Here's Why Israelis And Iranians Want The Same Thing
- Meir Javedanfar
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Most Israelis and Iranians want the same thing: the end of the current ruling regime in Iran. This common desire between the two people is based not only on sentimentality but on pragmatic interests.
Iran's leadership has repeatedly proven that it is against a better future for both Iranians and Israelis.
In the early 1990s, both the people of Iran and Israel wanted to open a better, brighter chapter for their lives and that of their children in their respective countries. One that would bring peace, economic stability and better relations with the outside world.
The people of Iran wanted this because they had just emerged from a bloody eight-year war against the Saddam regime. Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran had battered Iran’s economy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. The regime’s anti-US policies, such as the 1979 hostage crisis and the killing of 243 US Marines in Beirut, had greatly isolated the country in the West. Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie had made things worse.
Meanwhile, the people of Israel had just emerged from the first intifada. This was one of the most intense and longest clashes between them and the Palestinians. Simultaneously, they had gone through the Gulf War, during which the Saddam regime started targeting Israeli cities with its Al Hussein missiles. These were the very same missiles that he had used to target Tehran and other Iranian cities during the Iraq–Iran War.
Between 1983 and 1988, Saddam bombarded Iranian soldiers and civilians with chemical weapons. In 1991, unbeknownst to many Israelis, he had a similar plan for them. According to newly discovered documents, he had ordered Israel’s cities to be bombarded with chemical weapons, in case he started losing power.
Tired of war, Israelis and Palestinians tried to explore the path to peace with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. They received a major boost with the election of the left-wing Labor Party, headed by Yitzhak Rabin, in May 1992. Things progressed further with the signing of the Oslo Agreement in September 1993.
By maintaining its anti-peace and pro-terrorism stance, the Khamenei regime dashed the hopes of Israelis and Iranians for a better future.
They entailed continued support for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group, which had started in the 1980s. The Iran-sponsored PIJ began to pay back its Iranian backers with a terror attack in July 1989, which killed 16 Israelis, while injuring 17.
Iran then started to develop relations with Hamas in 1990, with the latter opening an office in Tehran in 1991. Both Palestinian groups attended the "International Conference on Supporting Palestine Intifada" in October 1991, which took place around the same time as the Madrid peace talks. Its declared goal was to torpedo the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. The conference was addressed by Khamenei, who endorsed its goals.
This was an official declaration of a proxy war by the Khamenei regime against Israel. Soon afterwards, Hamas joined the PIJ by carrying out repeated bus and cafe suicide bombings. Such attacks carried out after Oslo I and Oslo II were a major impediment to peace between Israelis and Palestinians. They also robbed many Israeli civilians of their lives, while prolonging the war that also affected Palestinians.
The Oslo agreement was one of the top foreign policy priorities for the Clinton administration. The Khamenei regime’s support for such damaging terror attacks led to the imposition of tough sanctions by the US against Iran.
This meant that after eight years of war against Iraq, instead of seeing better economic and diplomatic relations with the West, the people of Iran saw the opposite. Namely, new sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
Since then, the Islamic Republic has pursued an even more intensified anti-Israel policy. It openly calls for Israel’s elimination, while denying and ridiculing the Holocaust through cartoon competitions.
When the people of Iran tried to voice their opposition against the regime's anti-Israel policy, the regime silenced them. This was witnessed as early as the 2009 Green Uprising. Many Iranians chanted, “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, my life for Iran,” because they wanted the regime to focus on developing Iran. Not on arming anti-Israel groups in Gaza and Lebanon. The regime jailed or silenced many of them. But the popular chant continues to this day, and was heard during the current uprising.
History has shown the people of Iran and Israel repeatedly that Khamenei is not open to compromise.
He is not willing to change or even moderate his hostile anti-Israeli policies. He does not care about the price that the people of Iran or the Palestinians, whom he claims to support, pay for it. Let alone Israelis. The Supreme Leader’s obsessive hate against Israel will continue as long as his regime is in charge.
Little else can be expected from a person who celebrated the October 7 massacre two days later by stating “we kiss the forehead and the arms” of those who planned the attack.
Logically, Iranians and Israelis want and deserve the same goal: the end of the current ruling regime in Iran. This is their basic and minimum right and desire. What they ultimately hope for is renewed bilateral friendship and trade.
Dr. Meir Javedanfar is an Iranian-Israeli lecturer, author, and commentator. He teaches various Iran-related courses at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel.
His X handle @Meirja.