Other than the typical Islamic fanaticists’ (yes, I know, let’s not go there) hatred and non-recognition of Israel, what in particular does Iran have against them? They don’t share a border. There are other Islamic countries that don’t recognize Israel (e.g. Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia) yet aren’t financing militants against them (even Palestine’s Abbas says Hezbollah is a terrorist organization), yet almost every newspaper article I read about the situation refers to Iran as “Israel’s arch-enemy”. Iran even has a significant (relatively, for the region) Jewish population.
So that’s basically saying “we need nuclear capability to defend ourselves against Israel, in case Israel decides to attack our nuclear facilities”-- circular reasoning.
It’s basically saying that Israel bombed the crap out of Iran’s nuclear reactor.
If I were to ask, “What’s America’s beef with Iran, other than the typical Neocon fanaticists’ hatred…?” would you offer the hostage crisis as a partial answer, or avoid mentioning it for fear of being accused of ‘circular reasoning’?
It’s only circular if the only reason iran had nuclear facilities was their beef with israel… which certainly hasn’t been mentioned on this thread until you brought it up here. Cite, please??
Osirak was Iraq, not Iran. And Iran wasn’t exactly upset that the Israelis dealt a blow to Iraq becoming a nuclear state.
Iran is hostile to Israel because that’s what it feels it needs to do in order to gain influence in the Arab states - no more, no less. Iran is not an Arab state, so they are seen as outsiders. But Iran also wants to be the regional hegemon, and to do so, they have to stay popular in the “Arab street.” They do this through public rhetoric against the Arab bogeymen Israel and America.
They also do this through the funding of Hezbollah and Hamas. Not only does Iran support these organizations for their anti-Israel street cred, both of these organizations do a major chunk of humanitarian work in the Palestinian states. So it’s a double bonus - they get the anti-Israel cred, plus they get to be seen as benefactors to the Palestinian poor.
Iran is careful, though. They’re walking a fine line by pushing Israel just short of the point where Israel will take military retaliatory action against Iran since an actual shooting war doesn’t do Iran any good. Sure, maybe they get points with the Arab street, but the devastation that would result would cause an extreme blow to their aspirations as regional power. Remember that Iran is not only competing for the Middle Eastern sphere of influence - but also the Central Asian. Iran and Pakistan are not on the same side and are regional competitors, both doing what they can to undermine the otherside in the area. That’s not even taking into account Russia. This is why Iran won’t risk a fight with Israel - it would completely destroy any gains it has made in its influence in both the Middle East and Central Asia.
Considering it was an Iraqi nuclear reactor and not Iranian I would think Iran would be thanking Israel for that (given that Iraq and Iran fought a long and bloody war).
The Shah was perceived as relatively close with the Israelis – Israel had an embassy there, Israel got its oil from there, Israel trained the hated SAVAK secret police. With the Islamic Revolution, that all was changed. Yassir Arafat was the first “head of state” to visit after the revolution.
Actually Hezbollah is Lebanese Shi’a, which is where they do their humanitarian work. Originally they didn’t particularly identify with the Palestinian cause more than any other, positioning themselves more as defenders of the downtrodden Lebanese Shi’a community and as Lebanese nationalists. The adoption of the Palestinian cause is more recent.
And frankly neither country is in a geographic position to do much anyway, short of, perhaps, missile exchanges and long-range Israeli air raids ( which would be at the extreme edge of their endurance in any case ).
Here is a list of speeches made by Iranian officials at the UN on various Middle East issues. That should pretty much answer the OP.
Having spent time walking on many Arab streets, I’m never sure what is meant by this “Arab street” buzzword we’ve had the last 3 years or so. Lord knows that if you ask two Arabs in casual conversation a political question, you’ll get at least 3 opinions.
Probably more central to Iranians not being Arabs (“Arabs” taken together a concept that doesn’t get us very far considering the variety, conflicts and lack of cohesion within the Arab world) is the fact that they are in the Shi’a minority in the region. Mix in Iran’s OPEC status and oil economy, internal struggles over culture and religion, recent problems with Iraq, previous Gulf territorial states with emirates on the other side of the Gulf and financial and cultural ties to certain sites within the Arab world and their relations with Arab states is pretty complex.
Jews are reserved seats in the Iranian parliment. I don’t think the Iranians are any more knee jerk anti-semetic then thier neighbors, and perhaps somewhat less so (not that that’s saying much).
Thus I’d guess that Iran works against Israel both for the political reasons stated above and because, as an Islamic republic, they are far more prone to come down on the sides of fellow muslims in any dispute.
It’s more accurate to say they’re assigned seats. Religious minorities in Iran each have specific seats that only members of that religion can fill. However, members of the minority religion can’t run for any seats outside those specific ones.
It’s impossible not to go there. Those are the people who run Iran and set this policy.
Iran sees Palestine as sacred Islamic ground occupied by infidels. They also accuse them of racism for showing preference to jews. Not only does Iran not recognize the legitimacy of Israel, it does not even acknowledge Israel’s existence in the world. On Iranian maps there is only Palestine. Israel is referred to in Iran as the “zionist regime” and most jews are referred to as “zionists.” Iran is strongly opposed to any peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. The elimination of the zionist regime is the only acceptable solution to Iran.
Hezbollah is most closely identified with the group in Lebanon, but the organization is active from South America to the Philippines.
I feel compelled to challenge statements that begin with “Iran sees” or “Iran’s biggest beef with Israel is” and agree with Neurotik’s take that most if not all of it stems from rather cynical political machinations chosen while standing on a tightrope.
Terrorist activities/cells have been traced to them from various locales, yes. My point was just a corrective to note that Lebanon’s Hezbollah is specifically based in Lebanon and draws its support from Lebanese Shi’a. It does not do much, if any, charity/civil work among the Palestinians, for the simple reason that there are relatively few Shi’a Palestinians. As a terrorist organization they may be wide-ranging, but as a social one they are relatively confined.
And it should be worth noting that there are multiple organizations with that same name - all Shi’a and with loose theological ties, but not necessarily close political connections to each other. The Hezbollah Movement in Iraq ( HMI ) for example was founded around the same time as the Lebanon group, but with an entirely different and independent leadership. They were part of the winning UIA coalition in the recent Iraq election. Confusingly in Iraq there is also ( or was at one time, these parties disappear, merge and morph with distressing frequency ) Iraqi Hezbollah, which appears to be an autonomous offshoot of the HMI, which bases itself among the ethno-cultural minority of Iraq’s Ma’dan ( Marsh Arabs ). To which might be added cells of the Lebanese Hezbollah Movement in Iraq to fight ( whereas the HMI at least publically eschews that route in favor of electoral power ). So a multiplicity of different Hezbollahs.
