Chronicling Different Times

Contemporary Israel and Iran comprise the two most evidently antagonistic nations in the world, sharing a particularly pronounced confrontational relationship.  However, prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Iran and Israel were allies who cooperated extensively with one another, recognized their shared interests and developed informal relations and security alliances.  The connect between the two nations was profounder than geopolitics. It could be traced back to the annals of Jewish and Persian history. Following the revolution and Iran’s embrace of a more radical ideology along with a recalculation of its national interests, Iran and Israel came to be viewed as ideological and political opposites. This resulted in a deterioration of the two states’ previously close, albeit informal relationship. The animosity between the two former allies was often represented as a clash of civilizations, a supposedly secular western democracy in contrast to a backward, theological authoritarian regime. Yet, in reality there were remarkable similarities in their geo political strategy, national and religious ideology and domestic social psychology.

The defeat of Iraq in 1991 along with the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 are considered as significant events that drove Israel and Iran towards greater competition. The ideological framing of this conflict reached new levels, reinforcing the strategic basis of the rivalry. Iran’s quest for a nuclear program and potentially a nuclear weapons capability particularly intensified tensions between the two nations. In the current regional environment, where Iran has stepped up its anti-Israel rhetoric and is asserting its interest in areas that border Israel, each state now views the other as a central security challenge. The 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which was widely perceived as a proxy war between Israel and Iran, has often been viewed as a precursor to more direct conflict between the two nations.

In the immediate aftermath of the Arab uprisings of 2011 which whenanalysed through the prism of Iran created widespread fear and trepidation that the fall of pro U.S. leaders such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the extensive protests among Shi’a majority populations in states such as Bahrain could only strengthen Iran’s hand and tilt the balance of power in its favour. Israeli analysts apprehendedthatIran couldcapitalize on the unrest in the Arab world to assert its own influence.  In multiple ways the Arab uprisings in actualitygenerated new challenges for Iran domestically and had the potential to make its broader regional appeal in the Arab world more difficult, as it no longer monopolized popular anti-Israel positions. Yet, these narratives indicating that Iran would capitalize on the regional turmoil to advance its rejectionist regional agenda, underscored the extent to which, many Western and Israeli analyses continued to view Iran as the region’s central security challenge.

For Israel, Iran’s perceived increasing influence was particularly alarming in that it now extendedto Israel’s borders in Lebanon and Gaza through its political and military support to Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel’sother concerns included an apprehension that Iran’s influence would escalate and Israel’s manoeuvrability would correspondingly decrease as Iran acquired nuclear weapons capability. Although Israelis debated the value of using the ‘existential threat ‘terminology’ because of concern that such language may erode Israel’s deterrence  posture, many in Israel’s security establishment nonetheless believed that future Iranian nuclear use is possible, either by design or during a crisis that escalates beyond the original intentions of leaders on either side. Iran, for its part, also increasingly began to perceive Israel as a geopolitical and military rival, which has used its close relationship with the U.S. to challenge Iran’s ambitions in the Middle East. Iran’s national security policies, especially its relations with regional allies such as Hezbollah and Syria, and the development of its military doctrine and industry, were increasingly shaped by this perception of Israel. With Israel as the only regional state considering military action against Iran as its nuclear programme moved forward, the rivalry between Israel and Iran emerged as a defining feature of the contemporary regional setting.

Even though mutual antagonismcharacterised Israeli-Iranian relations ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, the two sides have never been engaged in direct military encounter. They have been instances of collaboration at times in the face of common regional threats, both before and after the Iranian revolution. The 1979 Iranian Revolution brought decades of a controversial albeit an amicable relationship between Iran and Israel to an abrupt end, at least seemingly. Although Iran had never officially recognised the state of Israel, the two nations constituted America’s principal allies in Middle East and were drawn to one another for various cultural, historical and geostrategic reasons. The two non-Arab, and pro-Western states engaged in trade, chiefly comprising the sale of cheap oil to Israel and the import of foodstuff to Iran.  Israel maintained a de facto embassy, called the ‘Israeli Interests Office’ in Tehran during Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reign while Iran had a consulate general in Jerusalem but the Shah had become critical of Israel during the later period of his rule and had explicitly condemned the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, backed the Arab nations in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 as part of a concerted effort towards improved relations with the Arab nations of the region. As a result, throughout the 1970s Israeli-Iranian relations became increasingly fragile. The ascent of the right wing Likud party in Israel in 1977 further strained the relations. The right wing Israeli premier Menachem Begin criticised the Shah and endorsed Khomeini and he was not alone among secularists who expressed a somewhat ingenuous optimism for the impending removal of the Shah and the return of the Ayatollah to Iran.

The leader in exile Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had been denouncing the monarch’s relations with Israel for years as from the ideological point of view embraced by Khomeini and his supporters consisting of Shi’a clergymen along with a majority of Iran’s religious population, recognizing and maintaining relations with Israel, even informal and unofficial, undermined the Islamic character and commitments of Iran. Consequently, Iranian–Israeli relations were transformed from close ties between Israel and Iran during the era of the Pahlavi dynasty to hostility since the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Upon Khomeini’s return to Iran on February 11, 1979, the armed forces and the police joined the revolutionaries and took over the ‘Israeli Interests Office’ in Tehran. On February 18, the Islamic Republic received its first foreign dignitary, the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat. The ‘Israeli Interests Office’ compound was immediately transferred to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Iran cut off all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, and its government no longer recognized Israel as a state and referred to its government as the ‘Zionist regime.’ The territory was now referred to as the ‘Occupied territories.’  Khomeini gave the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ideological connotations, but by accusing Zionism of threatening the Islamic world, converted it into an Iranian cause as well. Like his deposed predecessor, Khomeini’s primary motivation was the geopolitical aim of establishing Iran as a regional superpower for which, Iran was required to befriend and command the respect of the Arab states in the region. While Iran’s anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian rhetoric continued to grow but without any practical support for Palestine from Iran and Khomeini’s scathing criticism of secularism, the brief empathy between the two ended with Arafat moving towards Iraq. There was domestic turmoil in Iran facilitating Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the nation in September 1980 an event which witnessed Iranian Jews participating as soldiers in the nation’s cause. While publicly Khomeini continued to lambast Zionism and Israel, Israeli military advisors were travelling to Iran to train their technicians to repair and alter warplanes to accommodate Israeli made parts and bombs. While the biggest victory for Iran in the Iran-Iraq war in 1981 was an operation named ‘A Road to Jerusalem,’ the victory was made possible largely due to weapons and parts provided by Israel.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to oust Arafat and the PLO from the country it was based in and from which it was coordinating attacks on Israel. Iran condemned the attack and sent around 1,500 volunteers fighters to Lebanon; several of whom were captured by Israeli soldiers and 23 killed during an Israeli air raid on their barracks in Lebanon’s Baalbek Valley. Despite peace overtures by Saddam Hussein following this episode, Khomeini ordered Iranian troops in Lebanon to return to Iran and declared that the road to Quds went through Karbala. However, Iran’s involvement in Lebanon was just beginning as the Lebanese Shi’a grew increasingly frustrated by the prolonged presence of their Israeli occupiers; they immediately turned to Iran for assistance. Khomeini saw in this marginalized community of coreligionists a great opportunity to realise his goal of exporting the Islamic Revolution. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Hossein Zadeh, assumed the role of an unofficial “High Commissioner” for Lebanon, takingnumerous trips to Damascus to supervise arms shipments and fund allocations to Shi’a paramilitaries in Lebanon. While he had been unsuccessful in appealing to the Shi’a majority populations in Bahrain and Iraq, Khomeini’s vocal, financial and military support to of what came to be known as Hezbollah, succeeded in establishing lasting Iranian foothold in an Arab country. In fact, as American, French and British troops left the war torn country in 1983, it was only the Syrian army and the Iranian led Hezbollah that remained as the major forces within Lebanon.

Though driven by an ideological zeal, the complex demands of governance led to the compromise of Khomeini’s Islamic ideology and a turn towards pragmatic foreign policy. In other words, not only was Khomeini desperate for weapons but he also saw in Israel a channel through which he could revive relations with the United States. Israel accepted the role of an intermediary and the head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, David Kimche acknowledged his country’s desire to serve as a bridge between Iran and the West as Iran served as an important strategic interest for Israel. Iran’s strategy of continuing its anti-Israeli stance amid its clandestine arms deals with the Jewish State served two purposes. It was intended to cover up its dealings with Israel. It was also an attempt by Iran to gain Arab support, even as it was fighting a war against a major Arab state that enjoyed broad support from Arab governments and was well funded by the Arab Gulf states. Moderating strains with the Arab States and attaining their respect was essential for Khomeini’s objective of “regional hegemony” but Khomeini’s government asserted that its condemnations of Israel were not about geopolitical advantages but rather about “Palestinian justice and Islamic honour.” Iran had no legitimate basis for a political conflict with Israel.  Iran was neither an Arab country nor was it geographically affected by the Zionist conflict of Palestine. As mentioned earlier Iran’s tirades against Israel were ultimately intended to achieve political goals: to increase Arab support to Iran in an effort to legitimize Iran’s aim of becoming the regional superpower and to rally the Iranian people behind the regime’s revolutionary narrative which posited the Shah’s dealings with Israel as the essence of his corruption and duplicity. Once the revolution was complete , the cleric’s anti-Semitic rhetoric  gave way to more balanced statements that indicated Zionists as members of a colonialist political movement, and not Jews as a whole, as the perpetrators of an indefensible attack on Islam. Jews, they reasoned constituted a religious group and not a nation and consequently they were not entitled to a state of their own and certainly not in the heart of the Islamic world. In any case, Iran needed weapons and Israel was prepared to provide them.

There were several important reasons behind Israel’s willingness to supply Iran with weapons. First, Israel’s most imminent military threat at the end of the 1970s came not from Khomeini’s Iran but from Saddam Hussein. Israel was genuinely concerned with Iraq’s military capability and its role within the greater Arab cause of defeating Israel. Iraq had been a major participant in every Arab-Israeli conflict since 1947 and was actively pursuing nuclear weapons development at its Osirak facility. By facilitating Iran’s efforts against Iraq, Israel was able to simultaneously weaken both the established Iraqi threat and the potential Iranian threat. Secondly, it was in Israel’s interest to sell arms to Iran. The large scale sale of weapons was a great boon for Israel’s battered economy. International sanctions against Iran meant that Israel would have a monopoly on arms sale to the Islamic Republic and as the war raged on year after year, Israel was guaranteed a steady, substantial flow of income from arms deals. The third reason concerned Iran’s large and prosperous Jewish community. As the self-proclaimed custodian of the world’s Jews, Israel viewed relations with Iran as a strategic policy. Maintaining contact with Iran, through the sale of arms or otherwise ensured access to Iran’s Jewish community and facilitated Israel’s ability to safeguard their interests. This was particularly pressing after widespread confiscations and allegations of espionage plagued Iran’s Jewish community after the revolution. These incidents confirmed the Israeli narrative concerning the plight of exilic Jews, according to which Jews in exile were necessarily oppressed and unsafe, and could only find redemption and security once they returned to Israel. Israel’s ultimate goal was the transfer of Iranian Jews to Israel, whose demographic war with its Arab citizens left it desperate for Jewish immigrants. In fact, Khomeini allowed Iranian Jews to emigrate largely because of Israel’s willingness to provide him invaluable arms. In the 1980s a large number of Iranian Jews left for the United States or Israel.

Israel benefitted from the continuation of the war in another more nuanced way. Most Arab leaders felt an obligation to support Saddam, a fellow Arab but opposing Iran, the leading voice of resistance against Israel and Zionism, was a precarious position to take. Nonetheless, Khomeini found an ally in Syria’s Hafeez Al- Assad, causing great strife within the Arab community. Meanwhile multiple Arab militias were fighting each other in Lebanon, causing further internal discord. Such discord gave Israel a sense of security, for it minimized the possibility of any sort of organized Arab attack against the Jewish state. Moreover, the Israelis were aware that Khomeini’s support for the Palestinian cause began and ended with rhetoric. Furthermore, at that point in time Israel and much of the world believed that Khomeini’s regime would soon fall, and the regime too was aware of this possibility. In accordance with Israel’s acute desire to hold on to the periphery doctrine, Israel saw benefit in maintaining a logistical connect with the Iranian armed forces, which it was assumed would remain loyal to a more moderate regime, were one to replace Khomeini’s government. An Iranian victory over Iraq was necessary not only to diminish the Iraqi threat but also to facilitate an eventual restoration of Israeli-Iranian relations similar to that existed before the revolution, when Israel could count on a steady flow of cheap Iranian oil and a balance to its more immediate Arab threat. Ariel Sharon openly spoke for many Israeli leaders when he said he saw no contradiction in cooperating with Iran and at the same time opposing Khomeini. Likewise Khomeini’s willingness to deal with Israel did not compromise the genuineness of his contempt for Zionism. Israel’s rhetoric regarding the Islamic republic throughout the 1980s was surprisingly restrained as Israel felt that it had more pressing, established threats to deal with than the nascent Iranian menace.

The periphery doctrine was the creation of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion, and came to dominate Israel’s foreign policy for the first four decades of statehood. The doctrine was based on the improbability of building peace with Israel’s hostile Arab neighbours and was meant to counter the Arab threat. In view of this, the Jewish state sought to build alliances with non-Arab states, periphery states of the region; namely, Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia as well as regional minority groups such as the Kurds and the Lebanese Christians. This stance assured Israel an important sense of security in the form of regional allies, which it hoped would balance the threats from its more immediate Arab neighbours. However, the unlikely peace deal between Anwar Sadat’s Egypt and Menachem Begin in 1979; a milestone, along with the replacement of the Shah with a vehemently anti-western cleric in Iran, significantly altered the regional dynamics and cast doubts about the efficacy of the doctrine. With much debate within the Israeli government about the periphery doctrine, throughout the 1980s, Israel chose not to abandon it and therefore maintained limited contacts with Iran in hopes of eventually re-establishing a positive relationship. The demise of the periphery doctrine came in the early 1990s. A new school of thought was emerging in Israel that viewed the periphery not as a counterweight to the radical inner circle of Arab states, but rather as a perpetrator of radicalism. Israel, like many others, began to recognize the likelihood that the Islamic republic would endure, even after Khomeini’s death. Meanwhile the core Arab states were becoming more moderate and were unified in their opposition of the stated Iranian goal of spreading the Islamic Revolution. Egypt and Israel were at peace, Iraq was forced into a Western alliance against Iran and the Syrian threat was largely quelled as a result of the Lebanese conflict. The complete abandonment of the periphery doctrine after Oslo Accords in 1993 and the increasing possibility of peace with the Arabs would significantly alter Israel’s foreign policy as Iran’s threats could no longer be dismissed and Israel would come to play the lead in a global anti-Iran crusade with “Iranophobia” becoming well entrenched within the Israeli psyche.

Priya Singh

Associate Director

AGA

The essay comprises`a section from an article by the author, entitled, “Iran and Israel: Construing the Past and Envisaging the Future,” published in The IUP Journal of International Relations, vol. 7, no.3 (2013).