It is perhaps a surprising fact that Iran and Israel did not cut ties after the former’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power. Records show that key actors in both countries felt that maintaining a secret relationship would be strategically beneficial. As a result, Iran and Israel continued to engage in trade worth millions of dollars per year after the fall of Iran’s monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, even as Tehran publicly denied Israel’s right to exist.
This shows that the Iranian regime, for all its public zealotry, is deeply pragmatic: The raison d’etre of the Islamic Republic of Iran, post-1979, is regime preservation. The country’s leaders will go to great lengths to ensure that this goal is met.
When Saddam Hussein’s army, aided by some of the world’s greatest powers, including Saudi Arabia, the United States and the Soviet Union, invaded Iran from Iraq in 1980, Tehran was left with few friends and a frantic desire to preserve the newly formed Islamic republic. It was then that the Iranian leadership turned to Israel, purportedly one of its foremost foes, for assistance.
Israel and Iran, once friendly under the deposed shah, had a bitter fallout when Khomeini took over. The aging cleric referred to Israel as the “Little Satan,” second only to the U.S., which was the “Great Satan.” This makes their secret relationship even more interesting.
The revolutionaries who overthrew the shah were deeply opposed to the former ruler’s policies — including the monarchy’s relationship with Israel. The perception among many revolutionaries was that that relationship was exploitative and disproportionately favored Western interests at Iran’s expense. Thus, the official animosity between Iran and Israel began after the 1979 revolution, and it remains fervent to this day.
The most prominent face of the revolution, Khomeini, said in an interview at the beginning of his tenure that his Islamic republic would “break off relations with Israel because [it does not] believe there is any legal justification for its existence. Palestine belongs to the Islamic space and must be returned to the Muslims.”
The devastating eight-year war sparked by Iraq’s invasion of Iran ended in stalemate and an estimated 1 to 2 million casualties. It is important to understand that in the 1970s, prior to the revolution, Iran had a remarkably strong military backed by the West and funded by oil wealth. Iraq, meanwhile, was expanding its own military power under the rule of Saddam and the Baath Party. The balance of power shifted once Khomeini came to power in 1979 and his partisans purged the shah’s army out of fear and distrust. Iraq saw an opportunity to exploit Iran’s new military weakness and decided to attack its historical foe less than a year after the revolution took place. In an attempt to galvanize troops, the new Iranian regime promised soldiers and prospective “martyrs” that the next stop after conquering Baghdad would be the “liberation of Jerusalem.” And yet, during this same period, the clandestine relationship between Tehran and Tel Aviv reached its peak.
A closer look at the events of this period makes clear Khomeini’s rationale for maintaining covert ties with Israel. The deposed shah had controlled the world’s sixth-largest army, $26 billion in foreign reserves, an oil industry producing $105 million a day and a close relationship with Israel. The new regime gladly accepted all of this rich legacy, except for the friendly relations with Israel — at least publicly. Officially, the new Islamic republic’s feelings about Israel were conveyed by its decision to hand over the Israeli Embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which, at the time, rejected Israel’s existence.
The truth is that any newly formed revolutionary government that is immediately thrown into a war will naturally need to compromise to survive — even one that prides itself on nonalignment. Covert cooperation with Israel was more attractive to the Iranian regime than allying with the U.S. or the Soviet Union.
When the shah was in power, common security threats from President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt and the Soviet Union brought Iran and Israel closer. Under Khomeini, Iraq’s aggression, combined with Iran’s isolation from the international community, made room for a renewal of such cooperation, largely because Iran needed weapons.
At the start of the war, Iran’s military was in dire condition. Between 1979 and 1980, an estimated 60% of Iran’s military personnel quit, while the new regime killed or arrested thousands more. As a result of the chaos and purges, there were reportedly only 28 tanks in the entirety of Iran’s Khuzestan province, which bordered Iraq. The air force, which under the shah had been one of the region’s strongest, was in even worse shape; only 40% of the entire fleet was salvageable. Israel helped fill the vacuum during this period by selling more than $100 million dollars’ worth of arms to Tehran in 1983. By 1985, Danish cargo ships chartered by the Israeli government and private arms dealers made over 600 trips carrying American-made arms through the Persian Gulf to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. As the war continued, Israel kept Iranian military planes flying, while Israeli military instructors trained the Islamic republic’s army commanders.
Although the shah was better at maintaining a diplomatic front when it came to publicly discussing ties with Israel, neither he nor Khomeini could realistically cite “ideological alignment” with Israel as a factor in their cooperation. Israel’s “periphery doctrine,” introduced by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion shortly after the state was established in 1948, prioritized strong relationships with Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia as a balance-of-power strategy against the Arab world. By the 1980s, however, this doctrine was dwindling in importance.
Although the partnership was less relevant to Iran, the country remained determined to uphold its status as a major regional power, while Israel still craved security. With limited friends in the region at the time, Israeli leaders hoped Khomeini represented a deviation rather than a lasting shift for Iran, as they couldn’t afford to lose more regional allies.
Khomeini’s harsh rhetoric toward Israel during the 1980s was more of an impassioned charade than a foreign policy doctrine. Israel seemed to recognize this discrepancy between rhetoric and policy early on and continued to treat Iran as a potential regional ally even as the Islamic regime classified Israel as a “cancerous tumor.” This was largely because Shimon Peres — Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister at the time — believed that Khomeini was only a temporary setback for Iran-Israel relations, and that the U.S. should work to bring Iran back into the Western sphere of influence.
Similarly, in 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon announced on television that Israel would continue selling weapons to Iran despite American opposition. Iran responded to Sharon’s announcement with denials, ridicule and the introduction of a resolution to expel Israel from the United Nations. Yet in 1987, Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel’s minister of defense, belied their denials when he said that “Iran is Israel’s best friend and we do not intend to change our position in relation to Tehran, because Khomeini’s regime will not last forever.”
The dynamics shifted after 1988, when Iran and Iraq accepted an internationally brokered ceasefire. Having survived eight brutal years of conflict, Iran no longer felt compelled to compromise its revolutionary ideology. The regime’s focus turned to exporting its revolutionary zeal, particularly to Shiite populations in Syria and Lebanon — especially Hezbollah, which soon became a threat to Israeli security. The once pragmatic relationship between Iran and Israel disintegrated, giving way to a more aggressive stance rooted in Iran’s reinvigorated anti-Western and anti-Israeli sentiment.
Khomeini’s rise to power brought with it a new populist dimension to Iranian foreign policy. This included vehement hostility toward the U.S. and the Soviet Union, whom the ayatollah considered imperialists and enemies of Islam. The regime’s resentment was not solely toward the West in the 1980s; Khomeini proclaimed a doctrine of “neither East nor West, only the Islamic Republic.”
What is especially interesting about this period in history is that Khomeini’s regime accepted military supplies from Israel but rejected a similar proposal from the Soviet Union. Khomeini seems to have viewed the U.S. and Soviet Union as greater “abominations” than Israel. Cooperation with the “Great Satan” (the U.S.) or the imperialist Soviets was a disgrace, which made cooperation with the “Little Satan” less of a disgrace — especially during the Cold War, when the Iranian regime prided itself on its nonalignment. At the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Khomeini said during a speech, “We did not collude even for a moment with America, the Soviet Union and other global powers, and we consider collusion with superpowers and other powers as turning our back on Islamic principles.”
The shifts in Iranian foreign policy following the revolution and war with Iraq also involved a revived emphasis on the country’s role as the defender of Islam, which was used to antagonize both superpowers, more so than Israel.
Contemporary examples of Israel’s covert relationships include those it has with Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan. How do they compare with its relationship with Iran during the 1980s?
The relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a delicate dance between public animosity and private cooperation. Despite having no official diplomatic ties, both states have quietly aligned on security issues, especially in terms of countering Iranian influence in the region. Historically, Saudi Arabia has avoided formal agreements like the Abraham Accords but has found value in clandestine cooperation, such as sharing intelligence and leveraging Israel’s military technology, as seen in its use of Israeli-made cyberweapons. This quiet diplomacy allows Riyadh to maintain its conservative image while addressing its pressing security needs.
By contrast, Israel and Azerbaijan have fostered a more open relationship, rooted in shared security concerns and economic cooperation. Azerbaijan, unlike other Muslim-majority countries, has maintained civil ties with Israel, particularly in areas like energy trade and arms deals. Their partnership is fueled by common interests in curbing Iranian influence and managing the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Although Azerbaijan must navigate its own complex relationships with Turkey, Iran and Russia, its ties with Israel have grown stronger, particularly in defense and intelligence sharing.
While both alliances hinge on mutual security interests, their level of openness depends on domestic and international pressures. Saudi Arabia, like Iran before the revolution, keeps its ties to Israel largely in the shadows to avoid backlash from its population and regional allies. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s openness with Israel shows that pragmatic, security-driven alliances can sometimes transcend religious and ideological divides, with both nations benefiting from their unique geopolitical positioning.
Another question one might ask is: What needs to happen for a secret relationship to evolve into an open relationship? The answer depends on individual leadership, regional security and great-power competition.
Before publicizing a previously secret relationship, the states involved must solidify their priorities. If a state with a thriving economy and strong military were to publicize a previously covert alliance with a weaker, ideologically opposed state, there would need to be a practical reason to do so.
For example, cooperation between Iran and Israel during the shah’s reign illustrated a scenario in which one party wanted to publicize relations (Israel) and another felt it was unnecessary (Iran). The cooperation continued even after the shah rejected Israel’s request to publicize the relationship because, at that time, Israel needed Iran more than Iran needed Israel. Today, we can see a similar pattern emerging between Israel and several Arab states, making an agreement like the Abraham Accords more attractive to old enemies.
One could arrive at several takeaways from an understanding of this unique relationship. For one, we should learn to prioritize a state’s actions over its rhetoric. This will reveal a new world of possibilities when it comes to dealing with (seemingly) diplomatically inaccessible states.
A modern-day example would be cooperation between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, and counterinsurgency coordination against the Islamic State group. Low-level security cooperation between Iran and other states threatened by the Islamic State bolstered an interim coalition driven by common security objectives, showing that cooperation can be achieved even in the most unlikely circumstances.
Important questions remain unanswered. Will Iran and Israel return to a pragmatic alliance in the future? What would need to happen for this to occur? An Iran-Israel entente does seem possible, especially if the U.S. continues its military withdrawal from the region. If the U.S. were to remove itself from the Middle East, there would be widespread shock, but major regional powers such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran have already begun taking steps toward rapprochement. The Abraham Accords and recent diplomatic breakthroughs between Iran and Saudi Arabia signal a new tide in Middle Eastern politics. This momentum holds the potential to bridge several deep regional chasms.
The clandestine partnership between Israel and Iran during the 1980s was shocking to outsiders, while highlighting the practical realities of geopolitics — where security concerns often eclipse ideological differences. To this day, Iran’s relationship with Israel is a complex mix of pragmatism, necessity and ambition.
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