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Shah Mohammad Reza with his consort and crown prince after the coronation, 1967.

The unwritten history of Israel’s alliance with the Shah’s dictatorship

For years, Israel maintained close political, economic, and security relations with the Shah of Iran. Newly-declassified documents reveal that Israeli leaders were well aware of his murderous suppression of political opponents. By Eitay Mack This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, during which the Ayatollahs took control of the country and brought…

By +972 Magazine June 24, 2019

General Nader Jahanbani beside Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and General Mohammad Khatami. (IIAF Personnel Archive)

‘In this room there is no Islam’: The Shah’s ‘special relationship’ with Iran’s Israeli community

A new documentary tells about the lives the Israeli community living in Iran during the 1960s and 1970s. But will the film be enough to challenge the dominant Israeli narrative regarding the root of animosity between the two countries? By Lior Sternfeld / Haokets It seems that the mechanisms of remembrance and forgetfulness worked perfectly in shaping…

By Haokets June 8, 2013

Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, and his wife, Queen Farah, prepare to depart after a visit to the United States. (photo: WIkicommons)

Zionism and the Shah: On the Iranian elite’s evolving perceptions of Israel

It is a generally assumed that the Shah’s downfall led to the severing of ties between Israel and Iran, which up until that point resembled a love story. However, both Iran’s intellectual elite and the rest of the nation drastically changed their views of the Jewish State after 1967. By Lior Sternfeld The relationship between…

By Haokets May 18, 2013

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