What is the reason for the years-old ‘blood feud’ between Iran and Israel
Tensions are rising in the Middle East. Iran attacked Israel with drones and missiles on Saturday night. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summoned his cabinet on military affairs and said the country’s “defense system” had been deployed to deal with the attack.
It should be noted that after two of its senior military commanders were killed in an attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, Iran had spoken of retaliating, and Iran had blamed Israel for the attack on the consulate. This is the latest case in an old case between Iran and Israel.
Israel and Iran have been at war for years, and their intensity fluctuates due to geopolitical factors. Their cases are one of the leading causes of instability in the Middle East. Tehran calls Israel ‘Shaitan Kooch,’ meaning ‘little devil,’ because it is an ally of the US, while for it, the US is ‘Shaitan Sukhir,’ meaning the ‘big devil.’
Israel, on the other hand, accuses Iran of financing “terrorist” groups and carrying out attacks against its interests. The hostilities between these ‘old enemies’ have resulted in many casualties and often come as covert operations with no government claiming responsibility, but the war in Gaza has worsened the situation.
How did the rivalry between Israel and Iran begin?
Relations between Israel and Iran used to be quite pleasant until 1979 when the so-called Islamic Revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Tehran. Although Iran opposed the partition plan for Palestine that led to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Iran was the second Islamic country, after Egypt, to recognize it.
At that time, Iran was a monarchy ruled by the Pahlavi dynasty, and they were among America’s main allies in the Middle East. For this reason, the government of Israel’s founder and first leader, David Ben-Gurin, sought and won the friendship of Iran to counter the rejection of the new Jewish state by its Arab neighbors.
Shadow War’ between Israel and Iran
Waez pointed out that Iran faced another significant regional power, Saudi Arabia. Iran is aware that it is a Persian and Shia country in a predominantly Sunni and Arab Islamic world, and the Iranian regime, given its sense of isolation, began to develop a strategy in case its enemies would one day not invade his land.
Thus, the network of organizations linked to Tehran expanded, and they carried out military operations for Iranian interests. Among them, Hezbollah from Lebanon is the most prominent. This organization has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Today, the so-called Iranian ‘axis of resistance’ extends to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Hamas attack on Israel
On October 7 last year, Hamas’ attacks against Israel and the Israeli army’s response to Gaza were launched. After the intense military action, analysts and governments around the world fear that the conflict could trigger a chain reaction in the region and lead to an open and direct confrontation between Iran and Israel.
Clashes between Israeli forces and militias allegedly linked to Hezbollah along the Lebanese border have escalated in recent months, as have clashes with Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank. Until this Saturday, both Iran and Israel had avoided taking their rivalry too far into war, but that changed with Tehran’s launch of drone and missile strikes.
