Hi, everybody. This is Martha McCallum, and welcome to the Untold Story podcast. It's Tuesday morning, June 17th, as we watch this very fast-moving development of war in the Middle East and where all of this is headed between Israel and Iran.

Very glad to be joined today by Nazimonian, who is a fellow at the Middle East Institute and holds a doctorate in Iranian studies from the University of St. Andrews.

And she is a longtime academic activist thinker and a person who knows a lot of the moving parts in the Middle East and the people involved in it. So it's always a

pleasure to talk to Nazi. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me back.

So I think I'd like to start once again, for those who have not heard our prior conversations,

you have a unique perspective on this as a Jewish woman born in Iran, Persian background, and someone who really

sees both sides of this in a way that I think that most people cannot. What does it mean to you

as an Iranian Jewish woman with a lot of family in Israel and on both

sides of this equation when you look at what's happening?

That's a very profound question.

I have been emotional since Friday when these attacks started.

I can't even call it a strike or an attack anymore.

Martha, we're in a war.

There's a war going on between Israel and Iran

that was once unthinkable.

And Iran, by attacking Israel in October of 2024,

crossed a Rubicon that no one ever thought will be crossed.

So here we are at a pivotal moment, I would say, in both Israel's in Iranian history,

where two countries that could have been natural allies, you know, they're non-Arab, broadly homogenous in a way that Iranians speak Farsi.

They're proud of their country.

They're nationalists.

Israel is also very nationalist, as they should be, two very ancient civilizations that

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