2024-04-14 12:53:35
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Article information
- Written by Guillermo D. Olmo
- Post, BBC
- 14 April 2024, 12:52 GMT
Updated an hour ago
Tensions are rising in the Middle East.
Iran launched a large-scale attack on Israel on Saturday night with drones and missiles. The attack was said to be in retaliation for an attack on its embassy in Syria.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned about the risk of escalating regional disasters”.
Israel has claimed that about 300 drones and missiles were launched by Iran, with some coming from Iraq and Yemen. Speaking to the media, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said the missiles fired at midnight came from Iraq and Yemen.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convenes his wartime cabinet. He also said that the country’s “defense systems” have been used to counter the attack.
On April 1, two senior military commanders were killed in an attack on the Iranian embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Iran blamed Israel for the attack and said it would definitely retaliate. In this case, since Saturday night, Iran has attacked Israel with missiles and drones.
Image source, EPA
It’s the latest chapter in an old feud.
Israel and Iran have been engaged in a bloody rivalry for years. Its intensity varies depending on the geopolitical situation. The issue has become one of the main sources of instability in the Middle East.
Iran’s rulers view Israel as America’s “little Satan” in the Middle East. Also, they call America the “Great Satan”.
Israel accuses Iran of sponsoring “terrorist” groups and carrying out attacks against its interests fueled by the ayatollahs’ anti-Semitism.
The death toll in the contest between the “arch-enemies” is high. These deaths are the result of covert operations for which no government has claimed responsibility.
The war in Gaza has worsened the situation.
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Caption The victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran is seen as the beginning of Israel-Iran enmity.
How do friends become enemies?
In fact, relations between Israel and Iran were relatively smooth until the ‘Islamic Revolution’ in 1979 when the Ayatollahs (a title of honor for the Twelver Shiite clerics who rank high in Iran) seized power in Tehran.
In fact, Iran was the second Islamic country after Egypt to recognize the plan for Palestinian partition, which led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
At the time, Iran was a monarchy ruled by the Shahs of the Pahlavi dynasty and one of America’s key allies in the Middle East. For this reason, Israel’s founder and first head of government, David Ben-Gurion, sought Iranian friendship as a way to counter the rejection of the new Jewish state by its Arab neighbors.
But in 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini’s revolution overthrew the Shah and created an Islamic republic in Iran that positioned itself as the protector of the oppressed. Iran was one of the main symbols of rejection of the “imperialism” of the US and its ally Israel.
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Caption Khomeini and other leaders of the Islamic Revolution were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause against Israel.
The new regime of ayatollahs severed ties with Israel and suspended passport recognition of its citizens. It also handed over the Israeli Embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The organization raised its voice against the then Israeli state for the creation of a Palestinian state.
“Animosity towards Israel was a pillar of the new Iranian regime because many of its leaders had trained and participated in guerilla warfare operations with the Palestinians, who were very sympathetic to them in places like Lebanon,” Ali Vaz, director of the Iran program at the think tank International Crisis Group, told BBC Mundo.
He added, “The new Iran wanted to project itself as an Islamic power. It took up the Palestinian cause against Israel, which the Arab Muslim countries had abandoned.”
Thus, Khomeini began to claim the Palatinate cause as his own. Large pro-Palestinian demonstrations with official government support became routine in Tehran.
“In Israel, hostility toward Iran did not begin in the 1990s because Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was previously perceived as a major regional threat,” explains Iran Program Director Ali Vaz.
Over time, Israel began to see Iran as one of the main threats to its existence. The hostility between the two countries has gone from words to attacks.
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Caption Anti-Israel protests have become routine in Hran.
“Shadow War” between Israel and Iran
A network of organizations affiliated with Tehran proliferated and carried out armed operations favorable to its interests. The most prominent is the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Today, the Iranian “axis of resistance” stretches through Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Israel has exchanged attacks and other hostile actions with Iran and its allies.
The conflict between Iran and Israel has been described as a “shadow war”. Because when the two countries attacked each other, in many cases, the governments did not officially acknowledge their participation in it.
In 1992, an Islamic Jihad group linked to Iran bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. 29 people were killed in the attack. Not long ago, Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi was assassinated. Israeli intelligence was widely believed to be behind the attack.
For Israel, the main objective is to cut off the Iranian nuclear program and prevent the ayatollahs from possessing nuclear weapons.
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Caption Israel’s main objective is to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.
Israel does not believe Iran’s claim that its program has only humanitarian objectives. It is widely accepted that Israel jointly developed the Stuxnet computer virus, which caused severe damage to Iranian nuclear facilities in the first decade of the 2000s, with the United States.
Tehran has blamed Israeli intelligence for the attacks against some of the key scientists responsible for its nuclear program.
Most notable was the 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, considered its most responsible figure. The Israeli government has never admitted its involvement in the deaths of the Iranian scientists.
Along with Western allies, Iran has accused Israel of being behind drone and rocket attacks on its territory in the past, and the country has carried out several cyber attacks.
Another reason for the conflict is the civil war that has been unleashed in Syria since 2011.
According to US intelligence website Stratfor, at different times both Israel and Iran have taken steps aimed at preventing the launch of a large-scale offensive in Syria.
“Shadow War” reaches the sea area in 2021. That year, Israel blamed Iran for attacks on Israeli ships in the Gulf of Oman. Iran, for its part, accused Israel of attacking its ships in the Red Sea.
Hamas attack on Israel
After attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023 and a major military offensive by the Israeli military in Gaza in response, analysts and governments around the world expressed concern that the conflict could trigger a reaction in the region. They said it would lead to open and direct conflict between the Iranians and the Israelis.
According to Ali Wass, director of the Iran Program at the International Crisis Group think tank, “The irony is that no one wants a large-scale conflict right now. Israel has been engaged in its devastating war against Hamas in Gaza for the past six months. This has greatly negatively affected its reputation in the international arena. Israel is more isolated than ever.”
“Unlike Hamas, Iran is a state. So, very powerful,” cautioned the analyst.
But, at the same time, he said, “It has many economic problems. Its government is facing a legal crisis after months of protests by women fed up with religious restrictions.”
– This is a Collective Newsroom publication for the BBC
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