When Israel and Iran joined forces to fight a common enemy

Iran fired 200 missiles, including hypersonic weapons, at Israel on Tuesday as tensions reached their peak in the Middle East. Israel has promised that Iran will “pay” for the attack. But relations between the two countries were not always bad. As unthinkable as it may sound, Israel and Iran, with the help of the United States, had worked together to fight a common enemy.

In the 1960s, both Israel and Iran found a common enemy in Iraq. While Israel was engaged in a broader struggle against hostile Arab regimes, Iran under the Shah viewed the Iraqi leadership as a direct threat to its security and regional ambitions. This laid the foundation for one of the most secretive partnerships of the era, involving the Israeli intelligence service Mossad and the Iranian secret police SAVAK. Both played key roles in supporting Kurdish insurgents against the central Iraqi regime. These Kurdish groups, considered the Achilles’ heel of Iraq’s Arab nationalist leadership, have been crucial in undermining the Iraqi government from within.

Cooperation between Israel and Iran reached a new height with the formation of a trilateral intelligence alliance, codenamed Trident, which also included Turkey. Beginning in 1958, Trident saw these three non-Arab powers exchange important information and engage in joint counterintelligence operations. As relations matured, Israel and Iran grew even closer together, forming deep military and intelligence ties that lasted well into the Shah’s reign.

The Shah’s Ambitions and Israel’s Influence

The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was driven not only by shared geopolitical interests but also by a belief in Israel’s influence in Washington. The Shah saw Israel as a potential means of improving relations with the United States, especially after the Kennedy administration expressed concerns about his authoritarian rule.

The burgeoning Israeli-Iranian relationship became a key element of Iran’s strategy to move closer to the West, leading to the establishment of a permanent Israeli delegation in Tehran in the mid-1960s, which functioned as a de facto embassy.

The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, with US President Jimmy Carter
Photo credit: Getty

However, the relationship was not without complications. The Shah, aware of widespread anti-Israel sentiment in the Arab world, carefully managed the public narrative of Iran’s relations with Israel. While he became more critical of Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967, his strategic interests continued to outweigh ideological or diplomatic positions.

Collaboration in the shadows

Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution drastically changed the country’s political landscape, transforming it into an anti-Israel Islamic Republic. Yet even after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, the new regime quietly collaborated with Israel, once again driven by common enemies. As the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) dragged on, both countries saw the benefit of working together against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Israel also saw an opportunity in helping Iran. In particular, it viewed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a more immediate and dangerous threat to Baghdad’s security, as Baghdad sought regional dominance and sought nuclear capabilities. Iraq’s formidable military, provided by both the United States and the Soviet Union, posed a risk, and Israel’s arms sales to Iran – particularly after Prime Minister Menachem Begin approved the sale of military equipment in 1980 – was a calculated decision to undermine Iraq’s strength.

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (l) talks with Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat at his home, where the ministers discussed events in Iran in 1979.
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These covert arms deals were carried out despite U.S. policy prohibiting military support to Iran until the American hostages held in Tehran were released. In return for Israeli military aid, Khomeini’s regime allowed significant numbers of Iranian Jews to emigrate to Israel or the United States, a concession that underscored the pragmatic nature of the relationship.

The Iran-Contra Affair

By the mid-1980s, Iran’s need for military support reached a critical point. The Iran-Iraq War had exhausted the country’s resources and its economy was on the verge of collapse. It was against this backdrop that the Iran-Contra affair occurred – a secret, high-risk arms sales operation facilitated by Israel, with the support of senior officials in the Ronald Reagan administration, to secure the release of American hostages held by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah were detained in Lebanon.

Algeria’s President Houri Boumedienne (center) is flanked by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi of Iran (left) and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein (right) in 1975.
Photo credit: Getty

For Israel, these arms deals were lucrative and strategically valuable, further strengthening its role as Iran’s secret ally in the war against Iraq. Iran, desperate for weapons and resources, was willing to cooperate with both Israel and the United States, even as it continued to publicly denigrate Israel.

The Secret Missile Project: Operation Flower

The Israeli-Iranian partnership went beyond conventional arms deals. One of the most ambitious projects was Operation Flower, a secret multibillion-dollar initiative that began in 1977 under the Shah’s regime. The project involved the modification of surface-to-surface missiles that could potentially be equipped with nuclear warheads and that would be sold to Iran. However, the nuclear aspect of the project was not pursued further.

Under the agreement, Iran made a significant down payment in 1978 by sending $260 million worth of oil to Israel, according to a 1986 New York Times report. Work on the missile program continued until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, after which Khomeini’s regime abruptly stopped cooperation.

Spare tires for F-4 fighter aircraft

According to a 1981 New York Times report, Israel secretly supplied Iran with 250 replacement tires for U.S.-made F-4 fighter jets in October 1980, when Iran was at war with Iraq.

After Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in September 1980, Israel found itself in an unusual position. The Israeli sale of 250 retreaded tires worth around $300,000 was a secret transaction aimed at strengthening Iran’s air force. The F-4 Phantom jets, a key component of Iran’s military, were grounded due to wear and tear. With no immediate access to parts due to the US embargo on Iran, Israel stepped in to fill the gap. According to the New York Times, retreaded tires were manufactured in Israel and then secretly transported to France, where they were flown on chartered planes to Iran.

The Shah of Iran is in St. Louis to discuss the purchase of F-4 Phantom jets built by the McDonnel Douglas aircraft company.
Photo credit: Getty

The transaction came at a sensitive time for U.S.-Iran relations, with 52 American diplomats still being held hostage in Tehran. The Jimmy Carter administration, seeking their release, called on Israel to suspend further military agreements with Iran until the hostages were released. According to officials involved, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to American pressure and suspended all military dealings, even though Israel’s strategic interests were to prevent an Iraqi victory in the war.

Beyond regional power politics, Israel had a more personal concern: the fate of Iran’s Jewish population. At the time, there were about 60,000 Jews living in Iran, and fears were growing in Israel that they would become targets of oppression or persecution under the new regime. Maintaining some form of back-channel communication with Iran was seen as a way to protect these Jewish communities.

hostility and rivalry

By the 1990s, the era of cooperation between Israel and Iran was all but over. The geopolitical factors that had once united them – Arab socialism, Soviet influence and the threat of Iraq – had disappeared, leaving little incentive for further cooperation. Iran, now firmly under the control of its revolutionary government, espoused an anti-Israel ideology and supported groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas in their conflicts with the Jewish state.

In the early 2000s, Iran became Israel’s most prominent opponent in the region with the election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose Holocaust denial and aggressive rhetoric against Israel further heightened tensions. When Israel fought wars with Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2008, Iranian support for these non-state actors – collectively referred to as the “Axis of Resistance” – became a central concern in Israel’s strategic calculations.

2024 and the threat of all-out war

There are no longer any relations between Iran and Israel. The two Middle Eastern countries are now on the brink of all-out war, as demonstrated by Israel’s multifrontal conflict against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. All three of these armed militant groups are part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.”