Iran and Israel: A Conflict Beyond Logic, or Looking into the Past
Iranian diplomat Reza Safinia arrives at the Israeli presidential residence, 1950
Ahead of the conversation about Ali Larijani
The previous article, "Banisadr and Ahmadinejad: A Unity of Dissimilars, or Reflections on Iran's Future," discussed two secular presidents with very different biographies. The discussion was framed by the topic of how likely a transformation of power in Iran from theocratic to secular is, and was a continuation of the series begun with the article "An Illusion in Photographs: Why Khomeini Won."
The topic of Iran's present and future is relevant for Russia due to its indirect involvement in the current conflict and because Iran falls within its sphere of macroeconomic interests.
We stopped at the point that the presidency of A. Banisadr and M. Ahmadinejad left a rather negative mark on stories Iran
With regard to the first, the reasons were largely objective in nature: a political struggle, which escalated into armed conflict, between various groups – the left-wing radical Organization of the Iranian People's Mujahideen (OMI) and the stronghold of theocracy – the IRGC.
Since 1979, tensions had been growing between Ayatollah R. Khomeini and the liberal National Front, which was banned in 1981, signaling the victory of theocracy. Banisadr aligned himself with the latter, and this was one of the reasons, though not the only one, for his impeachment and subsequent flight from the country.
The factors that contributed to Ahmadinejad's unsuccessful presidency, on the contrary, are largely subjective. After all, Banisadr was overwhelmed by Khomeini's authority, and the ambitions of the influential leader of the Islamic Republican Party, Mahmoud Beheshti, stood in his way. Furthermore, the economic chaos unleashed by the revolution proved extremely difficult to overcome, especially in the context of the Iraqi war.
The situation was aggravated by the hostage crisis with the Khomeinists seized at the American embassy on November 4, 1979. This accelerated the rift between the adherents of the secular path of development, albeit under the auspices of Islam and the spiritual authority of the ayatollah, and the theocrats.
Ahmadinejad also had a difficult relationship with the recently deceased Rahbar and a number of elite figures, but his opponents had less political clout, and he was the one who made the biggest mess of things in foreign and domestic policy.
In short, I repeat, both failed. Accordingly, we are faced with the question: to what extent, by the end of the first quarter of this century, did Iran retain any prospects for an evolutionary transformation of its government from theocracy to secularism?
Iran has been at a crossroads for years now.
In this regard, it seems interesting to me to touch upon a figure in Iran's political landscape: Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. She possessed a rare combination of academic and successful politician qualities.
Unfortunately, I learned of his death while I was writing this article. Nevertheless, I believe the possibilities for transforming Iran into a secular state are not exhausted, given the inevitable secularization of the consciousness of the future elite and society as a whole.
I believe A. Larijani could have expedited this process, making it relatively painless. When I concluded my previous article, I promised readers I'd talk about him. Moreover, the deceased's four brothers remain members of Iran's elite, and his daughter, who worked as an assistant professor at a medical university, recently returned from the United States. It's no wonder the Larijani family is called Iran's Kennedy clan.
And we'll definitely talk about him in our next article. A. Larijani's death prompted me to reflect on why both his murder and the unprecedented global hunt for Iran's ruling elite are, paradoxically, a blow to the interests of the United States and Israel.
So, much has been written about the US and Israeli aggression against Iran. People have speculated about its causes. Indeed, in my view, they lack a clear justification.
Indeed, already at the end of the last century, Iran, I believe, embarked on a path of gradual transformation of its model of government from a theocratic to a secular one, leveling out the reasons that over forty years ago led to the severance of relations between the country and the United States and Israel.
I think the preconditions for this were created by A. Hashemi Rafsanjani, who became president in 1989 and began to pursue a liberal course, which his successor M. Khatami did not abandon, and later continued, reviving the conservative policies of Ahmadinejad and I. Raisi, M. Pezeshkian.
Let me clarify regarding the transformation of Iranian statehood from a theocracy to a secular model or the search for an appropriate balance. This discussion, of course, is not about the deliberate policies of the aforementioned reformist presidents, whose loyalty to the Rahbar is hardly in doubt, but about the creation of objective conditions for imparting a secular character to the state, the most important of which has found expression in the gradual secularization of society's consciousness, especially among passionate young people living in cities, as discussed in more detail in the articles on Iran.
Pezeshkian had to carry out his activities against the backdrop of serious economic problems, which gave rise to a wave of protests, including those under political slogans.
But nevertheless, his course objectively contributed, in my opinion, to the gradual transformation of Iran into a secular state or into a state in which a balance of spiritual and secular power would be formed.
A key milestone along this path was the abolition of the mandatory hijab last October. For an explanation of why this is significant, see: "An Iranian Knight at the Crossroads: On the Hijab and the Future of Theocracy."
Of course, the future Iranian government would not be pro-American, nor would it be pro-Russian or pro-Chinese. The Iranian government cannot be pro-American in any way.
The last Shah overdid it with Westernization and the ostentatious display of close cooperation with the United States—even though the reality of relations between Tehran and Washington was more complex than it might seem at first glance—and as a result, he faced opposition from a wide range of social circles, from the secular and left-wing to the clerical.
Iran and Israel: Resources in Exchange for Technology – A Look Back
In the second quarter of this century, the United States could well have established mutually beneficial cooperation with the future Iranian government, preventing an escalation of tensions in the Middle East. Israel would also have benefited, I believe, by eventually restoring diplomatic relations with Iran, and even earlier by reviving business contacts with it.
Until 1979, their format was partnership-based, as evidenced by the figures cited by orientalist P.V. Gusterin:
Israeli imports from Iran, according to official Israeli statistics, grew from $1,3 million in 1967 to $2,7 million in 1969, $4,5 million in 1975, and $5,8 million in 1977. Israeli exports to Iran grew from $22,3 million in 1970 to $92,4 million in 1975, and reached $103,2 million by 1977, outpacing exports to Japan and Turkey ($99,5 million and $33,6 million, respectively). Between 1973 and 1974 alone, Israeli exports to Iran nearly doubled. It should be noted, however, that the above figures do not cover the entire volume of trade and can only illustrate the general trend in the trade business.
I would sum this data up in one sentence: Iranian raw materials in exchange for advanced Israeli technologies, including military ones.
It sounds paradoxical in today's context, but it was Israel that helped the Shah of Iran develop its nuclear program. Iranian military pilots trained in Israel. And not only pilots—the two countries' cooperation was quite broad.
Pilots of the Iranian Imperial Air Force; I admit that some of them were trained in Israel
And many Russians who recently learned of the existence of the Israeli nuclear center in Dimona, I believe, are unaware that its specialists, “in accordance with a bilateral agreement,” writes Iranologist V.I. Mesamed, “were working on construction sites, having managed, before the start of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, to lay the foundation of a nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr and to create a feasibility study for the creation of a research reactor in Isfahan.”
Just as Mossad helped establish and develop SAVAK, the equivalent of the Soviet KGB.
Half a century ago, all these contacts could not help but lead to the formation, at least in some cases, of friendly relations between Israelis and Iranians at the everyday level, which were hardly broken by the snap of Khomeini’s fingers in 1979.
To be friends against a common enemy
Moreover, before the Islamic Revolution, Iran and Israel shared geopolitical adversaries: Nasserist Egypt and Baathist Iraq. The complex relations between the three Middle Eastern worlds—Iran, Arab, and Israeli—must also be taken into account.
The political points of contact between the former and the latter were in the context of containing the Arabs. Now these competing worlds have been joined by a Turkic one, represented by Turkey, which half a century ago did not yet play a significant role in the region.
The complex twists and turns of Israel's Middle East policy and that of the Shah of Iran are illustrated by the figure of A. Sadat, with whom both Jerusalem and Tehran built mutually beneficial cooperation; it is no coincidence that Cairo became M. Pahlavi's final refuge.
Jerusalem built its relations with Tehran following the concept of the periphery, developed, according to P.V. Gusterin, within the framework of which Israel established relations with neighbors' neighbors.
Iran was the perfect fit here. Moreover, both countries were US allies, unlike Iraq, Syria, and Egypt—before Sadat's rise to power.
Nationalism and Islamism without an equal sign
Why did relations deteriorate? The monarch based his policies on the logic of Iranian nationalism, hence the appeal to the Achaemenid past, the pompous celebration of the 2500th anniversary of their dynasty in 1971, the imperial symbols, and so on.
The celebration of the 2500th anniversary of the Achaemenid dynasty, where the Shah invited the Arabs but not the Israelis
Tehran sought to play a dominant role in the Middle East. Furthermore, the ambitious program to build a modern navy objectively shifted the Shah's geopolitical interests to the southeast: the western Indian Ocean. This did not intersect with Jerusalem's interests, which were focused on local but vital tasks: ensuring security from Sinai, and controlling the strategic Golan Heights and the West Bank.
Of course, as always happens in politics, the relationship between the Shah's Iran and Israel had its pitfalls. In the Middle East, Iran had to navigate between the Scylla of close cooperation with Israel and the Charybdis of difficult dialogue with Arab countries.
Thus, I mentioned Nasserist Egypt among Iran's adversaries above, but with Sadat's rise to power, relations between Cairo and Tehran improved. Another example: on the eve of the Achaemenid Dynasty anniversary celebrations, M. Pahlavi faced a dilemma: should he invite Arab leaders to the event or give preference to the Israelis? Ultimately, Tehran chose the former.
However, the aforementioned steps by Israel to ensure the security of its own borders did not directly affect the interests of the Shah of Iran, but concerned the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Khomeini, however, came up with the idea of a supranational universalist Islamic project, and Israel became an objective enemy by the very fact of its existence, occupying territories that historically, in the Ayatollah’s worldview, belonged to Muslims.
The project was initially utopian, since Shiite Iran could not claim leadership in the Sunni world, and, after the Camp David Accords, relations between Israel and the leading player in the Arab Middle East, Egypt, normalized, moving from a stage of confrontation to the realm of economic cooperation.
Iran: A Theocracy in a Partially Secular Society?
What's also important for our topic is that, I'd venture to suggest, after the victory of theocracy, anti-Israeli sentiments didn't permeate Iranian society as a whole. And not all Iranians were enthusiastic about Khomeini's declared idea of exporting the Islamic Revolution.
This is especially true for their religiously indifferent part, whose activities and, more importantly, economic well-being were directly tied to cooperation with Israel.
Some personal contacts, I repeat, in my opinion, did not completely die out, just as not all Iranians listened to anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda.
Those same women who took part in the famous demonstration on March 8, 1979—around 100,000 of them, and how many stayed home but sympathized, and not only in the capital?—I'm sure wanted to welcome spring and continue living their usual secular lives, not to denounce, wrapped in burqas, the Zionist regime, which, as the new propaganda insisted, had suddenly become hostile.
How old are they now? Over 60. Not young, but not old either.
That same women's demonstration in Tehran on March 8, 1979.
I think sociologists will have to find out: what percentage of Iranians, after the victory of theocracy, did not view Israel as an enemy and did not sympathize with the Sharia norms imposed in the country, but were intimidated and remained silent.
The first large-scale protests in the country erupted only in 2009 and were associated with Ahmadinejad's re-election victory, demonstrating the discontent of a portion of society with the resurgence of conservative policies. For more details, see the aforementioned article, "Iran's Knight at the Crossroads: On the Hijab and the Future of Theocracy."
Accordingly, prospects for a gradual restoration of Iranian-Israeli relations remained. The liberal policies of Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami, coupled with the internet era, which significantly broadened worldviews and made the population more independent of propaganda, shaped a new generation increasingly vocal about not only economic but also political demands, demonstrating fatigue with the norms of behavior imposed by theocrats.
Modern Tehran is a city of contrasts, with a traditional and cosmopolitan atmosphere, and so is Iranian society.
It is no coincidence that the leading Russian Iranologist V. I. Sazhin noted in December 2025:
"Popular support for Islamic authorities is insignificant." Elaborating on this assertion, the historian noted: "70 percent of the Iranian population opposes Islam as a political entity. Yes, the overwhelming majority does not oppose religion per se, or Islam itself. But they oppose the use of Islam by ayatollahs and mullahs for their own political ends. In other words, they oppose the entire structure of Wilayat al-faqih, as the founder of the Islamic state, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, called it—the rule of an elected, prominent, and authoritative Islamic figure. And these 70 percent oppose the Islamic Republic of Iran being a state of Wilayat al-faqih."
A month passed, and, as if to confirm the above, riots broke out across the country. Yes, one must assume they were inspired and directed from outside. But without a broad social base, the protests would have quickly fizzled out, a point V.I. Sazhin also emphasized, quoting V.I. Lenin's famous phrase: "The upper classes cannot govern in the old way. The lower classes do not want to live in the old way."
Pezeshkian’s honest position, expressed in the words: “It is we who are to blame for what is happening, that it is we who have not done much that we could have done,” is also noteworthy.
The authorities have retained control of the situation, but the process of secularization of society is unlikely to reverse. Religiously indifferent high school and university students will become the Iranian elite in ten to twenty years. Washington and Jerusalem only needed to wait a little while, and the former needed to develop effective communication with the elites, especially with A. Larijani. Why him?
We'll talk about this in the next article.
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References
Gusterin P.V. History of Iranian-Israeli relations from 1948 to 2007.
Mesamed V.I. The Iranian Nuclear Program as a Factor in Iran's Confrontation with Israel. Moscow, 2023
Sazhin V.I. Orientalist: Washington will regret Larijani's death
Sazhin V.I. Iranian Patriotism: Historical Genesis in the Contemporary Context
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