IDSF’s ultimate goal is to ensure Israel’s security for generations to come. Two central understandings underpin this goal: The first is that national security cannot exist in isolation but depends on a broad system of political, economic, and social factors. The second understanding is that making informed decisions requires developing a comprehensive strategy that draws on the past and looks toward the future.
These understandings have led IDSF to formulate a clear national vision based on in-depth research and touching on all the areas that shape Israeli society. In this article, Or Yissachar will discuss the relations between Israel and Iran — a pattern of relations that was benign until a few decades ago but has changed to currently threaten our existence.
Background — From a cold peace to a fiery threat: The reversals in Israel-Iran relations
Israel–Iran relations may be divided into two main periods: Before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Between those periods, the differences are fathomless.
The reign of the Shah
From 1941 to 1979, Iran was a monarchy ruled by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Shah pursued a pro-Western policy that envisioned turning Iran into a modern, secular country. During his reign, relations between Iran and Israel were proper and stable. The two countries maintained close relations in various spheres.
Although in 1947 Iran voted against the founding of the State of Israel, it recognized Israel as a state as early as 1950. From that year until the 1970s, relations progressively warmed; and the two nations even maintained extensive economic and security ties. Iran was Israel’s main supplier of oil, and helped Israel lay the Trans-Israel pipeline. Israel, for its part, aided Iran in agriculture and in regional development, sold it military equipment, and even trained its army and helped set up the Iranian secret police.
Diplomatically too, the two countries maintained ties, whether more openly or less openly. Thus, for example, the IDF had military attachés stationed in Tehran and in 1964 even established an Israeli consulate. Today we also know that Iranian legislators secretly visited Israel and that Ben-Gurion himself secretly visited Iran and met its Prime Minister, Ali Amini. Later Israeli visitors to Iran included prime ministers Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir, several foreign ministers, the head of the Mossad at the time, and a number of senior IDF commanders. In return, Iranian ministers, commanders, and other senior figures visited Israel.
The upshot is that the two countries were definitely maintaining a cold peace, albeit with no official peace agreement, and they had interests in common. That balance began to teeter in the mid-1970s as the Iranian Revolution showed signs of approaching.
The Iranian Revolution
In the mid-to-late 1970s, religious and political resistance to the Shah’s regime began, emanating primarily from the Shiite Muslims. The Shah had drawn anger for many reasons, including his wasteful lifestyle, the cruelty inflicted on the regime’s opponents by his secret police, his reforms in “surrender” to international pressures to improve the standing of women and minorities, and especially his war against religion and his persistent attempts to turn Iran secular.
The year 1978 saw many protests and other actions against the Shah’s regime. In January 1979 the Shah fled Iran, and two weeks later the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ascended to power. He was a Shiite cleric who had preached for many years against the Shah and had been forced into lengthy exile.
The Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed the transformation of Iran into an Islamic republic. As soon as he took power, he began a purge in the government and army, executing thousands of officers who had supported the Shah as well as people he considered sinners — including homosexuals. Khomeini also lambasted the USA as “the Great Satan,” and Israel as “the Little Satan,” and he called for Islamic revolutions everywhere in the Muslim world. Khomeini formed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, enforced the Sharia law that requires Iranian men and women to abide by the Islamic dress code, forbade Western music, and significantly reduced the rights of women and minorities in the country.
As soon as he took power, it was obvious that relations with Israel would not remain as they were; and within a short time the two countries had become clear enemies.
Today Iran is still a Shiite Islamic republic, led by extremist clerics, disdainful of the West, and constantly calling for Israel’s destruction. In 1989 Khomeini died, and from then until today the present Iran’s supreme leader has been the Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Khamenei has continued in the footsteps of his predecessor and is working to advance the Iranian nuclear program, to expand the Quds Force, and to strengthen the terrorist organizations and pro-Iranian militias throughout the Middle East.
Iran’s extremist regime, its arrival at the nuclear threshold, and the forces of its many proxies have turned it into the number one existential threat against Israel and possibly against the entire western world. However, Iran is also deep in an economic and diplomatic crisis that threatens its regime’s stability, and at the same time it faces many rivals inside the Arab world, the main one being Saudi Arabia.
In order to be handled, the Iranian threat must be understood in its true form. On the one hand, it must not be underestimated; but on the other hand, the limits of its power, and the possibility of exploiting its weaknesses, must be remembered.
Ideally according to Or Yissachar: His vision for Israeli–Iranian relations
Don’t slow it down, stop it short
The current situation:
Since the turn of the millennium, the State of Israel has been waging a war-between-the-wars with Iran. The guiding principle of that policy is to prevent the enemy from gaining strength and to deter the enemy increasingly by means of measured and well-considered actions which fall short of triggering war.
Absurdly, Israel’s persistent attempts to prevent escalation and to avoid a descent into war are the very thing that led to today’s security deficiency. If we had made a point of halting the Iranian threat instead of merely slowing it down, Iran would not have managed to achieve such might, nor to strengthen all the terrorist armies of the region.
The policy of the war between wars works up to a point, but it cannot demolish a buildup of power. That policy also carries the danger that the moment we misjudge the enemy’s intentions and abilities, or overestimate our own deterrent power, we may suffer an event like October 7.
Ideally:
- Israel’s policy must change from reactive to proactive. Only by initiating action at the right time for ourselves can we eliminate the terrorist leaders, damage the missile factories, destroy the smuggler tunnels, and significantly weaken Iran and its accomplices. Israel’s elimination of Isma’il Haniyah was certainly a step in the right direction.
Reverse the nuclearization
The current situation:
After many years of research and development, Iran is now a nuclear threshold state. According to the latest reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran has so far accumulated roughly 136 kg of highly enriched uranium which it can turn, within weeks, into the payload for a nuclear weapon. Moreover, experts believe that Iran has acquired most of the technical knowhow necessary for assembling a simple nuclear weapon and that within one to two years it will be able to develop a nuclear warhead for delivery by missile.
That information proves that the 2015 agreement involving the great powers was not able to stop the Iranian nuclear program, and the reason is simple. Iran will never put aside its nuclear ambitions. The sanctions that the great powers imposed on Iran were not actually enforced, and after being lifted they were not reimposed. The world is currently attempting to ignore the Iranian nuclear threat. It has not risen to the awareness that the threat is existential not only for Israel but for all Iran’s enemies, including the Sunni states and the western states.
Ideally:
- On the international plane: The State of Israel must make clear to the international community that the entire world has a stake in removing the Iranian nuclear threat. Israel must recruit the western nations and the Gulf nations to form a strong coalition led by the USA. Such a coalition can pose a credible military threat to Iran — and can impose strong sanctions as well, such as limiting oil exports to China or disconnecting Iran from SWIFT (the international cooperative for financial communications between banks).
- On the bilateral plane: Israel must assume a much more aggressive stance and make clear to the Iranians that we can attack their nuclear facilities and we can bomb strategic assets without which their economy will shut down. With or without help from other countries, we must exploit the appropriate moments to mount well-considered attacks that will send the Iranian nuclear program a decade backward.
Lop off the tentacles
The current situation:
In recent decades, Iran has developed and enhanced the use of proxy forces — third parties that wage war on its behalf. Thus for example Iran operates Hezbollah in Lebanon, arms the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations in Gaza, supports pro-Iranian militias in Syria, and strengthens the Houthis in Yemen. The proxy forces are tentacles that Iran can send everywhere in the Middle East in order to operate in faraway arenas without being directly involved. Iran helped set up a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Iraq, supported the Assad regime during the Syrian civil war, tried to overthrow the governments in Bahrain and Qatar, fielded the Houthis against its great enemy Saudi Arabia, and of course strengthened the terror organizations surrounding Israel and contributed greatly to the sudden October 7 attack.
Israel is well aware of the pro-Iranian proxy forces, but the world at large still has trouble understanding that most of the terrorism in the Middle East is orchestrated by Iran.
Ideally:
- Contextualize the Iranian threat: The State of Israel must understand, and explain to the nations of the world, that Iran is not merely a lone nation but also an entire network active throughout the Middle East and also standing behind the current war against Israel. Only when the world comes to understand that Iran is also Hezbollah and also Hamas and also the Houthis will we be able to turn attention to the Iranian threat as it truly is and find ways to deal with it.
- Begin with the tentacles: The best way to weaken the Iranian octopus is to lop off its tentacles. First of all, the State of Israel must complete its campaign in the Gaza Strip and topple Hamas, thus removing the Iranian threat that comes from that direction. The next step is to significantly weaken Hezbollah in order to remove the threat from the direction of Lebanon. Later, we must proceed to the less nearby tentacles such as the Houthis in Yemen and the militias in Iraq. When Iran loses its proxy forces, the head of the octopus will be much easier to attack.
Remove the Iranian missile threat
The current situation:
Iran’s arsenal of missiles is the largest in the Middle East, with thousands of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and UAVs that can attack at various ranges with high precision. Some of the missiles can carry devastating quantities of explosives, and some can even accommodate nuclear warheads.
Most of the missiles are kept in Iran; but some are in the hands of proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thus Iran can reach faraway targets such as Israel by means of short-range missiles and UAVs.
On the night between April 13 and 14, 2024, Iran demonstrated its ballistic abilities by a massive launch from its turf directly at Israeli territory. That attack included 185 UAVs, 110 ballistic missiles, and 36 cruise missiles, carrying 60 tons of explosives in all. Despite the massiveness of the onslaught, roughly 99% of the hardware was intercepted thanks to the multi-level defenses of the Israel Air Force and to cooperation with Israel’s allies — including the USA and Jordan.
Thus it may be said that the Iranian missile attack exposed both the offensive capacity of Iran and the defensive capacity of Israel. That time, we carried the day. But we must make no mistake: The Iranians are already absorbing the lessons from that episode and improving their abilities for a future attack.
Ideally:
- No more policy of restraint: The State of Israel has invested a great deal in establishing its air defense but has ignored the no less important matter of establishing deterrence. The assault proved, above all else, that Iran is not fearful of confronting Israel; and Iran’s attitude is a problem we must solve. While developing advanced abilities of missile interception, we must also make clear to the Iranians — by assertiveness, military threats, and strong coalitions — that Israel is a country unwilling to tolerate missile attacks on its territory.
- Look into the remaining percent: The Israel Air Force successfully intercepted 99% of the incoming hardware originating in Iran, and that figure is a source of rightful pride. However, we must not forget the one percent that we failed to intercept. If the unintercepted missiles and UAVs had managed to penetrate into the State of Israel, they would have inflicted great harm upon us. And if such missiles had carried nuclear warheads, the damage would have been calamitous. Thus we must not rest on our laurels. Our operational and intelligence forces must remain alert, and we must take action to destroy Iran’s missile system. As long as that threat from Iran remains, the State of Israel faces existential danger.
Keep thwarting the cyber threats
The current situation:
Iran is one of the first states to have formulated a national cyber strategy, and today it is among the world’s most active players in that arena. The Iranians attempt hundreds of cyber attacks a day against the State of Israel. Some originate from units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, and others from independent attack groups. Most of the attacks target governmental organizations, hospitals, universities, and strategically important industries. The various attacks are intended to strengthen Iranian deterrence, to foment conflicts within Israeli society and spread falsehoods, to embarrass Israel globally, to spy and extract sensitive information, to disrupt the public routine, and to damage vital infrastructures.
Israel’s governmental and military cyber defenses block most of the attempted attacks, but some succeed. Thus, for example, Iranian hackers have managed to attack the computer servers of the Israel Police, to deceive Israeli embassies, to damage Israel’s power stations, refineries, and water and sewage systems, and to penetrate into Israeli computer systems in the fields of insurance, medicine, and finance in order to capture sensitive information.
It is important to understand that the Iranian cyber threat — although overshadowed among the public by the nuclear and missile threats — may, if not properly dealt with, result in great harm to the State of Israel.
Ideally:
- The State of Israel must understand that the Iranians are constantly growing stronger, and it must therefore see to preserving its cyber superiority by means of appropriate budgeting, recruitment of professionals, and constant improvement of its technological abilities. At the same time, we must examine the past attacks and analyze the Iranian hackers’ methods of operation in order to better understand how to tackle this threat.
Understanding the Iranian problem: Summation and conclusions
In order to deal with the Iranian threat, it is first of all necessary to bring about a change of thinking — both in the Israeli perspective and in the international perspective.
The State of Israel must understand that in recent years its war-between-the-wars policy enabled the Iranians and their proxies to build more and more strength and to dominate the entire region. The October 7 attack made clear that we must not continue our delaying but must take action now to remove the threats that surround us. Furthermore, we can no longer depend on our assessment of the enemy’s intentions. Instead we must look at the enemy’s capabilities and not allow them to grow stronger.
In the international arena, we must change over from a soft-power approach to a hard-power approach. The USA and the EU proceed from the assumption that if Iran prospers, it will have no reason to complain and it will join the family of nations. That assumption represents deep misunderstanding of the Middle East, and even disdain for Iran and for radical Islam. The Iranians are pursuing a vision: The destruction of the State of Israel and the imposition of Islam on the West. Until it understands that Iranian vision, the world cannot act against Iran with the necessary force.
Once the problem has been identified and the nature of Iran has been understood, Iran’s power must be soberly examined. Although Iran is a significant player, it is not all-powerful and it too has its vulnerabilities. Iran’s Achilles heel is oil. Without oil, its economy does not exist. Moreover, Iran’s regime suffers from domestic non-recognition of its legitimacy; and the multitude of protests threatens to undermine it. Militarily, despite its progress in nuclearization and missile deployment, Iran is not very strong or sophisticated. Its air force is antiquated, authority is scattered, and there are many different branches so that the right hand does not always know what the left hand is doing.
In the long term, the best that Israel can hope for is that the present Iranian regime will fall and be replaced by a moderate, pragmatic one. However, that scenario must be recognized as not very probable. Despite the protests and disputes within Iranian society, most of the Iranian populace wants Iran to remain traditional; and even while criticizing the government, the public is neither truly supportive of regime change nor able to impose it.
Accordingly, a more reasonable ambition is to bring about a weakened regime with no nuclear program, no arsenal of precision missiles, and no proxies. In such a situation, even if deep enmity persists, Israel and Iran could once more conduct proper relations.
