Beyond Enmity: The Roots of the Islamic Republic’s Anti-Israel Policy

Since its inception in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has upheld a policy of absolute enmity toward the State of Israel. This hostility is not merely tactical or symbolic—it is existential, ideological, and deeply embedded in the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary identity. The regime’s anti-Israel posture has shaped its foreign policy, military strategy, regional alliances, and internal legitimacy. But to truly understand this stance, we must examine the historical, cultural, and political forces that have driven and sustained this enmity for more than four decades.
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Islamism as Anti-Western Resistance


The Islamic Republic was born from an anti-imperialist revolution. The 1979 overthrow of the Shah was not only a rejection of monarchy but also perceived foreign domination, chiefly by the United States and Israel. During the Pahlavi era, Iran had close cooperation with Israel, sharing intelligence and military ties.


For Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers, this alliance represented everything corrupt: secularism, imperialism, and Zionism. The new Shi'a theocracy reoriented Iran’s identity around religious opposition to perceived Western hegemony. Israel, as a Western-aligned Jewish state in a Muslim region, became an ideological enemy.


Khomeini drew upon Islamic narratives of resistance, including battles between the Prophet Muhammad and Jewish tribes, to reinforce this religiously framed hostility. The Palestinian cause was elevated as sacred, casting Israel as a permanent enemy and focal point of revolutionary resistance.

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