Although Israel and Iran do not share borders, their relations have been turbulent ever since Israel was established inside Palestine in 1948, except for a brief time from 1953 to 1979. Normal ties between the two states were present between 1948 and 1953.
In March 1950, Iran became the second country with a majority of Muslims after Turkey to formally recognize Israel. The relationship between Iran and Israel significantly improved following the 1953 Iranian coup d’état that saw Mohammad Raza Pahlavi appointed as the pro-US Shah of Iran.
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However, Iran terminated all diplomatic and trade links with Israel and revoked its recognition of the Jewish state following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Cold peace existed between the two countries up until 1990, during which time both sides occasionally made accusations and counter-accusations against one another. The USS Vincennes invaded the Iranian seas in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq conflict and shot down an Iran Air passenger airliner, killing 290 people.
Early in 1990, shortly before the fall of the USSR and after Iraq was defeated in the Gulf War, hostilities between Israel and Iran were made public. Since then, the situation between the two nations has gotten worse with every passing day. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei referred to Israel as a “cancerous tumour” that needed to be eradicated from the area in December 2000. Over 1,000 centrifuges at the Iranian nuclear enrichment facility Natanz were thought to have been destroyed in June 2010 by a computer worm that was reportedly created by the US and Israel.
Israel seized a ship from Syria in March 2011 that was allegedly carrying Iranian weaponry to Gaza. Iran has denied that such an explosion ever occurred, despite the fact that Mossad is said to have carried out an explosion at a nuclear site in Isfahan that same year. Israeli diplomatic personnel is said to have been attacked in Georgia and India in February 2012.
Iran was allegedly behind these two assaults, according to Israel. The Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington, DC, and Buenos Aires were the targets of an Iranian plot that the US claimed to have thwarted earlier in October 2011. Israeli aircraft allegedly attacked a convoy traveling through Syria in January 2013 carrying Iranian weaponry intended for Hezbollah.
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Qasem Soleimani, who was supposedly Khameini’s right-hand man in Iran, was assassinated by the Americans in January 2020. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said that Iran’s armed forces would “strike Israel’s heart if it makes the slightest move” in April of this year.
The Iranian Army’s Colonel Sayad Khodayee was assassinated by alleged Israeli assailants the next month outside his residence. He was a member of Unit 840. The already explosive relations between Iran and Israel face uncertain times. These are worrying times for the globe, with Iran on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and Israel already possessing them.
