Amir Sayem
Israel-Iran disputes, which are religious, geopolitical and economic and largely responsible for instability in the Middle East, are a cause of concern in the Arab region and beyond. Often both countries threat to each other for a direct military war. In January 2021, the military Chief of Israel revealed that the military had worked out for an attack on Iran. But it is undeniable that any direct war, if occurs between the countries, can lead to catastrophic consequences affecting the entire region. It is, of course, desired that direct war does not occur betw-een the two influential regional rivals; but an important question rema-ins on whether it is possible to avert possible war between the countries.
Obviously, disputes between the countries are not new at all. In fact, both countries have rival relations for long, but relations started to deteriorate after the fall of the Iranian Shah regime in 1979. Since then relations almost continually deteriorated, but since the 2006 Lebanon War, proxy-conflict between the countries — better known as Iran-Israel proxy war — appeared as a common phenomenon. In addition, several attacks and counter-attacks were carried out against targets of each other that killed significant number of individuals including scientists and general citizens. Even if they have not yet carried out any direct war targeting territory of each other, their rivalry is undeniably on the rise in recent years.
Of course, there are diverse controversial issues that make situations problematic. Iran’s nuclear program, funding to Hezbollah and supporting to Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad are rendered by Israel to be significant issues of conflicts. While Israel considers Iran’s nuke development program as a direct security threat to it and a factor capable of destabilizing the entire region, Iran considers it to be necessary for its own security from nuclear armed Israel and its allies. Also, there are some other controversial issues including the issue of Pal-estine and killings of Iran-ian scientists that increase the degree of Israel-Iran hostility. Indeed, Iran sees Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as a threat to the Arab world.
But these do not reflect the complete scenario of Iran-Israel relations. In fact, both countries had good relations in the past. Iran is rendered as the second country to recognize the state of Israel after Turkey, though it opposed to the UN proposal for the partition of the Palestine Mandate in 1948. Before the fall of Shah Dynasty in Iran, both countries had close relations in military and economic terms. Though bilateral relations started to deteriorate in the 1980s and substantially deteriorated in the 1990s, they maintained some economic and military relations especially through third party. Mohammad Khatami — the then President of Iran who came to power in 1997 — also favored improvement of relations with Israel.
Though context is different now, past friendly relations and good intentions may increase prospects for mitigating disputes and averting direct military war at least somewhat. But it is undeniable that there are diverse hindrances — internal and within the parties. Indeed, emphasis on aggressive foreign policy toward each other and antagonistic rhetoric among political leaders of both countries put significant barriers to the mitigation of disputes. Along with leaders, most Israelis have antagonistic attitude towards Iran and most Iranians have similar attitude towards Israel. As a result, political leaders, especially who are willing to mitigate disputes, face some challenges from hard-liners. Also, fear, lack of mutual trust, religious differences and some other factors appear to be crucial hurdles.
Not less important is that some external factors especially broader geo-politics and interests of allied parties put decisive barriers to dispute mitigation. As it appears, the whole Middle East has turned to be one of the most dangerous geo-political grounds in the world and Iran as an Arab country and Israel as a non-Arab state are significant players; besides, both countries are supported and influenced by rival geo-political players within the Middle East and beyond. While the USA is rendered as the strongest ally of Israel, Russia is allied with Iran. Consequently, policies or prioritized agendas of other geo-political players sometimes determine the course of actions both Israel and Iran needs to prioritize targeting each other.
Under such circumstances, more focus is undoubtedly needed. But efforts should be made for mitigating disputes with an aim to avert war between the countries, which arranged geopolitical setups targeting each other for long.
Of course, the JCPOA — which was made between Iran and P5+ countries in 2015 but are now non-functional due to withdrawal of the USA — have potentials to reduce tensions at least from the side of Iran and the USA. Given that other controversial issues including Israel’s security concerns and Iran’s fear from possible attack at its military facilities are remain unfocused, an important question remains on whether this alone is sufficient for reducing disputes between Iran and Israel.
In my opinion, further international efforts are crucial. But the question is: who should be effective mediators? Indeed, the USA’s treatment of Iran since the 1979 revolution, Iranian treatment of the USA, and the USA’s extensive support to Israel may make it difficult for the US Administration to play decisive mediational roles. Instead, the EU seems to be more pragmatic; in fact, the EU has good relations with Iran and Israel in economic terms that may make mediation efforts effective, even if its political relations with the geo-political rivals are not solid enough. But positive roles of the USA and Russia — crucial geo-political players in the Middle East — are obviously needed for such efforts to be successful.
Of course, focus should be given on initiation of dialogues between the rival countries to generate mutual credibility, build trust, mitigate tensions and start a new negotiating process to deal with varied conflicting issues for reaching to a peace deal aiming at averting of war. For efficacy, meetings may be held in third-country venues, but political leaders of Iran and Israel should realize that war will devastate both without any real benefit. At least, both states need to be earnest for finding out a mutual position that can avert war.
