The first time I went to an Iranian protest in Stuttgart, one of the organizers spotted me, lit up, and said she wanted to introduce me to someone. I caught the word “Israelis,” or thought I did. She waved a few people over, and through the small crowd came an elderly German couple, each holding two flags — Iran’s and Israel’s, side by side.

I should not have been surprised, but I was. At these modest gatherings, a handful of Israeli flags are always in the air, carried by Iranians, next to the Lion and Sun of the old monarchy and the occasional German one. If you have only ever seen the other kind of demonstration — the ones where the Israeli flag is laid on the ground to be walked over — the sight rearranges something in your head. Why would Iranians, of all people, wave the flag of the country whose jets had been bombing their homeland?

The honest answer I keep hearing is the oldest one in politics: the enemy of my enemy. But a slogan is thin, so let me tell you about the woman I met instead, because she is the answer with a face.

She is from Abadan. When the Iraqi shells began falling on the........

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