Let’s get to know each other! You can use this simple format: Hey, I’m from ____________. For fun, I like to ______________________. Here’s a pic of my myself or something I like.

I am new to the group. Do I get informed of the next discussion group on its day and time?

I grew up under a system that tried to teach us that Israelis were our enemies, yet every year it became clearer that the real threat to our lives was the ideology ruling over us. Ordinary Iranians were never at war with ordinary Israelis. Both peoples have been cornered by the same violent doctrine that glorifies death and demands obedience instead of freedom. One nation has endured its attacks for decades and the other has endured its rule, but both know the truth. They want a future built on life, dignity, and the right to escape the suffocating grip of clerics who decide destiny for everyone else. You can see this shared understanding in the way Iranian protesters cheer for any blow against the IRGC and in the way Israelis distinguish between a people and the regime that cages them. A bridge between these two populations exists today in small acts of courage and in the everyday rejection of the propaganda we were raised with. It is a bridge the regime cannot sabotage because it grows every time Iranians and Israelis choose each other over the lie that was forced on us since childhood.

Civilizations do not fall all at once. They decay when their defenders hesitate, and when those who seek their destruction face no resistance. I come from Iran, a country that once moved toward modernity but was dragged into darkness by the very forces Israel confronts today. I watched a society with thousands of years of culture collapse under fanaticism, and I learned how quickly a nation can lose everything when civilization is left undefended. That experience shapes how I see Israel’s struggle. Israel stands on a frontier where movements built on cruelty and domination still believe they can break the modern world through terror. Anyone who has lived through Iran’s undoing understands how real this threat is. Standing with Israel is not a symbolic act. It is recognizing the same ideology that swallowed Iran now pressing against the borders of another nation. Israel absorbs the first blows, so others do not face them unprepared. It carries a burden most countries only understand after it is too late. A nation that holds that line is not just protecting itself. It is defending the thin boundary that separates civilization from the ruins left behind when extremism wins.

In case you missed it.