Israel, repelled by Islamic revolution

There is no doubt that one of the main mottos of Imam Khomeini's revolution was to defend the deprived and oppressed people. The issue of Palestine and protecting the Palestinians and acting as the enemy of Israel and its aggression are of the highest priorities in the list of the targets since Iran's Islamic revolution was an original movement that relied on the Islamic beliefs of the people.

News ID: ۲۲۰۸۲۰

سه‌شنبه - ۱۱ فروردين ۲۰۲۵ / 2025 11 January

There is no doubt that one of the main mottos of Imam Khomeini's revolution was to defend the deprived and oppressed people. The issue of Palestine and protecting the Palestinians and acting as the enemy of Israel and its aggression are of the highest priorities in the list of the targets since Iran's Islamic revolution was an original movement that relied on the Islamic beliefs of the people. This was not something secret or hidden to anyone from the very beginning and the Zionists were well aware of this fact even before the year 1963 and they knew what position they had in the eyes of the Iranians. General Mayer Amit who was assigned to the position of heading Israel's army intelligence department replacing Herzug arrived in Tehran in 1962 and met with the officials of Iran's army, the prime minister, foreign affairs ministry care-taker and minister of agriculture through to his trip to Tehran. On his returning to Israel he recommended to Ben Guerin and Golda Mayer by a report that contacts should be made by elements outside the ruling body in Iran. He noted that Israel was disliked by the Iranians and that they should think of the future. Also articles were getting published in Israel's newspapers stressing that the ties between Iran and Israel would end in bad and destructive results due to the negative mentality of Iranians regarding such relations with Israel. In a report prepared by Iran's representing office in 1973 the newspaper Moariu was quoted as saying: " Figaro's reporter in Tehran says that in various levels of public opinions in Iran anger had been induced over the ties between Israel and Iran and the mottos such as " Shah is a Jew" or the fact that surname Pahlavi was the faked version of Papalevi all indicate the extent of grave condition in Iran. When the conflict with the Shah's regime heightened the struggle against Zionism and the aggressive Zionists became one of the features of the people's fight against this regime. Revolutionaries kept criticizing the ties between the Shah and occupying country of Israel and they used to invite people to help the Palestinians. Activities and speeches made by Shahid Ayatollah Motahari, ayatollah saeeidi and others were quite significant. Once Ayatollah Hashemi rafsenjani was imprisoned due to translating a book on Palestine.

The organizations that adopted armed war against the Shah's regime used to attack the representing office of Israel and interest of this state here in Iran and in fact ballet against Zionism and Israel was the common aspect of the fight waged by all revolutionaries. Though Hazrat Imam through his remarks about Palestine's issue would call upon the Muslim nations and used to invite them to support and protect the Palestinians and regaining their own rights yet he kept backing up the Palestine Liberation Organization till they were still fighting Israel and Yaser Arafat also tried to deepen his relations with Iranian revolutionaries in Iran. After the martyrdom of Haj'agha Mostafa Khomeini the leader of SAF, Yaser Arafat, sent a condolences message to Imam Khomeini and he kindly answered him by a sending back a telegram.

Intensification of Islamic revolution all the existing equations of the region changed and the Americans' calculations were threatened and thus after Sadat came into power in Egypt the US found a good and proper condition and suitable ground for making others reconcile with it and the more the revolution came closer to its victory and the fall of the Shah seemed to be more eminent the Americans increased their efforts to hinder the revolution and prevent its fruition. In September 1978 Moario newspaper wrote that there was a kind relation between the efforts made by the US directed at solving the crisis in the Middle East and the types of actions done by Islamic extremists who did their best to topple the Shah's regime. Just in case the kingdom of Shah falls and an Islamic ruli8ng system replaces it then a depth and extent of the political and strategic disaster that the US had to face could not be even imagined. If only such an event occurs then the vital and crucial interests of Israel will be damaged and lost in the near and far future. Iran is one the influence pillars of the US in the Middle East and is one of the major supports of the axle of Cairo-Riyadh – Tehran and thus the concerns and worries of Sadat can be understood. It was just because of such concerns and fears that the Israelis showed so much sensitivity towards this revolution and what was happening in Iran. They used to scrutinize the conditions here very closely. In October 1978 when general Gazit made a trip to the US he firmly over there realized that – in the 25-person assembly of the Congress members – Israeli intelligence agencies were a few weeks quicker to understand the depth of Iran's events and developments as compared to the level of insight and analyses done by the American intelligence organizations. Also Israelis would blame the US authorities why sometimes the Shah got pressurized due to violation of human rights and why the Americans wanted him to act gentler to the opponents of the Shah's regime. one newspaper in Israel wrote that Imam's firm resistance and no way of his dealing with the Shah may be evidence for his lack of getting enough information about Iran's developments since the moderate heads of the opposition in Iran considered the sudden removal of the Shah as something negative and thought that power vacuum in the region would result in horrible consequences and thus they believed that the gradual transfer of power should be manipulated and applied. The trend of the Islamic revolution had direct effects on the foreign policy of the US and actually Americans were pushed into a passive position and badly feared that perhaps after Iran now it was the turn for Saudi Arabia to confront another Islamic revolution there. Such series of developments had brought up a very gloomy and dark future in front of the American's perspective regarding its position in the region and also the future of oil. This issue made the US increases its pressure on Israelis to find a way out of the crisis in occupied lands and get way with Palestinian problems since the Palestinian workers in Saudi Arabia and also other countries of the Persian Gulf were the main factor behind the riots and left-wing tendencies. They wished to get back to their own homeland and the US backed this willingness for the sake of restoring peace and stability in the region. Americans also insisted on Washington's negotiating with them ending up successfully so that a new center and hub of power could be erected in the region by Israel and Egypt simply to protect the interests of the US. The Israeli delegation in such negotiations directed and managed by the US speeded up its processes due to Iran's events and fear that oil exports could be cut off. They ardently favored the idea that Egypt undertook to sell the oil of Sine's dessert to that country. Upon the signature of Camp David convention and Sadat's celebrating ceremony large demonstrations took place in Tehran by the students and they chanted slogans against collusion of Sadat with Israel. Israelis tried to produce a sort of fake situation by describing a horrific condition for the Jews living in Iran and though Iran's leaders declared that the rights of minorities in Iran would be respected they did their best to entice tension among the Jews. One Israeli newspaper wrote that the conditions of Iranian Jews all depended on the treatment they get by the Muslims of extreme mentalities and it was claimed that the Jews were abused by them. The Jews in Iran have been always supporting the shah's regime because Pahlavi dynasty used to favor them openly and generously. Other than the ordinary Jews before revolution about 1500 Israeli families were living in Iran the same year they all flew out of out of Iran by Israeli planes. The staff in the Israel's embassy continued to work in Iran despite the dangerous situation since Israel was not ready to evacuate its base in Tehran: first they were not sure if its ambassador could return to Iran after summoning him to Israel or not. Second reason was that though some Jews immigrated to Israel yet there were 50.000 Jews still living in Iran. When Moharam came over the Americans feared that the end of Pahlavi's regime might have reached and they were all very frightened. Iran's representing agency in Israel wrote that according to the American sources if only Shah could get away with Moharam month then it was hoped that over 50% the regime would survive. Through the CIA's evaluating the conditions in Iran no real danger would face Shah's regime and later on they all acknowledged that this agency's analyses were all wrong and carter's administration severely criticized it be3caiuse3 the mistakes it had made in foreseeing the future of Iran. Even Israeli intelligence organs declared that CIA was horribly misguided in this regard. Israelis confessed that extensive street marches showed the power of clergies in Iran and they hoped that only the slogans could be tolerated and practical measures taken to topple the shah's regime may not be digested. Any way, the critical situation in Iran forced carter to dispatch Vance to the region once again so that he would put pressure on Israel to give out more advantages to its opponents and Palestinians. In this respect the Israeli newspapers wrote that the US find s itself totally helpless since the shah can not control the circumstances and his opponents could not come up with a suitable alternative. Internal developments of Iran shattered most of the Israeli plans and ideas and in this regard the newspapers in that country commented that the recent events in Iran have put an end to all dreams of Israel so as to form a type of front consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel to tackle communism across the world. As it was previously stressed the solidification of shah's opponents stance further convinced Egypt and Israel that they had to increase the tempo of resolving their differences and disputes and reach a sort of agreement on peace in the region and unlike its actions in the past now Saudi Arabia favored their peace negotiations since by the conditions in Iran getting worse day by day the triangle if Tehran-Cairo –Riyadh was collapsing. Thus Cairo and Riyadh had realized to extent the conditions were critical and found out how Israel was becoming important for their survival so as to substitute Tehran and this would clearly facilitate reaching a peace accord between Israel and Palestinians. Khaled believed that the events in Iran originated from Russia and thus a peace agreement with Egypt was so vital and decisive for the region. On the other hand Fahd believed that superpowers had no real role in the events of Iran and considered all the developments there as internal conflicts and domestic nature and thus he favored better ties with radical Arab countries since it was likely that they embarked on toppling measures against Saudis and this produced problems with regards to its ties with Egypt because Egypt was holding talks with Israel and extremists among the Arab states were taking different stances at the same time. The fact was that Iran's crisis increased the importance and value of Saudi Arabia for the US and it was of no danger to Israelis interests. It should be noted that Iran's oil cut-off would serve the benefits of Saudi Arabia from two points of view. Firstly, because the western countries would become more and more relying on this country's oil exports and also the more oil revenues would finally result in a stronger regime in Saudi Arabia due to more powerful economy there. But in spite of all the events taking place in Iran the US was still hopeful that a sort of coalition could be formed by the pro-west countries in the Middle East and participation of Israel. This time the US was thinking of Morocco and Sudan and then Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to get control over Persian Gulf. I8sraelis were moving forward with regards to their talks with Egypt and peace accord yet they were sure about the future of Cairo taking into account the events in Iran. Israeli officials declared that Islamic groups may play a constructive part in aggravating the conditions in the region. They were worried about the situation in the Riyadh and Cairo in the years to come. In fact Israel thought of compromises made for Sadat as a sort of taking risks since it was quite likely that in the future Sadat would be forced to violate his obligations undertaken through the peace agreement or else he could be overthrown. Fahd once said that if we lose Iran then only God may help us. When Shapur Bakhtiar formed his cabinet Israelis got somehow hopeful and they expressed that if he decided to attract shah's army to himself and convince the national front in Iran to separates itself from Imam Khomeini then peace would be restored in that country. Bakhtiar resorted to tricky measures in this regard and for example he claimed that he would stop exporting oil to Israel and also the regime of South Africa but Israelis did not consider such actions to yield any real fruits to them. Some papers ion Israel wrote that it was possible that the new government in Iran might decide to show that it was not a puppet of the shah and then undertakes to put some Jews and those very much closed to the court of the Shah on Trial based on allegations such as betraying the state and interests of the country. At the same time of the conspicuous leaders of the Jews met with ayatollah Taleghani and declared that they were on people's side and supported the revolution. Thus the Islamic revolution's leaders in return announced that the Jews and other religious minorities in Iran were free to express their own beliefs and opinions and can have their say about the fate of the country in the future. Any way, Bakhtiar's measures finally were all useless. In December of the year 1979 the Shah found out that he could do nothing about the revolution and resolving the crisis and thus he started talking matters over with general Rabiei and Tufanian and they proposed to general Seguf to come to Iran along with Mushe Dayan and Ezervisman so that the Shah's morals would upgrade and improve and make him make some crucial decisions. Instead Israel sent its ex-ambassador who had lots of old friends among those very much close to the Shah's court. He arrived in Tehran on Jan. 14, 1979 and started negotiating with general Tufanian and other heads of Iran's army, on his return to Israel he submitted a report to the government of Israel and showed that he was not optimistic about the future of the Shah's regime in the least. He believed that the end of the Shah's regime had started and the revolutionaries would not be on good terms with Israel later on that they attain the power in that country. So Israel could expect cheap oil any more. Even one year before taking that trip to Iran he had explained that the conditions in Iran were so much dangerous and of no consistent stability. Israel started nagging that its intelligence agencies had warned the Us that Iran's regime was about to face serious crises yet the American intelligence bodies had not paid due attention to their warnings in this regard. One reason for Americans' neglecting Israel's warning about possible revolution in Iran dated back to the time when Israeli Intelligent services failed to find out promptly that Egypt and Syria were getting prepared to take action against that country in October 1973. Therefore the US intelligence organizations were very doubtful about their counterpart's analyses regarding Iran critical situation. Of course, even the authorities in Israel thought that such reports were exaggerating the truth about Iran did not take them all that seriously. Any way, ;later on high-ranking officials in Israel traveled to the US and delivered several speeches indicating and stressing that even the intelligence services of Israel were not able to foresee the revolution in Iran and that they had to learn lessons out of the events in that country. The press in Israel considered the victory of Islamic revolution as the Russia's total domination over the Persian Gulf and Hormoz Strait and also getting access to the very advanced and sophisticated technologies deployed in Iran's army. They even talked of US's direct resorting to force to tackle Russia and Russians paying no attention to the US's warning in their opinion just meant that they had to take concrete measures against this country. Well, this proved that Israelis were badly mistaken about the true causes of Iran's events and they simply studied it within the context and framework of bi-polar global order at that era. Upon the Shah's escaping from Iran Israelis got deeply frustrated and the authorities in that country realized that Shah's fleeing the country was going to make the peace process further difficult and complicated. General Rafael Itan, head of the joint staffs of Israel's army said in an interview with newspaper called Yadioot that:" the lesson we learn from recent events in Iran is that any foreign and external support or object to rely on may turn out to be a broken stick when you need it most and thus we should solely rely on our won power and strength." Upon Victorious returning of Imam Khomeini to Iran on 12th of Bahman 1979 the news agencies broadcast that Israel was so worried about his returning to Iran since that could endanger the peace process. After the victory of Islamic revolution the embassy of Israel in Tehran got filtered and turned into Palestine embassy. The spokesman of this regime admitted that the severing the economic and political ties between Iran and Israel had inflicted heavy losses on the economy of that country. The new government of Iran asked all the Israelis of official position in Iran to leave the country as soon as possible. This order also included the Israel's representing board and the Jewish Agency and employees of Israel's airlines (Elal) and the contractors of various Israeli companies in Iran. Palestine's embassy in Tehran was opened by holding a ceremony attended by Yaser Arafat, the leader of SAF and accompanied by seyed Ahmad Khomeini and Dr. Yazdi. The revolutionary government of Iran issued an official notice regarding the contact signed between Egypt and Israel. That declaration was issued at the time when Dr. Sanjabi was assigned as the firs minister of foreign affairs in Iran. this declaration would sat that: " the main reason behind the crises that has put the whole region into fire and blood and has imposed so far 4 massive regional wars and constant clashes on the people of the region is just due to violation of the rights of Palestinians and neglecting their legal existence. The disaster of Palestine has wounded the conscience of humanity and has become the hub of injustice at a global level. In case the roots and causes of this disaster and crisis are not dealt with and resolved then no solution or peace accord is going to put an end to the prevailing condition. Without paying due attention to the legitimate rights of Palestinians and active participation of their representatives in the peace and settlement of the disputes no peace accord may secure the stability and calm in the region and would only mean that invasions Israel and its aggressive policies have been legal and permitted and thus the violating the rights of Palestinians as usual. This is something against the international regulations and standards and also the charter of the UN in terms of human rights and no permit or authorization of occupying others' lands by force. In this regard the resolution 242 and 338 of the Security Council has clarified all the points about the crisis in the Middle East. Unfortunately this peace accord has been signed by Egypt and occupying regime if Israel under supervision of the US and it shall be of no outcome and positive results but establishment of Israel in the Arab lands that have been occupied by this aggressive regime. The US is after creating a kind of base for itself to protect its own interests in the region and solidify its domination over the whole region. The provisional government of Iran once again declared its full support for the Palestinians and while approving the rights and wants of brotherly Arab states that have not accepted the rule of the this regime in the occupied lands and have not bowed to humiliating policies definitely condemns this imposed peace. Iran further stressed the fact that signing of that agreement would be against the interests of the Palestinians and also the people of Egypt themselves including those of the nations in the region. The imposed peace accord may even endanger the peace all across the world. Therefore, all the representatives of the Palestinians should be actively presented in such processes and their viewpoint must be accounted for. Muslim nation of Iran and the provisional government of Iran both implement all their power and facilities to regain the rights of Palestinians and the fight against Israel in that direction. When the Shah's regime fell it was Israel which lost most and suffered lots of damages and losses. And other than that they missed a powerful ally that provided so many raw materials to Israel including oil. Also Iran was considered one of the best markets for the Israelis products and goods including their services. Revolutionary policies of Iran further inflicted losses to that country and dealt a heavy blow to that illegitimate regime. Hence, this aggressive regime of Israel has been vigorously engaged in all the plots devised against Iran and its Islamic ruling system just after the revolution's victory.
Quoted from the book titled "Iran and Palestine's Developments, written by Dr. Aliakbar Velayati, documents and Research services of Foreign affairs Center