Ramin Parsa, an Iranian dissident and pro-Israel activist living in Jerusalem, was granted a one-year temporary residency permit last month after a three-and-a-half-year legal and bureaucratic battle with the Interior Ministry.
Parsa, who was born in Shiraz before converting from Shia Islam to Christianity and fleeing the Islamic Republic, is a public speaker and activist who has spent years volunteering and advocating for Israel. Nevertheless, despite his Israeli wife and child, he was twice denied legal status in Israel by the Interior Ministry. Last month, however, following what Parsa credited to an intervention by God, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that finally changed.
“It was a miracle, actually, a miracle of God,” Parsa told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. “But Ambassador Huckabee really helped. He took our case and presented it to the government, to Prime Minister Netanyahu and his office, and they took it seriously.”
According to Parsa, the intervention prompted officials to revisit his case after years of legal proceedings and repeated applications.
“They basically had an inquiry into the case – what’s happening – and then they realized that it had been stuck there for a while,” he said. “So they granted me my temporary residency after three and a half years.”
Parsa said he credited Huckabee, Netanyahu, and members of the prime minister’s national security team with helping bring the matter to a resolution.
The permit gives Parsa temporary status for one year. After that, he said, he will have to apply again, with the possibility of eventually seeking permanent residency.
“We have one year, and then after a year I will reapply again, and so this is one good step in the right direction, and I’m grateful for that,” Parsa said.
“I believe that next year we will also apply and will get it. I’m confident of that, but you never know,” he continued. “I believe that it’s going to work out, and we’re going to have another miracle. And eventually, I can apply for permanent residency.”
Parsa said his temporary residency was granted through a discretionary provision that he referred to as “Section Nine,” rather than through the ordinary process based on his marriage to an Israeli citizen.
“The way my residency was granted was not based on marriage, but based on Section Nine,” he said, adding that the decision was based on his being considered a benefit to the state.
“I’ve been a Zionist, a Christian Zionist, for almost 20 years,” he said. “I’ve been supporting Israel even before I met my wife, before I got married, before I even imagined I would be living in Israel.”
Parsa stressed that, as he understood the decision, it did not automatically establish a pathway for other applicants in similar circumstances.
“It’s not a law that basically they have to give it to everyone based on the same rule,” he said. “It’s discretion, so they can decide to do it or they can decide not to do it.”
The change in status has already opened doors that had previously been closed to him. When the Post interviewed Parsa earlier in the process, he said his uncertain legal situation had prevented him from traveling abroad, including to events where he had been invited to speak in support of Israel.
Parsa has booked trips to South Africa, Germany, United States to speak on Israel’s behalf
Now, he said, he has already booked trips to South Africa, Germany, and the United States to speak on Israel’s behalf.
“A few days ago, I got a message from the Foreign Ministry that they want me to speak to a group of pastors who came from South Africa,” Parsa said.
“I want to use my time in the best way possible, in the wisest way possible, to support Israel, to combat antisemitism, and to basically tell the world [about] the real Israel that I live in.”
Parsa said he did not view his experience with the Interior Ministry as representative of Israeli society as a whole.
“I don’t want to blame Israel for the mistake of a few people in the Ministry of Interior because that doesn’t represent the country,” he said. “What represents the country is the good people of Israel.”
For Parsa, the case is also personal beyond his legal status. His wife is an Israeli Jew, the couple has a young son, and they are expecting another child.
He described their family as symbolic of what he hopes could one day become a broader reconciliation between Israelis and Iranians.
“My marriage with my wife is a prophetic picture of two nations coming together,” he said. “We have a beautiful son, and we have one on the way, so the fruit is so beautiful when these two nations come together.”
Asked what he hoped that relationship might look like in the future, Parsa pointed to his hometown.
“I’m hoping and praying for a day that we have a direct flight from Tel Aviv to Tehran, from Tel Aviv to Shiraz,” he said.
“I see the day that the regime will fall and Israelis and Iranians will become friends.”