Iranians on Long Island react to U.S., Israel attack

Raymond Iryami left Iran at age 10 in the middle of fifth grade, his social studies and science textbooks in tow. He expected to be gone for a few months.

He has never returned.

Iryami is among a contingent of Iranians on Long Island who woke up Saturday morning to news of U.S.-led strikes and the complicated emotions and thoughts that come with conflict in the region. There was a cautious optimism that the new conflict would be swift and lead to a regime change in the embattled country, which has been embroiled in nationwide protests that have led to the killing of thousands of people.

"It's fear and excitement all at once," Iryami, now 54 and living in Great Neck, said in a phone interview.

"Anything that would make it more likely that I can someday go back to Iran to visit it would be very exciting for me," Iryami said. "But there's also fear that it may not work and a lot of people may die in vain."

The United States and Israel launched the attack early Saturday, and President Donald Trump urged Iranians to overthrow Islamic leadership that has been in place since 1979. Iran and the United States recently held talks aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear program, and Trump has said he seeks to constrain the country's capabilities at a time when it's dealing with widespread dissent.

Sean Sabeti was just 16 in 1979 when he left Iran months before its revolution. Now 63 and living in Great Neck, Sabeti said he sees the latest conflict as a reason for hope. 

"It's about time the people of Iran could start having hopes of freedom and liberty, which they have been deprived of over the past 47 years," Sabeti said in a phone interview.

He expressed concern for Iranian citizens who have endured attempts at an uprising. A series of protests in Iran led to a massive crackdown by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that killed thousands. Israeli authorities told The Associated Press that Khamenei was found dead in the wake of the assault. Iran and the United States hadn't confirmed the death as of Saturday afternoon. 

"At this point, our hope is that the new action that the U.S. is taking could help the people of Iran, and maybe another uprising could assist them to put the last nail in the coffin," Sabeti said.

For those with relatives in Iran, news of the attacks came with anxiety.

Vahid Danesh, 29, of Port Jefferson, said in a text message that he couldn't sleep last night as news of the attacks began to emerge. He has relatives in Tehran who are "safe for now," adding that the uncertainty in the wake of the strikes is "heavy."

But he doesn't view the conflict as a war. He sees it as a "liberation operation."

"While the world watches from a distance, my family is there, waiting for the smoke to clear so they can finally breathe the air of a country that belongs to them again," said Danesh, who is the president of the Iranian Graduate Student Association at Stony Brook University.

Iranians have been molded by decades of an oppressive regime that has committed aggression against its own citizens, he said, and the ongoing conflict is one he hopes can spur meaningful change.

Danesh said that by dismantling the regime, it is "clearing the way for a region that isn't defined by the Islamic Republic's violence, but by the people's right to live."

Some Iranian-Americans, who refer to themselves as Persians, were concerned to speak on the record for this story. They said they feared for the lives of loved ones in Iran who they have not been able to reach. There are more than 10,000 people of Iranian descent on Long Island, according to U.S. Census data, including around 9,600 in Nassau County. 

Rory Lancman, who formerly served in the state Assembly and New York City Council, said a friend of his has a relative in Iran who is reluctant to even send any information over email, other than "banalities about his well being."

Email and social media are tightly monitored in Iran, he said. Lancman's wife is is state Supreme Court Justice Mojgan Cohanim Lancman, who emigrated from Iran as a child during the Islamic Revolution. He is a Democratic candidate for the  State Senate's 7th District.

"Everybody I encounter is deeply concerned about the safety of their family, their friends and all of the Iranian people," he said.

Rebecca Sassouni, who identifies as an American-born Persian Jew, has family born in Iran and said she feels a sense of "gratitude and awe" that the United States and Israel "are working in tandem to secure the freedom of the Iranian people." 

Sassouni, a Carle Place attorney and rabbi, vividly remembers being at the White House in 1977 with her family when President Jimmy Carter welcomed the Shah of Iran and the violence that erupted between pro- and anti-Shah protesters. In the decades since, the people of Iran have "been trampled like I was in 1977 on the White House lawn," she said. 

Some Long Islanders expressed hope the U.S. intervention could lead to the release of Kamran Hekmati, a Great Neck Estates man being held prisoner in Iran after he was arrested during a visit earlier this year. Hekmati, 70, has bladder cancer and was charged by Iranian authorities after it was discovered he traveled to Israel for his son's bar mitzvah 13 years ago, Newsday has reported.

Jacqueline Harounian, an attorney living in Port Washington whose parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1960s, said she hopes U.S. intervention in the area leads to "a quick end to the regime, and not a protracted war."

Part of Long Island's Iranian-Jewish community, Harounian, 56, said she is hopeful Iran  will have a "more stable set of leaders" emerging from the conflict.

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ