My aunt and five-year-old cousin had been in Iran visiting family for one week, when on June 12, they woke to the sound of Israeli bombs hitting their neighborhood — the first strikes in what would become a twelve-day war between Israel and Iran. It was the most heartbreaking, difficult week for the Iranian diaspora in my memory — and the lack of substantial outrage in the U.S. highlights the need for unity in the Iranian-American community.

On June 12, Israel launched its first strikes on Iran’s military and nuclear infrastructure, killing their top military commanders and leading nuclear scientists. The attacks that followed destroyed civilian infrastructure — including hospitals and a residential building — and killed 974 Iranians, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel’s Health Ministry reported that Iranian retaliatory strikes have killed 28 people in Israel. After 10 days of war and two days of Trump deliberating U.S. involvement, the U.S. carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites. President Donald Trump’s administration insisted, despite opposing information from his own Director of National Intelligence, that Iran was days away from producing a nuclear weapon. Israel and Iran declared a tentative ceasefire on June 23, and after initial violations by both sides, it appears to be holding.

Thankfully, my family is safe. They live in northern Tehran, which came under heavy bombardment, but were able to flee to the Caspian coast. My aunt has described tents crowding sidewalks in coastal towns as thousands flee the capital with nowhere to go. Iranians have united in solidarity — my friends tell me of their families with villas in the north opening their homes to those displaced from the war.

Amid all this fear and uncertainty, I hoped that the Iranian-American community in the U.S. would unite in the same way — to speak up and ask for an end to U.S. involvement in the attacks on the Iranian people. We are more powerful when we present a united front with a single, urgent demand — stop the violence.

But the reactions across the Iranian diaspora have been deeply divided. Within hours of the strikes, some celebrated them as a necessary step towards toppling the regime — specifically, many Iranians who live in Los Angeles, fondly known as “Tehrangeles.” But as images of felled apartment buildings and children buried under rubble emerged, my family and I were frozen in front of the television, frantically trying to reach our family and unable to feel anything but fear.

I have never supported the Iranian government. It has committed atrocious crimes against its own people — detaining and executing dissidents, brutalizing women who violate the hijab mandate and funding violent proxies across the region. But being Iranian-American means speaking up for my community not only during widely supported movements, like the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests, but also when it’s difficult, like today.

Condemning the strikes on Iran may be misinterpreted as support for the Iranian government, and many Iranians are fearful of being labeled as regime supporters for opposing U.S. action on the country. The reality is that most Iranians abhor the Islamic Regime, and putting aside political differences will make it clear our sole objective is preventing a humanitarian crisis in Iran.

Already, political propaganda is justifying the attacks on Iran, echoing the false narratives of weapons of mass destruction that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These justifications portray Iran as a backward place, dangerous for women and minorities, brimming with fierce hatred for the Americans. Yet my childhood visits to my family in Iran were a glimpse beyond the Iran portrayed in the news and a look at the resilience, kindness and hospitality of a people so often vilified by Western media. Uniting as a community to share this humanizing view of the Iranian people that policymakers are not often exposed to could very well influence future U.S. response to violence in the region.

I have a hard time believing that Israel, a country whose leadership is responsible for the deaths of over 55,000 Palestinians in the war in Gaza, will bring liberation to the Iranian people. No more do I believe Trump’s stated desire to free Iran. If his treatment of the immigrants that built this country hasn’t made it clear that he couldn’t care less about liberation, I don’t know what will. We as Iranian Americans should oppose violence by both the U.S and Israel, as history has shown that foreign intervention in the Middle East repeatedly led to destabilization in the region — a clear example being Iraq’s shaky democracy two decades after the U.S. invasion.

Iranians in the diaspora are sharply split on the best path forward for Iran — who should rule, how the government should change and what comes next. But right now, we must unite around the humanitarian crisis unfolding.

People cannot resist the Iranian regime when they are being attacked by outside invaders. Their daily life consists of survival, not the kind of armed resistance that would bring down a decades-old regime. The bombings may even have bolstered nationalist support for the regime in the face of Western aggression, which is why it is essential to ensure the ceasefire remains. Analysts have said there have been no indicators of imminent regime collapse, but that may change.

Stopping foreign intervention is the first step to self determination by the Iranian people. I urge Iranians and non-Iranians alike in the U.S. to call for the ceasefire to be sustained as an end to this war of aggression on the Iranian people, as we all hope to see a free Iran in our lifetime.

Ava Etemadi, a senior majoring in political science with a minor in sociology, is an opinions writer.