The History of Iran and Israel

Long before the modern states of Iran and Israel came into being, their people shared one of the oldest and most complex relationships in the Middle East. What began as a story of liberation and alliance, rooted in ancient bonds between Persians and Jews, has evolved into a narrative of estrangement, ideology, and conflict that developed into the 2025 Twelve-Day War.

The Jewish-Persian relationship dates back nearly 2,600 years. In 539 BCE, Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and freed the Jewish exiles, permitting them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Second Temple. As a result, Jewish tradition honours him.

Around “50,000 Jews returned to their homeland.” Many Jews, however, chose to remain in Persia. Under Persian rule, Jews flourished, forming their own courts and communal institutions. Later, the Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE) “became a center of Jewish life.” The Babylonian Talmud, “a collection of rabbinical writings that provide commentary and interpretation of the Torah”, was completed under Sassanian rule.

Even after the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century, when Jews became Dhimmis, or second-class citizens subject to extra taxes and discriminatory laws, relations between Jews and Persians remained relatively stable for centuries. Jewish communities thrived in numerous towns, including Isfahan and Shiraz.

This historic amity resurfaced in the 20th century under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. From 1941 until his overthrow in 1979, the Shah’s Iran was one of Israel’s quiet but crucial partners.

In 1950, Iran became the second Muslim country to recognize Israel, doing so in practice rather than officially. The partnership was based on practical strategy, as both nations aimed to counter Arab nationalism and Soviet influence. Under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s periphery doctrine, Israel built ties with non-Arab states such as Turkey, Ethiopia, and especially Iran, which was considered the “jewel in the crown” of this alliance.

The cooperation was deep and complicated. Iran supplied as much as 60% of Israel’s oil through the secret Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline. Mossad and Iran’s SAVAK collaborated in intelligence operations, even forming a trilateral alliance with Turkey known as Trident. Israeli engineers designed Tehran’s sewage system and built entire neighbourhoods. El Al flights linked Tel Aviv and Tehran, and Iranian students attended Israeli universities.

For Iran’s 80,000 Jews, it was a golden age. They served as parliamentarians, entrepreneurs, and educators, enjoying unprecedented security and prosperity. Kosher markets operated openly, Jewish schools thrived, and synagogues filled the cities. In Tehran, the Jewish community established the Dr. Sapir Hospital and Charity Center, the largest Jewish-run hospital in the Middle East, which treated patients of all faiths and still operates today.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution shattered this alliance overnight. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini denounced Israel as the “Little Satan,” grouping it with the “Great Satan,” the United States. He handed over the former Israeli embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Yasser Arafat himself “raised the Palestinian flag where the Star of David once flew.”

Khomeini’s rhetoric turned religious hatred into policy. The new regime declared the annihilation of Israel a sacred duty. He inaugurated Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan, as an annual rally for Israel’s destruction. Iranian streets filled with chants of “Death to Israel,” and anti-Zionism became a pillar of the Islamic Republic’s ideology.

That same year, Iran executed Habib Elghanian, a prominent “leader of the Jewish community,” on fabricated charges of espionage for Israel. Tens of thousands fled the country. Of the 80,000 Jews once in Iran, only about 20,000 remain today, living under careful watch.

Despite Khomeini’s fiery declarations, Iran and Israel occasionally engaged in covert cooperation. During the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, Israel supplied Tehran with weapons in secret arrangements that became part of the Iran-Contra Affair. In return, the regime allowed more Jews to emigrate.

Unfortunately, by the 1990s, the hostility hardened. Iran founded Hezbollah in Lebanon and began sponsoring Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The regime orchestrated terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, including the 1992 and 1994 bombings of the Israeli Embassy and AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions, launched in 1987, brought the animosity into the open. Israeli intelligence responded with sabotage, cyberwarfare (notably the 2010 Stuxnet virus), and targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Through the 2000s and 2010s, the Islamic Republic continued to surround Israel through its Axis of Resistance, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and pro-Iran militias in Syria and Iraq.

In October 2023, this network carried out its deadliest attack, with Hamas killing 1,200 Israelis on October 7. Israeli and Western intelligence later confirmed that Iran had financed, trained, and supported the operation. The following year saw a sharp escalation, with Hezbollah rocket attacks, Israeli strikes in Syria, and direct Iranian missile strikes on Israeli territory in April and October 2024.

By 2025, tensions reached a breaking point.

On June 11, 2025, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a preemptive strike targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and senior military leadership. The operation neutralized parts of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure in Natanz. Iran retaliated with waves of drones and ballistic missiles against Israeli cities.

For twelve days, the region swayed on the edge of a wider war. On June 21, U.S. President Donald Trump authorized devastating strikes on Iran’s nuclear and missile complexes, forcing both sides to the table. Two days later, a ceasefire was brokered.

The conflict marked the first open Israel-Iran war in modern history, brief but transformative.

Today, Iran still hosts a small Jewish community, constitutionally protected yet closely monitored. Meanwhile, over a quarter-million Israeli citizens trace their roots to Iran, preserving Persian culture, language, and cuisine, even as the two nations remain on opposite sides of an ideological divide.

The irony of history is that the same civilization that once freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity now threatens the Jewish homeland with destruction. Yet Iranian citizens often express admiration for Israel’s innovation and democracy, suggesting that the ancient friendship between Persians and Jews may not be entirely destroyed, only suppressed by the regime’s principle.

From the liberation under Cyrus to the Twelve-Day War of 2025, the relationship between Iran and Israel has spanned millennia, moving from kinship to conflict and from shared wisdom to existential rivalry. It reflects the Middle East itself, shaped by its past, divided by ideology, and still bound by a history that neither side can fully forget.