In the 1970s, Iran and Israel maintained warm diplomatic ties. The Shah of Iran was a regional ally of the United States, Israeli military advisors worked with Iranian security forces, and the two countries traded significant volumes of oil and goods. Israeli tourists visited Tehran. Iranian officials visited Tel Aviv. The alliance was not celebrated openly — Arab states viewed it with suspicion — but it functioned.
In 1979, it ended. The Islamic Revolution brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power and established a theocratic government whose founding ideology explicitly declared Israel an illegitimate colonial entity that had to be eliminated. Iran closed the Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran. The Palestinian Liberation Organization was invited to take its place. Iran severed all official ties with Israel.
In the four and a half decades since, the Iran-Israel conflict has become the defining geopolitical rivalry of the modern Middle East. It is simultaneously a religious conflict, a strategic competition for regional dominance, a proxy war conducted across Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, and, increasingly, a direct military confrontation between two states that both possess significant military capabilities and irreconcilable positions on the other's fundamental legitimacy.
Understanding this conflict — its origins, its dynamics, and what is at stake — is essential for understanding any major development in the region.
"Israel and Iran are in a collision course that cannot be managed indefinitely. The two countries have fundamentally incompatible strategic interests, and the proxy structures that have contained the conflict for decades are eroding." — Former Israeli national security official, quoted in Foreign Affairs (2024)
Key Definitions
Islamic Republic of Iran — The theocratic government established by Ayatollah Khomeini after the 1979 revolution. Governed by the principle of Wilayat al-Faqih (guardianship of the Islamic jurist), which gives supreme authority to a senior cleric — currently Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Opposition to Israel is written into Iran's founding ideology and is expressed in state policy, funding of armed groups, and public rhetoric.
State of Israel — Founded in 1948 following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, Israel is the world's only Jewish-majority state and the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East (though its nuclear capabilities are undeclared). It faces existential security concerns driven by its small geographic size, hostile neighborhood, and history. Its relationship with Iran moved from ally to enemy with the 1979 revolution.
Axis of Resistance — Iran's network of allied armed groups: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Houthi forces in Yemen, and multiple Shia militia groups in Iraq and Syria. Iran provides weapons, financing, intelligence, training, and strategic direction. The network encircles Israel geographically and provides Iran with leverage and deniability.
Hezbollah — A Lebanese Shia political party and militant organization founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982. Hezbollah is Iran's most powerful proxy, maintaining a missile arsenal estimated at 130,000–150,000 rockets and missiles capable of reaching any point in Israel. It controls significant territory in southern Lebanon and has seats in the Lebanese parliament.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — A parallel military force alongside Iran's conventional military, responsible for defending the revolution and projecting Iranian power abroad. The IRGC's Quds Force is the unit responsible for training, equipping, and directing Iran's proxy network. The IRGC has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Iran nuclear program — Iran's development of nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment. Iran maintains the program is for civilian energy purposes; the United States, Israel, and most Western governments assess that it has a weapons component. Iran's enrichment levels have at various points reached 60–84% purity — near weapons-grade (90%). Israel has stated that a nuclear-armed Iran constitutes an existential threat.
JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) — A 2015 international agreement between Iran, the United States, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China, limiting Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. The US withdrew in 2018 under the Trump administration. Iran subsequently exceeded JCPOA limits. Successor negotiations have not produced a renewed agreement as of 2025.
Operation Outside the Box / Operation Orchard — Israel's 2007 air strike destroying Syria's Al-Kibar nuclear reactor, which was being built with North Korean assistance. One of several Israeli military operations targeting Iran's allies and nuclear-adjacent infrastructure in the region.
Stuxnet — A computer worm discovered in 2010, widely attributed to US and Israeli intelligence, that destroyed approximately 1,000 Iranian centrifuges by causing them to spin at destructive speeds while reporting normal operation. Stuxnet was the first known cyberweapon to cause physical destruction of industrial infrastructure.
Wilayat al-Faqih — The doctrine of "guardianship of the Islamic jurist," the constitutional principle that gives the Supreme Leader of Iran supreme authority over all state institutions on the grounds that a senior Islamic scholar is best qualified to interpret divine law for governance. Khomeini developed the doctrine; it remains the ideological foundation of the Islamic Republic's system.
Historical Background: From Alliance to Enmity
The Shah's Iran and Israel (1948–1979)
For three decades, Iran and Israel shared strategic interests. Both were non-Arab states in a region where Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism were the dominant political forces. Both were American allies during the Cold War. Both had reasons to cooperate against common adversaries — Iraq, Soviet influence, Arab radicalism.
Israel recognized Iran informally in 1950. By the 1960s, the two countries had developed intelligence-sharing arrangements, military cooperation, and substantial economic ties. Iran was a major oil supplier to Israel; Israel provided agricultural technology, military expertise, and arms. The relationship was never formally acknowledged by either side — too politically toxic in the Arab world — but it was real and functionally important.
The Shah's Iran also served Israel's strategic interest as a "peripheral state" — a non-Arab state that could maintain relations with Israel while Arab states maintained their boycott. The peripheral strategy, articulated by David Ben-Gurion, sought to surround the Arab world with friendly non-Arab states: Turkey, Iran, Ethiopia.
As Trita Parsi documented in Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (2007), the cooperation was more extensive than either government acknowledged publicly. Israeli advisors assisted in training the Shah's secret police, SAVAK. Iranian oil flowed to Israel through a secret pipeline built in the 1960s. Military exchanges included Israeli weapon sales to Iran. The relationship was a cornerstone of both countries' regional strategies.
The 1979 Revolution and Its Aftermath
Khomeini's revolution replaced this alignment with its mirror image. The new Iranian government's foundational documents and rhetoric made opposing Israel a religious and political obligation. Palestine was not a distant geopolitical concern — it was framed as a central cause of global Islam, with Israel characterized as an illegitimate colonialist entity imposed by Western powers.
Within months of the revolution, Iran had invited the PLO to occupy the former Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran, canceled oil contracts with Israel, and begun supporting Palestinian militant groups financially and ideologically. The phrase "Death to Israel" became standard at official Iranian government events, a formula repeated at Friday prayers across the country for decades.
Israel's response to the revolution included an intelligence assessment that the new Iranian government posed a long-term existential threat — an assessment that has shaped Israeli strategy for 45 years. Yet ironically, even after 1979, tactical necessity occasionally overrode ideology: during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Israel covertly sold weapons to Iran, judging that an Iraqi victory would be more dangerous to Israeli interests than an Iranian one. The episode, which surfaced publicly as part of the Iran-Contra affair, illustrates the complexity beneath the rhetorical hostility.
The Proxy War Architecture
For most of the conflict's history, Iran and Israel fought each other indirectly — through proxy forces that Iran built, funded, and armed across Israel's neighborhood.
Hezbollah: The Primary Instrument
Hezbollah was created in 1982, during Israel's invasion of Lebanon, by IRGC officers sent to organize Lebanese Shia resistance. It was conceived from the beginning as an instrument of Iranian regional strategy as well as a Lebanese political and military organization.
Iran has invested billions of dollars in Hezbollah over four decades, providing rockets, anti-tank missiles, drones, precision-guided munitions, and strategic guidance. Hezbollah's arsenal grew from crude rockets in the 1980s to, by 2024, a force that Israeli military planners describe as more capable than most national armies.
Hezbollah fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006 — ending inconclusively, with significant damage to both sides — and has maintained a state of armed deterrence with Israel since. Its presence on Israel's northern border is the most immediate military threat Israel faces.
The 2006 war was a formative experience. Hezbollah's battlefield performance against a modern Israeli military — its use of anti-tank guided missiles, its command-and-control resilience, its ability to continue firing rockets into Israel throughout — demonstrated that a well-equipped and well-trained non-state actor, backed by a state patron, could fight a conventional military to a strategic draw. The lessons were absorbed by every military establishment in the region.
Hamas and the Gaza Dimension
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls Gaza, receives significant Iranian financing, weapons, and operational guidance, though the relationship is complicated by theological differences (Hamas is Sunni; Iran is Shia) and periodic political tensions. Hamas nearly broke with Iran after siding with opponents of Assad in the Syrian civil war; the relationship was repaired by approximately 2017.
Iran's support for Hamas positioned it with influence over the Palestinian issue — a cause with enormous symbolic importance across the Muslim world. Attacks by Hamas on Israel serve Iranian strategic interests in multiple ways: they force Israel to fight on multiple fronts, they rally Muslim public opinion, and they demonstrate Iran's commitment to the Palestinian cause.
The Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 — which killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages — were the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. While Iranian involvement in the planning and execution remains disputed, Iran publicly celebrated the attack. Israel's subsequent military campaign in Gaza, which killed more than 40,000 Palestinians according to Gaza health ministry figures, reshaped the regional conflict dramatically. It severely degraded Hamas's military capabilities, killed much of its leadership including Yahya Sinwar, and created a humanitarian catastrophe that drew widespread international condemnation of Israel.
The Houthi Dimension
Since the Yemeni civil war escalated in 2014-2015, Iran has supported the Houthi movement controlling much of northwestern Yemen. Following October 7, Houthi forces began firing missiles and drones at Israel (most intercepted) and attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade routes. By early 2024, the Houthis had attacked over 100 commercial vessels, forcing shipping companies to reroute around southern Africa, adding weeks and significant cost to global supply chains. The US and UK conducted strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen in response, expanding the geographic scope of the conflict.
Iraq and Syria
Iran's Shia militia network in Iraq — including Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and others — fought against US forces during the Iraq occupation and has continued to expand its political and military influence. These groups periodically attack US bases in Iraq and Syria and have been targeted by Israeli and US strikes.
Syria became a critical node of the Axis of Resistance after the 2011 civil war, when Iranian forces and Hezbollah intervened to preserve the Assad regime. Syria's survival provided Iran with a land corridor connecting Iranian territory to Lebanon, through which weapons reach Hezbollah. Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory — targeting Iranian weapons shipments, IRGC positions, and logistics infrastructure — in an ongoing "campaign between wars" (mabam in Hebrew) that Israeli military doctrine explicitly embraces as a way to degrade Iranian capabilities short of full conflict.
The Nuclear Dimension
Iran's Program and Its Significance
Iran's nuclear program predates the Islamic Republic — it was initiated under the Shah in the 1950s with American assistance. The revolutionary government revived the weapons-relevant components after the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), during which Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces. The experience convinced Iranian leadership that mass-destruction capabilities provided strategic deterrence no conventional force could equal.
By 2024, Iran had enriched uranium to 60% purity — significantly above the 3.67% limit of the JCPOA, though below weapons-grade (90%). International Atomic Energy Agency inspections found traces of near-weapons-grade enrichment. Iran maintained the program was for civilian purposes; most Western and Israeli intelligence assessments held that Iran had the technical capability to produce enough weapons-grade material for a bomb within weeks to months if it chose to do so.
For Israel, this is the existential dimension of the conflict. A nuclear-armed Iran would:
- Transform the strategic balance in the region
- Enable Iran's proxies to operate with greater confidence (a nuclear umbrella effect)
- Create the possibility, however remote, of direct nuclear use against Israel's small territory
Israel has stated explicitly and repeatedly that it will not permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
| Indicator | Pre-JCPOA (2013) | Under JCPOA (2016-2018) | Post-JCPOA (2023-24) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enrichment level | ~20% | ~3.67% | ~60% |
| Centrifuges operating | ~19,000 | ~5,000 (limited models) | ~20,000+ |
| Enriched uranium stockpile | ~9,000 kg | ~300 kg | ~5,500+ kg |
| Breakout time to bomb material | ~2 months | ~12 months | ~weeks |
| IAEA access | Limited | Expanded | Increasingly restricted |
Israeli Covert Operations Against the Program
Israel has conducted an extensive covert campaign against Iran's nuclear program:
- Stuxnet (2009-2010): The cyberweapon that destroyed approximately 1,000 centrifuges, setting back the program by an estimated two years
- Assassinations: Multiple Iranian nuclear scientists killed in targeted operations attributed to Israeli intelligence, including Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the head of Iran's nuclear weapons program, killed in 2020 in an operation reportedly using a remote-controlled machine gun with facial recognition
- Sabotage: Multiple incidents at Iranian nuclear facilities including the Natanz enrichment site, where explosions and power failures have periodically set back enrichment operations
- Intelligence operations: Seizure of Iran's nuclear archive by Mossad in 2018 — 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs demonstrating the weapons program's history, presented publicly by Prime Minister Netanyahu
Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First (2018), the most detailed account of Israel's targeted assassination program, documents the strategic logic: covert action is a constant tool to degrade Iranian capabilities and impose costs that fall short of triggering a full war, while maintaining the option of a more decisive military strike if enrichment approaches weapons-grade.
The JCPOA Diplomacy
The JCPOA, signed in July 2015 after years of negotiation, was the most serious diplomatic effort to contain Iran's nuclear program. Its key terms: Iran agreed to limit uranium enrichment to 3.67%, reduce its stockpile, accept expanded IAEA inspections, and limit centrifuge operation in exchange for sanctions relief estimated at $150 billion in frozen assets and renewed oil export revenue.
Israel opposed the deal strenuously. Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress in March 2015, in a move that created a major breach with the Obama administration, arguing that the JCPOA's sunset clauses — provisions that lifted restrictions on enrichment after 10-15 years — made the agreement a "pathway to a bomb" rather than a barrier. The Trump administration withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018, reinstating sanctions. Iran's nuclear program subsequently accelerated dramatically.
The Threshold Crossing: April 2024
For four decades, the Iran-Israel conflict was conducted with formal deniability. Both sides attacked proxies, sabotaged facilities, assassinated operatives, but neither launched overt military strikes against the other's sovereign territory.
This changed on April 1, 2024, when Israel struck the Iranian consular building in Damascus, killing a senior IRGC Quds Force commander, General Mohammad Reza Zahedi. Iran, which regarded the consular building as sovereign Iranian territory under international law, announced it would respond directly.
On April 13-14, 2024, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory: over 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. The attack was telegraphed in advance — Iranian officials provided significant warning — and approximately 99% of the projectiles were intercepted by Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Jordan, and France acting together. Minimal damage was caused.
Israel responded with limited strikes on Iranian air defense systems near Isfahan. Both sides publicly declared victory and signaled willingness to de-escalate.
The significance was not the damage caused — it was minimal — but the precedent. The conflict had moved from proxy war to direct state-on-state military strikes. The rules of engagement had fundamentally changed.
"April 2024 was a threshold event. The architecture of deniability and proxy management that had contained this conflict for 40 years was publicly abandoned. Both sides attacked each other's territory directly. Whatever comes next, the conflict is different." — Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli Military Intelligence, quoted in Haaretz (2024)
October 2024: The Second Direct Exchange
The threshold was crossed again in October 2024, when Israel launched a more substantial airstrike on Iranian territory following a second Iranian ballistic missile barrage against Israel on October 1. The Israeli strikes targeted military radar and air defense systems, deliberately avoiding nuclear and oil infrastructure despite pressure from some Israeli officials to strike those targets. The restraint was interpreted as a calibrated signal: Israel was demonstrating it could strike Iran's home territory while leaving options open and avoiding an escalatory spiral.
The two direct exchanges in 2024 established what analysts described as a "new normal" of direct but bounded military engagement — a concept with no clear precedent in the forty-five-year history of the conflict.
The Stakes: What Each Side Wants
| Objective | Iran | Israel |
|---|---|---|
| Core security interest | Regime survival; regional hegemony | Physical survival of the Jewish state |
| Nuclear | Maintain enrichment as deterrence and leverage | Prevent Iranian nuclear capability at all costs |
| Proxies | Maintain and strengthen the Axis of Resistance | Degrade and ultimately eliminate proxy capabilities |
| Palestinian issue | Use as symbolic/strategic lever | Separate from Iran threat; managed separately |
| US role | Expel US from the region | Maintain US security guarantee |
| Regional order | Multipolarity; Iran as major regional power | Status quo with Israel secure within it |
| Domestic legitimacy | Anti-Israel ideology sustains regime legitimacy | Demonstrating security competence |
Iran's Strategic Calculus
Iran's approach to the conflict reflects a doctrine of strategic patience and asymmetric advantage. Unable to match Israel or the United States in conventional military capability, Iran has invested decades in building proxy forces capable of threatening Israel from multiple directions simultaneously. The Axis of Resistance serves as Iran's primary deterrent: any Israeli strike on Iran would trigger retaliation from Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias. The calculus is designed to make the costs of a direct Israeli military strike on Iran prohibitively high.
Iran's nuclear program serves a parallel deterrent function. The ambiguity of a program that could produce weapons quickly — without formally declaring weapons capability — gives Iran a "nuclear umbrella" benefit without incurring the full international costs of overt weaponization.
Israel's Strategic Calculus
Israel operates from a doctrine of preventing strategic surprises. The 1973 Yom Kippur War — in which Egyptian and Syrian forces achieved strategic surprise and came close to overwhelming Israeli defenses — traumatized the Israeli military establishment. Since then, the principle of preventing adversaries from acquiring capabilities that could produce catastrophic surprise has governed Israeli security policy.
Applied to Iran, this means: interdict weapons shipments to proxies before they arrive; assassinate scientists and operatives before they can build capabilities; strike nuclear facilities before they reach weapons capability if necessary; and maintain freedom of action to operate in the region despite Iranian objections.
What Would Change the Dynamic
Several scenarios could significantly escalate or resolve the conflict:
Iranian nuclear breakthrough: If Iran achieves nuclear weapons capability, Israel would face an immediate decision about military action — with catastrophic potential consequences either way. A nuclear Iran would fundamentally alter the strategic environment in ways that neither the JCPOA framework nor existing military options were designed to manage.
JCPOA-style agreement: A comprehensive nuclear deal limiting Iran's program in exchange for sanctions relief would reduce the most acute tension, though not resolve the fundamental rivalry. The economic benefits to Iran of sanctions relief have historically been a powerful inducement; the challenge is domestic Iranian politics, where hard-liners who benefit from the status quo resist concessions.
Regime change in Iran: A government in Tehran not committed to anti-Israel ideology would transform the conflict fundamentally — though this outcome is not under any external party's control and has been much predicted and never delivered since 1979.
Regional normalization: The Abraham Accords normalized Israeli relations with several Arab states. Saudi-Israeli normalization — disrupted by October 7 — remains a strategic goal that would significantly shift the regional balance against Iran. A Saudi-Israeli peace would deprive Iran of one of its most powerful symbolic arguments: that Arab states share its opposition to Israel's legitimacy.
Hezbollah's further degradation: The 2024 war in Lebanon severely damaged Hezbollah's military capabilities, killed much of its senior leadership, and reduced the missile threat to northern Israel. If Hezbollah's rebuilding is successfully interdicted, Iran's most powerful deterrent card is significantly weakened.
For related concepts, see oil and geopolitics explained, how global alliances work, and nuclear deterrence explained.
References
- Bergman, R. (2018). Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Random House.
- Chubin, S., & Tripp, C. (1996). Iran and Iraq at War. I. B. Tauris.
- Eisenstadt, M. (2011). The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
- Filkins, D. (2013). The Shadow Commander. The New Yorker, September 30, 2013. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-shadow-commander
- Follath, E., & Stark, H. (2009). The Story of Operation Orchard. Der Spiegel, November 2, 2009.
- International Atomic Energy Agency. (2024). Verification and Monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran. IAEA Board of Governors Reports. https://www.iaea.org/iran
- Oren, M. (2002). Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Oxford University Press.
- Parsi, T. (2007). Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. Yale University Press.
- Samore, G. (Ed.). (2012). Sanctions, Diplomacy, and Military Action in the Iranian Nuclear Crisis. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School.
- Sick, G. (1985). All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran. Random House.
- Takeyh, R. (2006). Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic. Times Books.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are Iran and Israel enemies?
The conflict has ideological and strategic roots. Before 1979, Israel and Iran under the Shah had warm relations. The Islamic Revolution transformed Iran into a theocracy whose founding ideology explicitly opposed Israel's existence. Supreme Leader Khomeini declared opposition to Israel a religious and political obligation; Iran has since provided financial, military, and organizational support to groups that attack Israel. Israel views Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat and has taken military action to delay it.
When did Iran and Israel have direct military confrontations?
For decades, the conflict was conducted primarily through proxy forces — Hezbollah, Hamas, and other groups backed by Iran. In April 2024, Iran launched its first-ever direct missile and drone attack on Israeli territory, firing over 300 projectiles. Israel responded with strikes on Iranian territory in subsequent days. This marked a threshold crossing: the conflict moved from proxy warfare to direct state-on-state strikes.
What is Iran's nuclear program and why does Israel care?
Iran has been developing nuclear technology since the 1950s. Its uranium enrichment program could produce weapons-grade material if pursued to full development. Israel, which itself has an undeclared nuclear arsenal, has consistently stated that a nuclear-armed Iran represents an existential threat and would not be tolerated. Israel has conducted covert operations (assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, malware attacks on centrifuges), and has repeatedly signaled willingness to use military force to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.
What is the Axis of Resistance?
The Axis of Resistance is Iran's network of allied armed groups across the Middle East: Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Houthi forces in Yemen, and various militia groups in Iraq and Syria. Iran provides weapons, training, financing, and strategic guidance to these groups. They serve Iran's strategic interest of surrounding Israel with hostile forces while providing Iran plausible deniability for attacks.
What role does the United States play in the Iran-Israel conflict?
The United States is Israel's primary military and diplomatic patron, providing $3.8 billion in annual military aid, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic protection at the UN Security Council. The US has maintained sanctions on Iran that significantly constrain its economy. During the April 2024 Iranian attack on Israel, the US helped intercept incoming missiles and drones. The US has also sought to negotiate limits on Iran's nuclear program through international agreements (the JCPOA and its successor negotiations).
Could the Iran-Israel conflict lead to a wider regional war?
The risk of regional escalation is the central concern of Middle East diplomacy. A direct large-scale conflict between Iran and Israel could draw in Hezbollah (which has more firepower than most national armies), Iran's other proxy forces, and potentially the United States. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen would all likely become theaters of conflict. Both sides have historically practiced a form of managed escalation that stops short of full-scale war, but the threshold crossings of 2024 reduced the buffer zone.
