Israel-Iran ties: A historic perspective |
Iran today is facing the onslaught of the Israeli forces backed by the American military power.
The Iranian Supreme leader along with many top tier military commanders have been killed by the Israeli and American joint actions. Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies for the past few decades with Iran declaring it wants to wipe Israel off the face of the map and threatening to annihilate it on the other hand Israel regards Iran as its biggest adversary. In the Arab Israel conflict since 1948 the frontline states have been Egypt, Jordan and Syria but today Egypt and Jordan both have diplomatic relations with Israel and there appears to be the end of their conflict and now it leaves Iran only to confront Israel on the question of Palestine.
Israel and Iran enjoyed very cordial relations and were allies until the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. Iran was one of the very first countries to recognize Israel after its foundation in 1948 and Israel recognized Iran as an ally against the Arab statesand Iran welcomed US-backed Israel as a counter weight to the region’s Arab countries. In the decades of the 50s and 60s Israel trained Iranian agricultural experts, supplied technical know-how and helped build up and train the Iranian armed forces. The Iranian shah paid Israel in oil, as its burgeoning economy was in need of fuel. In those days Iran was hometo the second largest Jewish community outside of Israel. After the Islamic revolution thousands of Jews left Iran but today almost 20000........