2024-04-15 12:39:52
Iran launched a large number of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and missiles toward Israel on the 13th (local time), attacking mainland Israel for the first time in history, attracting attention as to why the two countries became archenemies. Iran calls Israel “the ‘Little Satan’ next to the ‘Big Satan’ the United States,” while Israel calls Iran “the sponsor of world terrorists.”
Relations between Israel and Iran were originally amicable. Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty was pro-American and friendly to Israel, which is close to the United States. When Israel declared its founding in 1948, Iran was the second Islamic country to recognize Israel as an independent nation after Turkye.
However, the two countries turned around when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989), considered the most respected Islamic leader in Iran, started the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Khomeini promoted the Pahlavi dynasty and emphasized Islamic fundamentalism. He believed that Israel had illegally occupied Jerusalem, and he severed diplomatic relations with Israel.
After Iraq was defeated in the Gulf War and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, power in the Middle East shifted to Iran and Israel, and the conflict between the two countries became more acute. In 1992, a bombing in front of the Israeli Embassy killed 29 people, and in 1994, a terrorist attack at the Israel-Argentina Friendship Association building in Buenos Aires killed 85 people. Relations between Iran and Israel deteriorated further as Israel pointed out the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as the force behind it.
The conflict grew further in 2005 with the election of Iran’s hard-line conservative former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During his election campaign, he called for ‘going back to the basics of the 1979 Iranian Revolution’, advocated building a strong Islamic society, and resumed uranium enrichment. In response, Israel criticized Iran’s nuclear program. Several Iranian nuclear scientists were assassinated, and in 2010, the malicious computer code ‘Stuxnet’ was infiltrated and the functioning of centrifuges at nuclear facilities was damaged. There were suspicions that Israel was behind this.
In 2018, when former U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally abrogated the Iran nuclear agreement (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)) and restored sanctions against Iran, Israel expressed full support.
Paris = Correspondent Jo Eun-ah [email protected]
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2024-04-15 12:39:52