Iranian journalist ‘was saved’ by arrival in Israel, ‘would love to live here’

Hours after she arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, Neda Amin, an Iranian-born Turkey-based blogger for The Times of Israel’s Persian website, thanks the Israeli government for granting her refuge, adding that she has Jewish roots and would love to live in Israel.

During a press conference at The Times of Israel’s Jerusalem offices, Amin, 32, describes her anguish while awaiting likely expulsion from Turkey, where she’s lived for three years, to her native Iran. Amin fled Iran in 2014. She has since written critically about the regime and fears for her life should she be sent back to the country.

“I am very happy. Israel, this is my country,” she says in broken English, adding that she finally feels safe because no one wants to arrest her here.

Amin says she had no immediate plans but indicates that she would seek permanent residence status or citizenship.

“In the meantime, I was saved, I was rescued,” she says in Persian, speaking through an interpreter. “If the Israeli authorities will give me permission, I would love to live here, with all my heart and soul. If not, I will respect their decision.”

Amin says her father’s mother is Jewish and that she always felt sympathetic toward Israel and the Jewish religion.

Amin has blogged regularly for The Times of Israel’s Persian site, and has done some freelance work for the news outlet.

“When her situation came to my attention, which was only two weeks ago, I spoke to the relevant Israeli authorities and told them about the situation,” says Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz, who greeted Amin at the airport earlier on Thursday. “I felt that we had an obligation — The Times of Israel in particular and the State of Israel in general — to help someone who is in trouble partly because of her connection with Israel.”

The officials at the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul, he stresses, were particularly helpful.

— Raphael Ahren