Why such hatred between Iran and Israel?

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Iranians feel that they are the proud successors of the mighty Persian world-empire of Cyrus. They want to regain his achievements in terms of international leadership with their oil wealth and their belief that Allah is on their side. Iran is infiltrating Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen as the first stage of this “reconquest”. They perceive Israel and America as the two main obstacles.

Eisenhower (America) and Churchill (England) overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, and installed the Shah as an absolute monarch in 1953. This was to stop Mossadegh nationalizing what is now British Petroleum (BP) oil. That would have meant more money for the Iranians.

The Shah was friendly to the West and to Israel but he was a brutal dictator in suppressing the Iranians.

SAVAK was the dreaded secret police organization that began in 1957 with help from the American CIA and Israel’s Mossad.

After 26 years of repression the Iranians revolted against the Shah and hated Israel and the USA for setting up SAVAK. Israel had backed the despotic Shah which also aroused Iranian hatred.

The Muslim religious beliefs were the only way to sufficiently unite the Iranians against the secular (non-religious) government of the Shah, so once the revolution was over, the religious leaders were in charge of Iran.

Religion and politics is a toxic mixture.

Iran has a revolutionary government that wants to export their ideology to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen as their first step to world domination.

The following map shows Israel's neighbours.

Israel has been coloured in red, showing the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Iran has a cruel dictatorship that desperately needs an external enemy to take attention away from their repression and ineffective ability to govern. They abuse their citizens but claim it is a temporary necessity until they have defeated their USA,  Israeli,  and Saudi Arabian enemies.

Having Israel to blame means that they do not have to admit their own faults to the younger generation of Iranians who grow more and more disillusioned with their religious leaders. Iran cannot  hit back against the UK or the US so they attack Israel, the smallest of these three enemies.

By hitting against Israel they hope to gain support from the Arabic countries.

Iran wants to lead the Shia Muslims in opposition to Saudi Arabia’s leadership of the Sunni Muslims.

Iranian mullahs (spiritual leaders) hate the western culture for being a threat to their version of Islam.
Liberal western thinking seriously undermines their religious authority.

The success of Israel in transforming a desert into fine agricultural land as well as Israeli brilliance in fields like Science and medicine is a rebuke to the Iranians who cannot match them in these fields. Western thinking has enabled Israel to progress remarkably. The Iranian religious leadership is dead scared of their younger people (under 40 years old)  following the Israeli example. The Iranian regime would then rapidly lose power.

Iran also resents the appeal to the Iranian population of American values and culture such as the illegal but very common reception of American satellite signals.

Iran fights against Israel from Syria.  Why have they spent so much money on that war? To take the Iranian people's attention away from the miserable lives that they lead. For Iran’s leaders, Israel must be an enemy because, unlike Iran, it is a successful  secular (non-religious) democracy.  That really upsets Iran’s religious leaders.  Israel is too far away to fight directly so Iranians follow the war from a distance which distracts them from noticing how much of their own freedoms have been taken away from them by their religious leaders.

Israel is a necessary enemy to be hated because whipping up that hatred allows the religious leaders to control and rule the many poorly educated Iranians. They need an outside enemy to unite them. A religious fanatic overlooks poverty and the poor economic situation in Iran. He supports the incompetent government  which is “so-called” fighting the enemy.

Israel as an enemy is too far away for Iran’s politicians to be able to correct. Thus the Israeli problem will smoulder on indefinitely as a useful diversion.

The Iranian Ayatollahs can complain about their right to rule the sacred Dome of the Rock, and that Israel has usurped Islam’s right to be the supreme religion in Israel. They can blame colonial England for giving the Jews a homeland.

Iran cannot resolve these issues but can keep raising them to stir up their people with hopes of a greater Persian empire to compete with the Arabs trying to reclaim their lost empire as well as the Turks wanting to reclaim their lost Ottoman empire.

To try to assert their leadership in the Muslim world in competition with the Saudi Arabs and the Turks, Iran is thus forced to be seen as attacking Israel.

Iran is not an Arabic nation.  The “Islamic Revolution” was forced on them.  Iranians used to be open-minded people who mixed readily with western ideas.

Many Iranians are disillusioned with the Palestinians because all the support goes one way only, from Iran to the Palestinians. They accuse the Palestinians of being very ungrateful. They are starting to realize that backing the Palestinians in Gaza has not been a success.

Things are changing in the Middle East with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince telling the Palestinians to either go to the negotiating table or else shut up. With Arab states losing interest in the Palestinians, Iranians are realizing that they have backed a loser. Very humiliating for Iran.

Israel is seen as the foothold that the hated America has in the Middle East.

Iran’s economy is not doing well. They have unemployment and lack of human rights. They can only distract attention from these internal problems by attacking Israel and the Yemen government that is supported by Saudi Arabia.

Israel is hated because it is seen as America’s proxy in the Middle East and yet during the Iran - Iraq war when the Arabs, including the Palestinians, backed Iraq then Israel was prepared to sell weapons to Iran.

Thus Iran backing the Palestinians today and attacking Israel is very illogical.

Iran supports Hamas in Gaza, which is a terrorist group of Palestine. They killed many of their opposition terror groups and have a record of serious human rights violations.

Between June to August 2014  Hamas fired 3500 rockets into Israel.

By 2014 over 30 tunnels from Gaza had been destroyed. Hamas used these tunnels to send killers into Israel.

The regularity of these attacks forced the Jews to build bomb shelters everywhere. A 1951 law made bomb shelters compulsory in homes and public and industrial buildings. There are even bomb shelters on the beach.

Iran voted against Israel becoming a nation and voted against Israel joining the United Nations. But soon after Turkey recognized Israel, then Iran also recognized Israel as a sovereign nation.

Iran was friendly to Israel under the Shah but after the 1979 revolution Iran severed all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel.  Iran then stated that it no longer recognizes Israel as a legitimate nation.

The Soviet Union collapsed and the Americans defeated the Iraq army in 1991. Suddenly Iran began to emerge as a strong regional power that led the opposition to Israel which is the other strong regional power in the Middle East.

This bipolar Israeli – Iran aggression escalated under Iranian president Ahmadinejad’s threats. Tensions increased as Iran sought a nuclear bomb and supported the terror groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Explosions and assassinations in Iran were blamed on Israel.

Iran feels that they are the only true Muslims and thus feel that they should control the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem in Israel.

Iran’s religious leaders thus have an undying hatred for the Jews and the Saudis.

Iran also feels wronged that they no longer rule the Persian empire the way Cyrus did.

Iran is outraged that Muslims controlled Israel for about 1200 years without any real Jewish opposition, and now suddenly the Jews have taken over.

Iran feels that Muslims should be endlessly successful in war, money making, and material success. They are Allah’s people so they should only win and have no rivals. Yet they have two highly successful rivals in Israel and America. This makes them ashamed that they are being out-performed.

Muslims had the powerful Caliphate that made them leaders in the Dark Ages. They cannot believe that they will not regain that status.

Iran is a Persian-dominated multi-ethnic state in which Arabs and Baluchis are viewed as traitors within the state who want to join up with Iraqi intelligence agents to commit acts of terror.

Israel has killed Iranian nuclear scientists who were building the Iranian nuclear bomb and Israel has nuclear weapons (80 to 400 nuclear bombs). Israel sabotaged the software of the atomic centrifuges that enriched Iran’s uranium. Thus  the Jews are resented for that reason.

Iran has supported anti-Jewish terrorists who have not been very successful, much to Iran’s embarrassment.

American sanctions against Iran were very successful and the Iranians resent that.

Another  true answer for Iran’s hatred of Israel is anti semitism. They have a deep-seated hatred for the Jews. The Jews are God's chosen people and Iran deeply resents that.

Iranians automatically hate America for supporting Israel and for interfering in their affairs in the Middle East. Fundamentalist Muslims view with hatred the fact that Islam once conquered Palestine and then later lost it to the British.

Iran and Israel are not traditional enemies as neither of them are Arabs.  When Iran was led by the Shah, the two countries were friendly, with Iran selling oil to Israel.

The first Ayatollah of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Moosavi Khomeini, wrote that Jews should not go out into the rain, as their sweat was poisonous.   But if the Jew converted to Islam, the sweat was no longer poisonous.  Iranian leadership decided to go extremely anti-semitic and regard Israel as an illegitimate regime.

Now Iran wants to be the centre of an Islamic kingdom or Caliphate that will control all the Middle East oil in their bid to dominate the world. But how to be accepted by the Sunni Arab states?  They think they can achieve this if they defeat Israel. Thus they intensify their hatred of Israel.

They insist that Israel stole their land, oppressed the Palestinians, and offended Muslim honour. Thus they must virulently oppose Israel to keep their image in the Muslim world as they are convinced that they are the true believers. Iran see themselves as the dominant Islam nation.

Even if they cannot form a Caliphate, Iran believes they should be the main nation in the Middle East.

There is often a gulf between many of the Iranian people who do not hate Israel and the religious fanatics of the regime who are fueled by hatred. Israel is strong, successful, and prosperous despite having no oil reserves. This is a rebuke to Iran who has a struggling economy despite their oil wealth.

Iran has a clandestine program for enriching uranium to make a nuclear bomb. This is a real threat to Israel. So far international sanctions have seriously limited Iran’s quest for an atomic bomb.
When Iraq invaded Iran, only Syria and Israel helped Iran. Thus there are many Iranians who do not support the anti-Israel policy. But the predominant influence spread by Iranian religious leaders is to hate Israel. There used to be 150000 Jews in Iran after the second world war. Now there are less than 9000.

Because neither are Arabs, Iran and Israel could be natural allies if the Islamists weren't in the way.

Iran is scared of Israel’s  powerful global lobby groups that are able to persuade foreign governments like like the US  to impose sanctions on Iran.

After 1979, anti-Israel groups have been able to do well in Iran.

In 1985 seven Israeli tourists were shot dead in Egypt. Iran praised the murderer and named a street in Teheran after him. President Ahmadinejad said Israel was a parasite that needed immediate elimination.

To make it worse, Israel is now co-operating with Iran’s main Muslim enemy Saudi Arabia.

President Netenyahu of Israel has exposed a huge pile of documents that refer to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran is strongly Islamic which makes them anti-Zionist in their interpretation of the Koran. Only when Iran eliminates the Jews and other infidels, can they bring forth their idea of the messiah, the Mahdi.

When he comes, violence on a global scale will produce an epic battle between Muslim believers and the rest of the world who are regarded as apostates. This showdown needs Iran to stay radical in their beliefs and requires them to eliminate Israel and other infidels.

Iran’s grievances against America include their overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953. Then America gave much support to the Shah. Iran was angered when America allowed the sick Shah into America for medical treatment when the revolutionaries wanted the Shah dead. America gave very limited support to Iran but a lot of support to Iraq during the eight year Iraq-Iran war.

The USS navy ship shot down the Iran Air 655 passenger aeroplane in a tragic blunder. This obviously alienated the Iranians.

America imposed years of sanctions and embargoes on Iran which increased Iranian hatred of America.

Iran and the Arabs have backed the Palestinians against Israel but have themselves cast the Palestinians aside by never absorbing them into Arab countries.

In 1970 the Palestinians who were invited into Jordan after the six day war,  tried to throw king Hussein off his throne. What is referred to as Black September saw 20 000 Palestinians killed as they were all expelled from Jordan to Lebanon. During the Lebanese civil war of 1982 the Palestinians were expelled from Lebanon to Libya. In 1990 thousands of Palestinians living in Kuwait were expelled from Kuwait for helping Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. In addition, the Palestinians were also being expelled from Libya.

Palestinians have not been popular in certain countries.

Arab states put a big focus on the Palestinian problem but outlooks have also changed recently.

The Arab world is often in tatters. Syria and Iraq are failing as states. Iraq is still trying to recover after four years of war against ISIS. Many Iraqui are disillusioned by widespread government corruption and a weak economy. Their Shiite majority is very prone to Iranian interference, so they are liable to be a casualty  in any struggle between America and Iran. Yemen with their atrocious child-killing civil war has become a humanitarian disaster.  Egypt is struggling against a vicious Muslim Brotherhood insurgency as well as terrorism in the Sinai. Libya is a mess with rival governments and endemic terrorism. Lebanon has had no president for two years and the Hezbollah terror group is now more powerful than the Lebanese army.

Fortunately for Israel the Syrian civil war has kept Syria off Israel’s back and also sucked Hezbollah into the shambles. This has kept two of Israel’s big enemies pre-occupied and allowed Israel to remain a strong regional power.

Opposed to Israel, Iran has tried to export its Islamic revolution to its neighbours and thus extend its sphere of influence as it persuades Arab leaders to share its world view in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.

Iran has helped the Yemen rebels  in their brutal fight against the Yemen government that is backed by Saudi Arabia. This disastrous three year civil war, so far in2018, has split this poor country into two parts and set them back economically for decades.

The present score in 2018 is a cholera epidemic and 10000 Yemenis  killed so far. In 2017 there were 50000 children that died in Yemen from disease and starvation. But Iran is keen to spread its influence into Yemen, whatever the cost to the Yemenis. Thus they continue to back the Houthi  rebels, a Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam, as this illustrates Iran’s muscle as a regional power.

Iran’s biggest success has been Hezbollah which Iran created in Lebanon and then provided the finance to train Hezbollah as a separate army. Using Hezbollah, Iran can spread its influence amongst the neighbours of Israel. Hezbollah would be a potent army to attack Israel but God allowed them to get drawn into the Syrian civil war that started in 2011. This effectively keeps Hezbollah pre-occupied.

The Gulf Arab leaders, as well as Egypt and Jordan, are worried about Iran’s ability to interfere in their countries by using their money to back terrorists as well as using the military clout of Hezbollah.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 weakened the Arabs.

In addition the Arab Spring revolts  that began in December 2010 in Tunisia then spread over North Africa and into the Middle East in Egypt and Syria have further weakened the Arabs.

This makes Iran look stronger in comparison and they become bolder in pushing their luck.

Iran’s aim is to form a “Shiite Crescent” that would extend Persian-Shiite authority into Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon. King Abdullah of Jordan in 2004 warned that Iran’s influence in Shiite-majority Iraq would escalate once Saddam Hussein was toppled. This has happened.

Gulf Arabs were alarmed when Iranian officials were boasting that they controlled the capitals of four Arab nations through their proxies.

Ex-president Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, aimed at slowing down their nuclear capability, released $100 billion in frozen assets which has enabled Iran to keep sponsoring terror and also building up their military bases in Syria so that they can attack Israel.

During the Cold War the Palestinians were the major focus of the Middle East. The Arabs and Iran could attack Israel by using the excuse that they were trying to liberate the oppressed Palestinians. Russia armed the Arabs and made a lot of money. The Jews hammered the Arabs in four regional wars and the Arabs had to rearm, so Russia scored again. American money that was paid for Arab oil thus went to the Russians for military equipment. Effectively the Americans “supported” Russia by sending them money via the Arabs. Russia survived economically and there was no need for the cold war to get hot.

But now things have changed.

Obama’s weakness in Syria allowed Russia to move in and take over.

Numerous rebel groups, including ISIS, fragmented Syria in their brutal civil war that has cost over 400000 deaths and 12 million refugees. Into this chaos Iran has effectively moved in as the big brother of the Shiite president of Syria, Assad. With their money they have brought into Syria  thousands of foreign fighters. They are there to help Assad against the Syrian rebels but also to use the Syrian war as a mask whereby they can transport advanced missiles into Lebanon so that Hezbollah can use them to attack Israel. Iran has also used the Syrian civil war as an excuse to build up a military infrastructure in Syria from which they intend to attack Israel.

When Hitler invaded Poland, it was one step too far for world peace and the world declared war on the Nazis.

By setting up military bases in Syria and channeling sophisticated rockets to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran overplayed her hand.

The Arabs are no longer really worried about the Palestinians. They are small change in the bigger picture.

The Arabs know they are weaker than what they were before the Arab Spring and the Iraqi invasion by America.

They are also intensely worried about the spread of Iran’s influence from Yemen through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Thus the Arabs are now totally preoccupied with the danger from Iran. This has become their obsession especially as the Saudi-led Arab coalition has been unable to defeat the Iranian proxies in Yemen. The Arabs do not seem to have an effective military establishment.

So in the most surprising and unexpected change of circumstances, the Arabs have turned to Israel for help against Iran.

Israel was their great enemy, now the Arabs see Israel as a powerful ally,  their David to take on the Goliath of Iran. Secret talks concerning mutual security are happening between them. The Arabic media are even expressing admiration for Israel.

In a 2015 interview with the Israeli i24 TV channel, a high ranking  Saudi general Anwar Eshki declared that Israel is a reality that the Arabs must accept, and proclaimed in Hebrew, “I am ready to defend peace with all my heart.”

In a November article in the Saudi Arab News, Khalaf Al-Habtoor, a prominent Emirati businessman and writer, was even more blunt, explaining that the Arabs and Israel have a mutual interest in resolving their differences and establishing peace so that they can unite against their common enemies which are Iran and its allies.

This change in mind-set is causing the Gulf State Arabs to get blunt with the inept Palestinians.

In an interview with the Arabic An-Nahar TV channel, the Saudi ambassador in Algeria, Sami al-Saleh, denounced Hamas as “a terrorist organization that rules from 5-star hotels in Qatar.”

An alliance seems to be developing. The Agence France-Presse news agency reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Sultan made a secret visit to Tel Aviv in September, although Saudi Arabia denied the report.

The Saudi crown prince in 2018 said that the Palestinians must either go to the negotiating table or shut up. It is now obvious that the alliances in the Middle East are changing.

Panic and isolation is spreading amongst the Palestinians as they realize that the Arabs need Israel and will thus ignore them. Palestinians see Saudi Arabia as an agent of Israel and America who wants to focus now on Iran and ditch the Palestinians.

Saudis, frustrated with Palestinian attitudes and ingratitude, have created anti-Palestinian hashtags on Twitter that describe the Palestinians as traitors who have abused the financial help of the Saudis for decades.

Self-interest is forging an Israeli-Gulf Arab relationship.

Israel is happy that there is the acceptance of them as a legitimate state by the Arabs.

The Israelis hope that Arab states can also pressure Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate with Israel without their talks being blocked by the stalled bilateral negotiations with the Palestinians in Gaza. This could enable Abbas to achieve more of what he wants in the West Bank.

Iran has a powerful military. No Gulf State could withstand a direct Iranian attack.

But the Israeli air force could provide air cover for the Arabs if a war broke out with Iran. Israel is also the closest strong military nation that can defend them.

America backs Israel. If Arab states are friendly with Israel then that will improve their chances of getting American help should Iran invade them. The Arabs remember how Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were protected against Iraq by America. Thus Israel is an important ally to the Gulf Arab leaders in their selfish drive to keep power and protect their self-interests.

Egypt has been unable to control ISIS terrorism in the Sinai. They are now asking Israel to help them with this problem.

Iran claims that Arab friendship with Israel merely sows discord between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. But history shows that these two groups have long hated each other.

Iran claims that Israel stole the land from the Palestinians.

But Britain divided the land between the Jews and the Palestinians in 1948 by UN Resolution 181.

The Palestinian Arabs rejected this resolution and declared war so as to wipe out Israel with five Arab armies. During this war Syria took the northern territory, Egypt took Gaza and Jordan took the West Bank. So it looks like it was the fellow Arabs who stole the territory.

By interfering in about one fifth of the Arab world and endlessly calling for the destruction of Israel, Iran is actually maintaining this Gulf Arab-Israeli strategic cooperation against Iran as the Gulf Arabs are scared of Iran. This friendship-induced-by-fear-of Iran has eclipsed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Arab minds.

II THESSALONIANS 2:7   For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

To "let" means to "prevent". God only lets the Devil do a certain amount of damage.

When the Holy Spirit leaves the earth then the Devil is unleashed to do his full damage.

DANIEL 12:1  and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

In that awful Tribulation time God will turn to the Jews who are Daniel's people as He alone will be able to save them.

In 2018 Syria fired some missiles, unsuccessfully, at Israel.

Israel responded with seventy accurate missiles that did huge damage to the Iranian military bases in Syria. This was an impressive performance to partly neutralize Iran’s military threat in Syria but also to convince the Gulf Arabs that Israel is indeed the champion they need to stand up to the Iranian threat.

Meanwhile, back in September 2017 North Korea exploded their biggest hydrogen bomb in an underground tunnel complex under a mountain. Impressive. The explosion registered over  6  on the Richter earthquake scale. Then came some unexpected after shocks. The interior of the mountain had been damaged. Some radiation escaped. The tunnel could no longer be used for nuclear explosions. In the beginning, God had only made the mountain strong enough to withstand five smaller nuclear explosions. Explosion six was just one too far.

North Korea then began meeting with South Korea in a friendly manner. They also began talking to America.

American president Trump fulfilled prophecy by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Nothing is more important to God than the fulfillment of prophecy as He starts turning back to Israel. The days of the Gentiles are almost over.