27 March 2026 – The BBC had a report on how many Iranian civilians were killed by Israel’s army bombing. Then they invited the former head of the Israeli military intelligence to tell them that his country is using precision weapons and that they should interview Iranians who are hitting Israel. And then he told them they are fighting to liberate the Iranian people. Indeed liberate them of their lives!
15 March 2026 – I very much enjoyed watching “It Was Just an Accident”, a film by Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi today, partly in solidarity with Iranian art and culture and partly because Panahi is a great film maker who is also a political activist that I admire very much. He was detained by US police and imprisoned by Iranian regime, he makes movies about women, children and survivors, he is a wonderful artist … he is an ardent critic of the Iranian regime but insists on living in Iran. he joins a long list of such great Iranian filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry), Asghar Farhadi (A Separation), and Majid Majidi (Children of Heaven).
14 March 2026 – Here is my weekend: an escapade into the past to better understand the present. What I am reading, watching and listening to… (the Arabic book is a translation of Dabashi English book which I could not get)
2 March 2026 – When pushed for what Israel really wants now, Yakoov Amidror, former security adviser to Netanyahu, told the BBC that it is better for Israel if Iran becomes destroyed like Libya or Iraq rather than stay under the control of current regime.
Then the professionally questionable BBC immediately went to interview Bijan Kian, an Iranian American who had an official position under Trump. The clearly unhinged businessman, who has been indicted before for lobbying for a foreign government said that Trump is a hero for the Iranians and that the useless son of the Shah – deposed by the Islamist regime in Tehran in 1979 – who lives in California and is not taken seriously by anybody including the American gov, is the one who is going to lead Iran.
Then would the BBC interview Iranians or Arabs or Americans or anybody who is critical of the US/Israeli relentless and illegal attacks on Iran (a horrible repressive country in its own right but apparently less harmful to global peace and order compared to the havoc that is being wrecked by these two countries on the world)? No, it did not interview any of these folks …
It is now more or less the “us” versus the “them” for the BBC even if done in clever ways.
1 March 2026 – Since a little after 7 am this morning, we have heard the wailing sounds of sirens several times, telling us every time that missiles are going to cross over our heads, far up there in the skies on their way from one country to the west to another to the east or the other way around. (hear the sound in the recording in comments)
After the sirens wail in a rising pitch for three short bursts, they stop. Then we often hear a sound like thunder. A missile was intercepted. I hear such clapping thunder now as I write.
Then sometime later (maybe minutes or hours that feel like ages), a long one minute siren declares the end of the episode.
Over the past 24 hours, some debris had fallen on a high road nearby, another on a suburb of Amman, and a third on a northwestern city, according to social media footage. No injuries if you discount rising fear, anxiety, angst and the trauma of it all.
It does help some to think of the far worse fate that other people in the region suffered under missiles and ceaseless bombardments, especially in Gaza, for the last two and more years. We have not had to bear the searing endless pain of the death of children as parents and families had to from Gaza (20,000 children killed) to Minab (Iran) where tens were reportedly butchered by a US/Israeli missile when they were attending school. For many it makes them more frightened for their kids, feeling very angry but impotent.
They know that probably most of these intercepted missiles are Iranian, those of them who are interested in geopolitics say these missiles are a response to the much more destructive ones hurled by Israel and the US at Iran, so far killing hundreds. They see this as a result of decades of imperial hubris, arrogance and unjust acts by Israel and the US as the root cause. Then many do not analyze. They just feel angry, impotent and emaciated.
Hafiz, the Iranian poet, provides solace and the long view:
“Do not grieve; The cell of sorrows shall one day become a rose-garden, do not grieve.
O grieving heart, your state shall heal, do not be bitter.
This frenzied head shall find its peace again, do not grieve.”
If the spring of life returns to the meadow’s throne,
O bird of the night, you shall sing again above the rose, do not grieve.”
