Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize the state of Israel in 1949.
Specifically, Iran granted de facto recognition to Israel on March 6, 1950 and On the 13th of June 2025 Israel launched a massive targeted air strike against military and nuclear targets in Iran and Iran responded by launching over one hundred drones on Israel. There is a strong likelihood of further strikes or retaliatory attacks, with the potential for escalation into a broader regional confrontation. The defining tension in world politics and the most combustible pile of explosives that could blow up any time in today’s world is the relationship between the state of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The antagonism between these two Middle Eastern powers has existed since the end of the Raza Shah Pehalvi regime in Iran in 1979 and now the two close friends of the past are at each other’s throats. This explosive conflict has not been restricted to diplomacy only but has continued by different means covert, proxy, political and psychological warfare. Political analysts and conflict experts have described these conditions as a “shadow war.”
The Israeli strikes – part of "Operation Rising Lion" – targeted military bases, nuclear facilities, command and control centers, and senior military and political figures. The IDF described the campaign as a "preemptive, precise, and combined offensive" aimed at degrading Iran's nuclear capabilities and broader military infrastructure. In anticipation of Iranian retaliation, the Israeli government declared a nationwide state of emergency (SoE), mobilized reserve forces, and ordered the activation of emergency underground hospitals. Under the SoE, schools are closed, social gatherings are banned, and people have been advised against non-essential work. Air raid sirens have sounded across multiple regions, and the public has been urged to remain near shelters. However, relations between Jerusalem and Tehran have not always followed this antagonistic course: there was a time when the two states were engaged in multifaceted political, economic, and security cooperation, among other fields. Yet this alliance, which sought to advance Israeli-Iranian interests in the face of an implacably hostile Arab world, was ended in one fell swoop in 1979 after the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of the Islamic Republic with its outright articulation of Israel’s destruction.
Already in the 1960s, Khomeini had used the Shah’s relations with Israel and the United States as a trump card to discredit the monarch and undermine his legitimacy, accusing him of allowing Israel to fully penetrate Iran’s economic, military and political affair. According to Khomeini, the Shah’s relations with Israel and the US violated the principles of Islam and threatened Iran’s independence, values and integrity. In his view, the US was the ‘Great Satan’ because it constituted the primary threat to Iran’s Islamic character and independence while Israel was the ‘Little Satan’ as an illegal occupier of Islamic lands, oppressor of the Muslims of Palestine and influencer of US decision-making on the Middle East. There were other specific benefits for both sides in several other fields. In the aftermath of the 1948 war, for example, Iran enabled the use of its territory as a safe passage to Israel for the ancient Jewish community that was expelled from Iraq at the time. In the 1960s and early 1970s Tehran enabled Israel to use its territory for extending invaluable military support to the Kurdish rebellion in northern Iraq, a move that served the Shah’s goal of weakening Baghdad and asserting Iranian dominance throughput the Persian Gulf.
The Shah also viewed cooperation with Israel as conducive to Tehran’s standing in Washington, on the one hand, and as a springboard for the transformation of Iran into a modern, technologically advanced, and developed country, on the other. Hence he encouraged the establishment of a substantial presence in Iran of Israeli advisors, instructors and contractors in numerous spheres – from military and security affairs, to engineering and construction projects, to agricultural support, to exploitation of water resources. During the 1960s and 1970s, Hebrew-language school was opened in Tehran for children of Israeli personnel stationed in Iran and regular flights connected Tel Aviv and Tehran. geopolitical considerations were augmented by Israel’s dire need for energy sources on the one hand, and Iran’s desire to expand its oil exports, on the other. Bereft of oil resources and subjected to an all-Arab economic boycott, Israel had to find alternative energy sources that would meet the demands of its rapidly growing population, with non-Arab Iran becoming its best option as oil supplier. Relations in this field were established in the 1950s, reaching their zenith in the wake of the June 1967 Six-Day War when Israel convinced Iran to jointly establish the Eilat- Ashkelon pipeline connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, which would not only facilitate Iranian oil exports to Israel but would give Tehran access to European oil markets.
As a result, Iran’s oil sales to both Israel and Europe grew dramatically and with them the country’s revenues. Since the 1990s, Iran and Israel have been fighting what experts call a proxy war across multiple countries. Israel and Iran have been fighting a shadow war through proxies and covert actions for decades. Tehran has supported regional armed groups that have engaged in direct conflict with Israel, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen. Israel fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006.
Israel has fought several wars with Palestinians in and around the Gaza Strip: in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2023–2024. The scope of these proxy conflicts extends far beyond the Middle East. Other factors contributing to the escalation of tensions include the Iranian nuclear program, Iran’s funding of Islamist groups such as Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic
Jihad, Hamas, and the Houthis, and Iran’s involvement in attacks such as the 1992 Buenos Aires Israeli embassy bombing and the 1994 AMIA bombing, as well as Israeli threats of military action. With the U.S. diplomatic and military position in the region weakened, an increasingly bold Iran expanded its influence into four Arab states — Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon — plus Gaza. This regional chess game has turned the entire Middle East into a battlefield of competing influences.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
