Iran and Israel’s Love-Hate Relationship: From Shah to Ayatollahs

Divya Malhotra

Middle East has turned into a ticking time bomb as Iran and Israel stand on the verge of a full-blown war. A lot has transpired between the two countries since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Gaza war. Israel is more than a thousand miles away from Iran. They do not share any border and there are no significant bilateral claims between them. And yet they are arch enemies.

Michael Faulker in 1950 famously said that, “In the Middle East, past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Surprisingly, not so long ago, the Israel-Iran equation was quite cordial and friendly. Under the Pahlavi dynasty which governed Iran (from 1925) until the 1979 revolution, Iran and Israel were on the same team. When Israel was established in 1948, Iran was the second Muslim-majority nation to recognize it, after Turkey. After Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected as Iran’s PM in 1951, the relations soured for a brief period. He tried to distance from the West and broke off relations with Israel. But in 1953, Mosaddegh’s government was deposed in a coup orchestrated by the US and UK intelligence services. Reza Shah Pahlavi was reinstated.

Arms, Oil and anti-Arabism: Shah wanted to improve Iran’s relations with the US, and he knew very well that the road to Washington passed via Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, as a part of its Periphery Doctrine, Israel reached out to the non-Arab (but primarily Muslim) nations in the region – Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia, to counterbalance the threat posed by pan-Arabism. The Iran-Israel alliance at that time was dictated by simple logic – both the nations had Arab enemies in common, and the enemy’s enemy can be my friend. In 1959, the Shah granted de facto recognition to the Jewish state and in 1960s, Israel opened its embassy in Tehran. Due to its conflict with the Arab world, energy security remained a major concern for Israel. Iran supplied more than 90% of Israel’s oil imports from the mid-1950s till the late 1970s. In a 1963 deal, Tehran offered Israel the first rights to oil produced by Iran’s national oil corporation – NIOC (National Iranian Oil corporation), with Israel agreeing to buy at least 50% of its oil from the corporation. Additionally, the joint Israeli-Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline was also used to transport Iranian oil to European markets.

Tehran and Tel Aviv also had extensive military and security cooperation, but it was largely kept under wraps. As per a 1985-CIA dossier (declassified in 2011), Israel’s main defence exports to Iran included small arms, mortars and ammunition. Besides providing maintenance

support for the Iranian air force and army, Israel also offered technical support for Iran’s infant defence industry. The two allies had a convenient barter-trade arrangement – arms for oil! Interestingly, Iranian security and intelligence service – SAVAK was also partly trained by Mossad, alongside CIA.

1979 Islamic revolution: In 1979, west-backed Shah’s monarchy was toppled in a bloody revolution and the Ayatollahs took over. The legitimacy of the new theocratic regime was based on its commitment to ideals of Shia Islam and its opposition to West led by America (labelled as Great Satan). Ali Shariati, known as the main ideologue of Iranian Revolution asserted that followers of true Islam must fight the West which was marked by excessive materialism and moral degradation.

Besides adopting a fundamentally anti-West position, the new regime prioritized the Palestinian cause. Iran’s Shia regime apparently became more Palestinian than the Palestinians – most of whom are Sunni Muslims. Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat was the first foreign leader to visit Iran, just a few days after the revolution. The Israeli embassy was officially turned into the Palestinian embassy and the keys were ceremoniously handed to the Palestinian delegation. In May, Habib Elghanian, the head of Iran’s Jewish Association was the first Iranian Jew to be executed for alleged espionage. On 7 August 1979, Khomeini proclaimed the last Friday of Ramadan to be Quds (Jerusalem) Day to assert the Palestinian claim over Jerusalem. Since then, huge anti-Israel demonstrations are held across Iran on this day every year. Thus, by supporting the Palestinian cause, Iran assumed a moral high-ground in the Muslim world where many Arab states have mended fences with Israel.

Tensions soured in the early 2000s as Iran developed long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear bombs. In 2005, when the newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be “wiped off the face of the earth”, it was a tipping point in Israel-Iran relations (or whatever was left of it). Under moderate conservative President Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021), there was there was some hope for peace. Talks resumed and finally in 2015, Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as Iran nuclear deal was signed between Iran and P5+1 countries. While the international community welcomed the historic détente, Israel and Gulf Sunni monarchies opposed the deal.

The talks fell apart as Donald Trump replaced Obama in the White house. On May 8, 2016, Trump formally declared the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran deal. The same evening, Israel launched an airstrike in Damascus, Syria targeting arms depot belonging to Hezbollah and Iran. Since then, both the countries have been fighting a shadow war.

The writer is a New Delhi-based researcher.