Once, Israel and Iran were allies – even under the ayatollahs

If there is one talent that even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outspoken opponents recognize he has, it is his mastery of communication and memorable phrasing. By naming the offensive he launched against Iran on Friday, June 13, “Rising Lion,” the Israeli prime minister not only echoed a verse from the Bible (“The people shall rise up as a great lion”), but also referenced the lion symbol that had adorned the imperial Persian flag from the 16^th century onwards, and, later, that of Iran under the shah’s rule in the 20^th century.

Indeed, Israel’s campaign has not only targeted Iran’s nuclear program but has also aimed to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was established in Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after the fall of the shah’s regime in 1979. It is all the more worth revisiting the long history of Israeli-Iranian cooperation, both before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ruled in Tehran from 1941 to 1979, de facto recognized Israel in 1950, two years after it was established. He made that recognition official and public in 1960. The Iranian monarch thus broke with Islamic solidarity due to his staunch anti-communism, at a time when the Cold War between Washington and Moscow was increasingly driving Arab nationalist movements into the Soviet camp.

An anti-Arab alliance of convenience

Israel’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, who served as prime minister from 1948 to 1954, and again from 1955 to 1963, sought to develop a strategic partnership with Iran as an anti-Arab alliance of convenience, even if it meant encouraging the shah’s ambitions in the Persian Gulf. Relations between the two flourished after Ben-Gurion visited Tehran in 1961, based on a transfer of military expertise shared by Israel in exchange for Iranian oil deliveries. This dynamic confirmed its importance over the following decade, as the shah aimed to assert himself as the “policeman of the Gulf,” at the expense of his Arab neighbors.

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