death to. To America, they mean it. It's like I always say, if he looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably in Iraq is a duck. So if Iran keeps saying destroy Israel, distributing arms, funding and supporting terrorist organizations directly, and even trying to eliminate Israel actively, they are doing it. And this is what they are trying to do. And the people in Iran, when they had this great hope. I want us to go back to Mesa Amini demonstration two and a half years ago. In September, a Kurdish girl went to see her family in Tehran. She came from sananda in her 20s and her hijab didn't fully covered her head and therefore she was arrested. She was hardly beaten and she passed away in the hospital a few days laterwards. And afterwards, protests erupted across the country and it was the greatest demonstration against the government. It continued for several months, I believe, if I remember correctly. But the thing is, they felt alone. They felt alone. The government arrested many of them. There was a horrible article published in the Telegraph. There was a woman, an Iranian woman, said she was arrested and no, before she was arrested, she was surrounded by security guards and forces and they all aimed their guns at her. It's not firing guns that is supposed to kill you, but it has bullets. And they shot at the breast and the genitals of the people, and hers as well. They did it also that to men. So they arrested many of them. They shot in purpose in people's eyes to blind them. You can find many of them, many of them left the country. But you know, once they saw no one is helping them and they are oppressed, being oppressed. So why should they go out to the streets and to. There was no hope. And once there is no hope, there is no, there is no reason to go out and to risk themselves.

[B]

So before, before we get into this very important question of the potential for regime change from within, I want, you know, what does the regime think? Is it just, you know, self justifying elite trying to hold on to power no matter how much the country crumbles? Sort of the late stage of communist rule in Soviet Union. Is that all we're talking about? This is a regime with a very specific ideology. It's a regime that wants to prove Shi' Ism correct against Sunnism. It's a regime that for example, is desperately committed to destroying Israel, in part to prove that what the Sunnis couldn't do for a century, the Shia can do. But it is unifying various Shia groups that are very different across the Middle east. The Houthis and the Hezbollah and the Arab Shia in Iraq and Lebanon and elsewhere. In order to pursue that, it has invested vast resources. It doesn't have vast resources. While it's not building out water infrastructure, while it's not building out schools and the basics of an economy, it has invested in the destruction of Israel. What is this regime that even as its own people are in collapse, still finds its fundamental priority as maintaining? We should just mention, if anybody doesn't know, just to fill the gap, the irgc, the Revolutionary Guard Corps that you're talking about is a second full fledged Iranian military. There is the formal military under the Defense Minister, under the President, under the government. It's the military of the government of Iran. And then there is a second military called the Revolutionary Guard Corps with its own air force, its own navy, its own missile command. And that second military, one of its jobs is to preserve the regime to serve at the behest of the Supreme Leader against a potential coup by the regular military. Right. In other words, that's part of the, of its logic. And into the IRGC Iran has invested, correct me if I'm wrong, I read somewhere that The IRGC owns 50% of Iran's oil infrastructure. In other words, what Iran does have and could actually spend on its people has been handed over to this ideological second military to pursue the imperialism in the Middle east and the destruction of Israel. So who are they? What do they believe? Why is the Destruction of Israel so important, why are they ignoring a collapse of their own society that we can track and measure and international reports have clarified in great detail in order to pursue this ideology.

[A]

Okay, so excellent questions. I've got to say we know first of all we've got to say that most of the Muslims of the world are Sunnis and the Shiites are minority. As you said, there are all kinds of different Shiites also that are divided also. And during the centuries the Shiites were persecuted for their beliefs. Many of them had to hide their religion to stay safe and they used the Taqiyah to save themselves. So among other things, they believe that they need to wait patiently for the hidden imam, the 12 imam, like in the Judaism, it's the Messiah and he's supposed to come in the end of time and to bring justice to the world. So Khomeini did also not only the revolution, but he did a revolution in the Shia and he said we should not be passive and wait, we should be active in order to fast forward the time and to bring him and make justice. Now they divide the world to two. The world is divided to oppressors and oppressed. The main oppressor is the USA and everyone that is standing next to her or supporting her or in touch with her is an oppressor himself. And the Shiites, the Iranian Shiites are representing the fight against the oppressors. Okay. They are their oppressed and other than you can under them or with them you can find everything, everyone that is fighting against the US and third world countries, etc. What they are doing something very interesting. Okay, what did they do? They took the Palestinian Israeli conflict, which I have to remind everyone that the Palestinians are Sunnis and they're saying it doesn't matter whether you're a, what you're a Shiite or you're a Sunni. I'm here, I'm the real protector of the Islam. Look, Saudi Arabia are reach and other reach but are not doing anything to help you. So Hamas and the Islamic Jihad they are Sunnis but they are more than happy to receive arms, money, training and aid from Iran. For years now during the war you can find our troops found in houses in Gaza with ammunition and you know, all the regular things and pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei. What does that have to do with Gaza and the Sunnis in Gaza? Okay, so this is this Shiite crescent that are trying to spread. They are also threatening, they are trying to destabilize the Sunni countries. As I said, they feel they were persecuted by their own beliefs and they believe that they have the real Islam. The real Islam is the one that Muhammad was the last prophet. But There are the 12 imam that everyone has to follow them.

[B]

So for the Iranian regime, because its own identity of itself is as the Shia spearhead, the Shia vanguard, the defenders of the Shia as a religious idea have to engage in this imperialism throughout the Middle east and the unifying of the Shia Crescent and connecting with Hezbollah and the Iraqi Shia and Yemeni Shia and all of that. And that's the founding idea. In other words, they must be a religious advancing, conquering regime in order to justify their very own existence. That's what revolutionary means in the Revolutionary Guard Corps.

[A]

Absolutely. And since the Revolution of 79, Iran actually adopted the harshest anti Israeli policy than any other country in the region, calling for the total destruction of of Israel. As far as they concern, we are the little Satan and the US is the big Satan.

[B]

Why specifically Israel? Why, why not even Al Qaeda by the way, has other people who are before Israel and when it wants to destroy. Right. Why specifically focus for the Iranians on Israel?

[A]

They, they say that the UK and the United States just invented Israel as a tool to divide the Muslim people and to conquer the area. This is why they say it. This is why they do not recognize of the Holocaust. This is why they do not even recognize Cyrus the Great and when he just sent us to rebuild the second holy temple. But you know, there is another thing that people should know. Again, we're talking during today, the Holocaust Memorial Day. Did you hear, did you ever hear the word, the term of najes? In Hebrew we say najis, right? Najes. You know what's najes?

[B]

It's like to annoy.

[A]

Yeah. You're not. Well, najes is unpure. And you and I as Jewish people, we are unpure. And what does it mean? It means that if you walk down the street and it's raining, you cannot walk under the rain because you make it impure. You're going to make by if it's going to touch your body going to be impure. If you're going to walk in the markets like in Shiraz or Mashhad, you cannot touch, you cannot grasp. Take an apple and check if it's okay if you want to take it or not, you've got to pinpoint it because you got to make it impure.

[B]

Sorry, just, just to clarify, Jews today, there's still six to eight, something like that thousand Jews in Iran they are. They are not people with rights, but they are also fairly safe because the regime protects them to show that there are Jews safe in Iran after 90% of the community left.

[A]

And there's a member of the parliament that is Jewish as well.

[B]

Not appointed, in other words, not elected by the people. Appointed. Yeah, by the regime. But you, you as a Jew today, in a market in Tehran, let's say, have to point at an apple and cannot just literally touch the apple.

[A]

It depends, it very depends who, who's. Who's. Who's. Who is selling it to you. Okay. You can find many Persian Israelis that immigrated to Israel. It could be relatively young people, like in their 20s. And it could be elder is. I know someone. Someone is a very. A great friend of mine. I love him dearly. He's in his 80s. He's. He shared to me, he told me once that he was in this kind of situation. And when he speaks of it, it happened. It's like it just happened like two minutes ago. So very insulted, very like. Like you go back to his childhood. Humiliated feeling. Okay, so this unpure. By the way, dogs also are in unpure. If you want, we can talk about this. And the executions of dog, they are taking from here and there. But this is something that is very rooted in the Shia. And it's not like everybody thinks like that. You know that many of the Iranians adore Israel. And it could be whether we are the enemy or their enemies. It could be thanks to the history we share. You see, many Iranians, Many Iranians love Israelis. But in general, this is a real hatred and antisemitism. I've got to give you. I've got to give you an example about an incident that I had something. Something quite nice that I had several years ago. I went to Disneyland in Paris and I was there with my friends and we were in a line with. To the train. A train. And next to us there was a Persian family. And I understand Farsi. No one next to me understands Farsi. And they put us together in the same place in the same cabin. There was a mother, father and two young children. And they spoke Farsi. And I said, should I. The father, by the way, was with a beard. I said, it looks like from the IRGC or something. But I said, you know what? Why not? I'll try to. I'll start to speak with them in Farsi. And I started to, you know, throw some words here and there. And once they asked me where I was from. And when I said that, I'M from Israel. The woman was so happy, was so excited, was, oh, my God, we love you so much. I can't wait. There's going to be a feast. You'll come to us, we'll come to you. Please just take care of yourself. It was like she almost jumped on me. And you cannot invent this. This is the very first instinct that you see, the way she reacts, you know, it's real and it's genuine. And many of them, like, are like this. And by the way, an hour later, we left the park and I saw a lady, someone breastfeeding next to the exit of the park. And I was like, okay, I've never seen that in France yet. And then I see it's the same lady that was with me on the same family. I was amazed. I was shocked. So no wonder they say they kidnapped the clergy, just kidnapped their country. And this is why they were so happy when they saw that Trump got into the White House again. They saw him as their own savior. And once he was saved in the failing assassination attempt, thank God both the opponents and both the supporters of the regime thought it's a sign from God that he was sent from God.

[B]

Staying with Iran, a third round of talks about a new nuclear deal between Tehran and Washington has reportedly begun in Oman. The negotiations started midday. So let's get into that, let's get into Trump. The US Administration has emphatically decided to turn to a conversation, a negotiation with the Iranian regime to start talking about nuclear non enrichment, possibly allowing them to keep the infrastructure, not allowing them to keep the infrastructure. We've heard Witkoff say both things. We've heard different things out of the Trump administration. It doesn't, it's not at all clear that it is coherent, frankly, the policy, they seem to be trying to figure it out. If there's some clever four dimensional chess, none of us, none of us know what it is, is it possible? And Trump put out a tweet a few days ago in which he said, I called Bibi and we agree on everything, specifically Iran and trade and tariffs. I don't know if that was Trump browbeating Bibi into shutting his people up from complaining about the negotiation. I don't know if that means that Trump promised Bibi that actually if the negotiations don't go the way the Americans want them to, with Iran dismantling its nuclear infrastructure, which obviously is not on the table short of war, that Trump told him, actually we're going to a strike. So I don't know where this is going. Nobody quite knows. There's a lot of concern in Israel that maybe the Trump administration is following the Obama path and stabilizing the regime at the weakest moment of its existence and at the moment of the greatest suffering for the Iranian people because of the regime. How do you see this whole process? What do you think is happening? Are you optimistic, pessimistic? Do you have particular fears going forward? And I'll say one last part to it. What should the Trump administration know that you're afraid maybe it's not aware of about this Iranian regime and this Iranian moment?

[A]

Okay, I'll try to summarize my thoughts. I agree with you. And nobody knows exactly where it's going. And I guess it's going to be closed faster than we think. At the beginning, I was thinking to myself, how come Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, is willing to endure this humiliation? Because he always says death through to the U.S. and we never should have negotiations with with the U.S. so how did he agree with today? So I thought, this is the way how I see it. The, the Islamic Republic regime is weaker and fearful more than ever. And in a way, this could be one of the greatest diplomatic deceptions operation we've seen from the Iranian side. Okay. And I'd like to elaborate more about this. As you said, Khamenei is at the weakest point of his role since assuming power in June 1989. Okay. In his recent appearances, in his recent public appearances, he has appeared very pale and depressed, especially if we compare it to the early months following October 7th. I used to think like he got 10 years more to his life, but seriously, there's no surprise. His life work, the network of the Iranian proxy militia, has suffered a major blow operationally, geopolitically and strategically. Billions of dollars of the Iranian public funds had gone to waste, thrown down the drain. Okay? But beyond that, the Iranian people as a whole are in a dire situation, as we said, one that threats the domestic stability and risk sparking a wild scale uprising that could endanger the regime's survival. Okay? So alongside the severe oppression, the human rights violation and the mass execution, Iran today faces a reality with no clean water, no electricity, no gas, no clean air, and no money. And the economy is in ruins. The currency is at its historic low, and over one third of the population is under the poverty line. Okay? So Khamenei does not want to be remembered as the leader that under his watch, the regime collapsed. And when the house is burning, first you have to do whatever it takes to save Yourself, even it means to humiliate yourself before the greatest enemy. And of course, we mentioned, we talked about the taqiyah, okay, the taqiyah, the Shia concept of the taqiyah is deception and dishonesty for the sake of self preservation and advancing one's interest. So I think it would be very naive to believe that they are abandoning their ideology or their plans. Like I keep saying, can a Persian leopard change its pots? I think they are stalling time because they know there won't ever be another Donald Trump. Okay? So they can sign up whatever they want, promise, promises, and Donald Trump will end his term and then they can do whatever they want. I'm afraid that this is my personal point of view. I'm afraid that one day historians will look back and wonder how at this very moment, when this demonic regime, this Hitler of the 21st century was at its weakest, the United States handed it a lifeline. Iran International I mentioned before, I think was June 2023, published a public announcement, a lecture that Khamenei gave to the audience. He said that whether there's going to be ever negotiations with the US they going to conduct it due to, according to the taqiyah, it's out there. It says it's loud.

[B]

So my point is, I don't blame them for it. Lying in diplomacy, lying in grand strategy is part of grand strategy. Sun Tzu says it and the Bible says it. And it's a necessary part of handling yourself in tricky policy questions that require complex negotiation. So I'm totally comfortable with the idea that they're lying. I'm extremely concerned that the obvious point, that they're lying to serve their fundamental interests as they perceive them is maybe lost on the Americans. How is that not obvious? In other words, how is it not obvious that the regime is going to play for time? Because Trump can't have a third term and a president after Trump, they can reasonably hope that either it's a Democrat who's going to go back to an Obama style, loosening the sanctions, or even within the Republican side, maybe the isolationists win out more even we see them winning now under Trump. How is this not clear that they're right? Waiting it out, waiting Trump out. And if that's true, Netanyahu himself, you're someone who's worked in politics. You worked for a Minister of Strategic affairs in Israel.

[A]

Yes, I used to be his media advisor when he was the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, I wasn't with him afterwards, but

[B]

yes, okay, but you're very familiar with Israeli policy. And strategy. And you have been also in the army and someone that people turn to. So why are the Israelis seemingly comfortable? Maybe because they have no choice. I don't know. Why are the Israelis seemingly comfortable with this negotiating process in which the Trump administration is not showing that it grasps that the Iranians might just be lying, advancing their version of things? An Iranian regime teetering on the edge of a nation's full economic collapse is pretending to be stable and strong. And the Americans are going along with the pretense and negotiating with them more time for them to advance a nuclear program that has never not advanced, has never not advanced. And no one demanding that they dismantle the infrastructure has ever managed to get them to dismantle the infrastructure. Nobody actually knows how to solve any of this. The IAEA just this last week or a week ago said that this stuff is moving forward, this enrichment.

[A]

But it's not only the nukes. Tell me, why does the Iranian people need to have rockets that can hit United States of America while they do not have food to eat? Well, they do not have water in the taps. Trump has already proven that he knows how to take tough stance against Iran. Okay. We saw it in the contest of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, who was the commander of the Quds Force in the irgc. Okay? And let me tell you, Khabib, people say that everyone has a replacement, but Soleimani definitely did not. He strengthened Hezbollah, Iraq, the militias, Syria. And he was a figure that he could have. He could have, he might have one day stepped into the shoes of the supreme leader, Khamenei. So along with the economic sanctions Trump imposed on Iran, he left deep scars on Iran's economy and the regime itself. So this is why people do not exactly understand what's going on. Because when you try to tackle a situation wide world, you won't go straight to a war. You will try to see what you are going and doing in a diplomatic way. Nobody wants to rush into a war. A war, it's a horrible thing, is the last thing that you'll do. But from things that I read today in the media, I don't know what to tell you.

[B]

Really this oppressive, maybe, maybe you're making an argument for giving trust the benefit of the doubt and waiting to see. Because it's unlikely that the Trump who assassinated Qasem Soleimani would be a Trump unclear about Iranian intentions today. Is that a fair thing to say? Is that why Netanyahu seems calm?

[A]

I'm not there to know what they are talking to each other and what's going on beyond the scenes. And as you said, when they see the same, they are the same page. When they see the same things, it's like, you know, a bee sees thousands of colors that you and I, Habib, do not see. So we can look at the same thing and we can think we see the same thing, but we see it in a different perspective. And the American interests are different in a way from Israel. And Trump has been the greatest president to protect the state of Israel, really. And I thought that it could be Roosevelt or Churchill of the 21st century, because as Churchill did not negotiate with Hitler, this is, I thought there is no point to negotiate with the Hitler of the 21st century, which is Khamenei. And this demonic regime that still today is calling out loud without hiding it, it proposed to destruct the state of Israel. They are hanging billboards across Iran. They're shouting in parades, death to Israel. Death to America. In Tehran city council a few days ago, while they are having negotiations with the U.S. they are shouting, Death to the U.S. what's going on, guys? So there's no doubt this oppressive regime must come to an end. Otherwise there will never be peace in the Middle East. They will always try keep toppling and challenging the Sunni countries. We haven't spoken even about Africa, how they are taking over Africa. But you know, time will tell.

[B]

Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levy, thank you so much for being with us. Fascinating stuff and worrying stuff. And we wait to see how history, how history turns out. Thank you so much.

[A]

Thank you so much.