Faezeh Alavi, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Worst Nightmare

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Faezeh Alavi is a young Iranian woman, now living safely in Scotland, far from the madding crowd of mullahs and their ignoble strife, where she conducts her one-woman campaign against the Islamic Republic entirely on social media, now that her speaking engagements have been cancelled because pro-Palestinian thugs have managed to shut down her talks. She’s a remarkable woman, and I thought her story would interest you as much as it did me. More about her can be found here in an article that you may have missed from six weeks ago: “Faeze [sic] Alavi: Bridging Israeli-Iranian relations against silencing – interview,” by Ohad Merlin, Jerusalem Post, March 27, 2025:

Faezeh Alavi, an Iranian-born scholar and artist whose dialogue event at King’s College was canceled following protests from anti-Israel activists, remains optimistic about restoring Iranian-Israeli relations and rejects Western silencing techniques in academia that “remind her of home.”

“It’s ironic that I left a country with no freedom of expression – only to find myself being silenced in the West – and in an event promoting dialogue between Israelis and Iranians,” said Alavi.

Alavi, a 30-year-old scholar living in Scotland, referred to the canceling of an event she was invited to speak at, titled “From Conflict to Connection: Israelis and Iranians in Dialogue,” hosted at King’s College by the King’s Geopolitics Forum last month.

As the event began and as Alavi started to speak about the Islamic Republic regime’s changing of the traditional Iranian flag, students who were present at the lecture began shouting and screaming slogans, which led to the event being canceled altogether.

Alavi was born in Iran, a country she holds dear but felt she had to leave in search of greater opportunities and freedom of expression. Her experiences paint a vivid picture of life under the Islamic regime – a world of dual lives, where intellectual curiosity constantly battles against systemic oppression.

She recalled the challenging environment of Iranian universities, where anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments form the ideological bedrock of the Islamic Revolution.

Despite the pervasive propaganda, Alavi emphasized that most Iranians secretly desire change. She noted that even professors and teachers often subtly resist the regime’s narrative, finding creative ways to speak truth to power. “It’s very challenging,” she said, “but it’s possible to find a way to truth and common sense.”

Since arriving in the UK, Alavi has dedicated her academic pursuits to understanding development policy and foreign relations, with a particular focus on the Middle East. She is also an artist who views art as a potent vessel of communication, believing in the transformative power of artistic expression – a belief rooted in her Persian cultural background.

“Art can touch people’s hearts and bridge between them,” Alavi explained.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a poem or a painting. I see power in art that can reach anyone’s hearts. There are things that can’t be described with words, but art manages to convey messages even without them,” Alavi described Persian art relating strongly to emotions.

Her artwork, including a piece titled Chords of Cyrus, symbolizes the historical connection between Iran and Israel, referencing Cyrus the Great’s liberation of Jews from Babylonian captivity. She even created a map of Israel using Persian art techniques, highlighted with orange tones to show support for the Bibas family – and wore a yellow hostage pin during her interview with The Jerusalem Post.

‘Silenced, just like back at home’

As a Muslim woman wearing a hijab while advocating against the Islamic regime in Iran, Alavi described how she faces unique challenges and stigmas in her advocacy.

“People are shocked when they learn of my support for Israel and my rejection of the regime. I’ve been accused of many things, including Islamophobia, which is just ridiculous. They are trying to silence me even though I speak from my personal experience in Iran itself.”

She added that she remains undeterred and will continue to challenge the regime’s narrative that ‘only non-Muslim Iranians desire political change.’…

Alavi is convinced that a great majority of Iranians are fed up with the regime, which rules by fear. They also are well-disposed to Israel, she insists, despite — or possibly because of — the official hatefests organized by the regime to denounce the Little Satan and burn the Israeli flag. The more the hated regime denounces Israel, the greater the support for Israel among Iran’s people. Alawi reminds her audience of the historic ties between Jews and Persians, going back to the 6th century B.C., when the Persian kings allowed the Jews, then enduring their Babylonian Captivity, to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the Temple (see Ezra 6;14). On social media, she keeps up a constant stream of political polemic: she supports Reza Pahlavi to be the future head of state in what she yearns for Iran to become, a secular and democratic state, with a monarch akin to the British monarch, a unifying national symbol, but without real power. And above all, she looks forward to a public rapprochement, and a real friendship, between Iran and Israel, between Persians and Jews.

You can see more of Faezeh Alavi’s social media posts here.