On January 16, 1979, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, departed from Tehran airport for Cairo, Egypt. It was a one-way trip from a country in the throes of the Islamic Revolution. That same day, a couple and their two children hurriedly boarded a plane to Greece. The youngest in the family, then 8 years old, was named Mozhgan. Today, she goes by Orly and is a prominent figure in Israel’s human rights movement: Orly Noy leads B’Tselem, the country’s most influential, and also most critical, NGO on Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
With short black hair and a generous smile, this woman in her 50s, who also manages the news site +972 – staffed by both Israeli and Palestinian journalists – is known for her candor. “I am Israeli, but if I had to do it all over again, I would not join the army, no way!” she exclaimed. The all-out war waged by Israel in Gaza, in retaliation for the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, deeply revolts her. The war against Iran – those 12 days between June 13 and 24, when Israel relentlessly struck Iranian territory – shook Noy, born Jewish in Tehran in 1970. “It broke my heart. My country was bombing my country.”
Being born in Iran and growing up in Israel not only poses problems of integration, as it does for any migrant. It also implies a dual belonging that’s impossible to reconcile – a divide that grows wider each day. Iran is seen by Israel as an “existential threat”; Tehran does not recognize the existence of Israel, whose destruction it has pledged.
Passing on her culture
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