Author: Ksenia Fomina, exclusively to VK
The confrontation between Iran and Israel continues. The conflict involves both open attacks against each other (the revisionist conference on the Holocaust organized by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006, his threats against Israel and the response by the Israeli government with its statements about planned military actions), and the "dark side" ( Iran's support for the Lebanese Shiite movement "Hezbollah" during the Second Lebanon War in 2006). In addition, an element of tension is Introduced into the confrontation due to the Iranian nuclear issue. Israeli officials are wary of claims about "peaceful atom", see the Iranian nuclear program as a preparation for the attacks on Israel and make statements about the attempts to prepare for a response or even a preemptive strike.
In short, it is now hardly possible to imagine that once Israel and Iran were partners, and the Israeli-Iranian relations were not complicated by the facts of either real contradictions or efforts by propaganda machines of both countries. However, these relations indeed existed. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 there was a close cooperation between Iran and Israel.
The history of Iranian-Israeli relations begins with the de jure (though not the full de facto) recognition of the independence of Israel declared by Iran in early 1950. Iran was the second Islamic state after Turkey in the Middle East to make such statements, although earlier, on November 29, 1947 during the vote in the UN Tehran opposed the creation of Jewish and Arab states in Palestine. Then this statements was made mainly for religious reasons - the Iranian Ayatollah Abulkasem Kashani urged to help the Arab brothers in faith during the Israeli War of Independence of 1948.
Anyway, Israel began to form connections with non-Arab Islamic forces in the Middle East, on which Israel planned to rely in the region, and the voice of Iran was very important for this. Living in a "sea of Arab hostility," Israel could not ignore the very small number of potential allies, and therefore it proceeded to building a block called "Peripheral Alliance" by Ben-Gurion - an alliance with non-Arab states of the Middle East. Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia were the mainstays of Peripheral Alliance. The second purpose of political dialogue for Israel was to solve the problem of Jewish immigration to Israel from Iran and Iraqi communities.
The recognition of Israel de facto not only was not accompanied by an immediate exchange of diplomatic missions but almost immediately was threatened by the internal resistance of some sections of Iranian society. In May 1951, the leader of the National Front, Mohammed Mossadeq, became the Prime Minister of Iran, and some influential religious leaders demanded that he reversed the decision on the recognition of Israel. Consulate General of Iran in Jerusalem was closed under their pressure, but with the return of the Shah to power, the question did not arise anymore.
In the next two decades, the cooperation between Israel and Iran in various fields followed the path of gradual development. It included even military relations - including between the security services of the two countries (Mossad took an active part in creating the Iranian SAVAK intelligence and maintained regular contacts with it until the Islamic Revolution), as well as through the Baghdad Pact, in the documents of which Israel appeared as a "secret base" of Iran.
One of the major incentives of rapprochement between the two countries at that time was the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and the coming to power of Gamal Abdel Nasser, prompting both sides to think about confronting the threat of pan-Arabism in the Middle East.
The co-operation in trade and economic sphere also developed. Establishing a continuous air service between the two countries in 1960 gave impetus to it. After the Suez crisis of 1956, when several states, including non-Arab ones (in particular, the Soviet Union), have announced a boycott of supplying oil to Israel, the only Muslim oil power which decided to continue energy trade with Israel was Iran. Then there was the real rapprochement between the two countries. In 1956, the volume of Iranian supplies to Israel amounted to 8 million tons of oil, and in later years regular annual supply of oil was established at the level of up to 3 million tons.
However, these relationships were built de facto but not de jure. Shah was wary of official recognizing of the existence of contacts with Israel. Even many years later, in the mid-1970s, when he was asked about the supply of Iranian oil to Israel, he refused not recognize them, and said that in all transactions foreign oil companies were the partners of Iran.
At the same time there were serious political disagreements between the states. The most important of them concerned the Iranian position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue. Not wanting to spoil relations with the Arab states, especially the conservative monarchies, Iran chose the position of protecting the rights of the Palestinian people, including in the UN. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iran also did not support the Israeli position, preferring to support the UN resolutions (which also concerned the resolution 242, which called for the return of the occupied territories in 1967.) Nevertheless, Iran opposed the calls for the destruction of Israel of some of the Arab countries after the war of 1967 and expressed support for Israel as an independent sovereign country. In an interview to "Associated Press" in May 1970, Iranian Foreign Minister noted that "Iran recognizes Israel's existence as a sovereign state."
During the Yom Kippur War in 1973 between Israel and the Arab countries, Iran continued to cooperate with Israel, moving, however, some aspects of cooperation to the secret area. In particular, the supply of oil referred to above continued, and this fact played a critical role for Israel, because much of the oil production in Israel was virtually paralyzed by war in the Sinai Peninsula.
During this period, relatively close contacts between Iran and Israel were conditioned by the fact that both countries experienced a period of rapid economic development, following the capitalist path and cooperating with the West, especially the U.S. Also, both countries were in opposition to Communist rule. Finally, both countries had major military power in the Middle East formed not without the support of the U.S.
However, Iran could not ignore the changed conditions because of the war in 1973. In particular, the Iranian government continued to support the position related to the "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people." This meant the repatriation of Palestinian refugees and their self-determination within their own state.
After the victory of the revolution in 1979, when Iran began to carry out its main objectives in the region - "export of the Islamic revolution," Iran cut ties with Israel and expelled Israeli diplomats and specialists in various fields from the country. At this the stage of cooperation between Iran and Israel finished, and the Jewish state had to find new resources in the Middle East and in the whole world to create the new Peripheral Alliance and to get the balance with various associations of Arab States.
