Iran and Israel haven't always been in a proxy war while these two countries are bitter Rivals today contrary to popular belief Israel and Iran were once on polite terms in this episode I want to examine some of the root causes for conflict between these two Nations because I think it helps to inform what we're observing today we have met the enemy and he is us under the palvi Dynasty in Iran relations between the two weren't even awful because in 1950 only 2 years after Israel's founding Iran de fact recognized Israel what does it mean when
you de facto recognize someone it means that they allowed an Israeli diplomatic mission to open up inside their capital of tan don't get this confused though this did not equate to full diplomatic recognition it wasn't a full Embassy instead Iran maintain a more neutral public stance towards Israel and they did this because they wanted to avoid angering Arab Nations and its own Muslim population what happened next though is something that I think is even more surprising they formed a strategic partnership together it it would be like if Batman and the Joker from the comic series
The Brave and the Bold number 191 were to team up together you can decide for yourself which one is who Batman is Israel or Iran it's up to you but what does this strategic partnership mean it means that they engaged in Military and intelligence cooperation can you imagine that today this is because the two Nations shared common interest in countering what they saw as Arab nationalist movement in particular they both wanted to balance against Egypt's G M Nasir Egypt's Nasir promoted the idea of a unified Arab world he advocated for military Unity among many Arab
states because from his point of view he wanted to resist Western influence and assert his Regional Independence one of his goals was to create an arab-dominated Block in the Middle East to Iran this was a big no-go at the time yes Iran is a Muslim majority country but they're Persian not Arab so from Iran's point of view Egypt's naser's ideology could have marginalized Iran's influence throughout the region meanwhile under Nasir in Egypt they went to war with Israel and opposed them diplomatically so both Iran and Israel had this new shared common enemy against Egypt's government
at the time Iran and Israel their shared mission was an attempt to balance against Soviet and Arab influence this is all a part of Israel's periphery Doctrine which was a foreign policy created by David Ben grion Israel's first prime minister ever since the 1950s they've used this periphery strategy its goal has evolved over the years of course but originally it was to build alliances with non-arab states on the periphery of the Middle East including Iran turkey and Ethiopia firsthand discussions on this Doctrine have since been Declassified by the Israeli government's National Archives I think one
of the most tangible examples of economic cooperation between the two Iran and Israel was the the a lot ascalon pipeline company the eapc which was an oil pipeline constructed in the 1960s to transport Iranian oil to Israel they were originally 50/50 Partners on this Venture one of the reasons the pipeline was built was to bypass Egypt's control of the Suz Canal after it was closed to Israeli shipping during the Arab Israeli conflicts that means that the pipeline allowed oil to flow from Iran through the Red Sea to Israel where it could then be refined and
shipped to Europe misery acquaints a man with strange bed fellows or look at this Declassified sanitized CIA document that my Handler gave to me I mean that I found in my research this document reveals how closely Israeli and Iranian intelligence had worked together in the 1960s and even into the 1980s here's a quote from that CIA document it says quote Israel regularly sold armaments to Iran during the Sha rain mainly Small Arms mortars and ammunition provided engine overhaul and maintenance support for Iran Air Force and Army and extended technical support to Iran's infant defense industry
then there's a redacted section that we're not allowed to know about then it says quote the arm sales also gave a significant boost to Israel's fledging defense industry and barter Arrangements secured much needed oil in return for arms and technical assistance end quote from the CIA so the CIA facilitated this friendship to a degree that they could because it worked to balance against the Soviets much of geopolitics involves hidden motivations and alliances that we often don't even learn about until many years later let's make no mistake though Iran and Israel were not very public about
the depth of their relationship this was a closeted friendship because for a number of reasons not least of which the potential backlash from other Muslim majority Nations that they found out about this but behind the scenes they worked together closely here's how the frame type situation worked so Iran supplied Israel with oil and in return Israel provided military this unlikely Alliance was built on Mutual Security concerns classic it's one of those classic you scratch my back and I'll tickle your fial Arrangement okay so how did these two Nations go from kind of tolerating each other's
existence to absolutely hating one another but before that the only way we're able to make this content is thanks to our sponsors so I want to tell you about Shield AI co-founded by a former Navy Seal Shield ai's mission is to protect service members and civilians with intelligence systems in pursuit of this Mission they're developing what they aim to be the world's best AI pilot with a focus on building true autonomy capabilities for aircraft even in the most challenging environments where GPS and Communications are denied by integrating Advanced software artificial intelligence and Engineering disciplines Shield
AI is developing top tier Aviation capabilities fueled by the rigorous values and tenacity found in Military and Special Forces operations they've developed a platform agnostic system called hive mind that applies sophisticated Ai and autonomy to various platforms and Mission sets Shield AI also sets out to educate stakeholders by demonstrating their systems practical applications from autonomous F-16 Maneuvers to multi-d drone operations so be sure to head over to Shield Ai and check them out for yourself this isn't to say there wasn't a level of support against Israel already brewing and existing in Iran as early as
the 1960s there's reports of many Iranians volunteering to fight against Israel inside the PLO Palestinian Liberation Organization man is not what he thinks he is he is what he hides the major turning point was the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the Western Allied pevi Dynasty fall and creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in its place the Iranian monarchy shifted into an Islamic Republic headed by a supreme leader and religiously appointed Guardian Council and Parliament for the purposes of this video we're not going to go deep into the reasons why that happened although those are
very important what we're focusing on here is the result of the Revolution which is that their new government in Iran began using openly hostile rhetoric towards Israel and the United States Iran cut ties with Israel kicked their Embassy or diplomatic presence out of the capital they were no longer cooperating on the oil pipeline together as a child of divorce I know a nasty breakup when I see one even then the two were not in any kind of open state of war and they actually continued to cooperate when it was convenient during the Iran Iraq war
two of Israel's Rivals were busy fighting each other to the death and so in the early 1980s Israel sold stockpiles of weapons from its stores to Iran for a fee of about $75 million in one year you know the enemy of my enemy is somewhere I can sell millions of dollars of weapons to that same Declassified CIA document from earlier shed some light on the motivations of this back room dealing I think quote from the CIA directorate of intelligence the Israelis have told us that they hope their aid will help prolong the Iran Iraq conflict
and thereby keep baghdad's vastly enlarged military tied down along Iraq's eastern border end quote so it was in Israel's interest for this bloody conflict to drag on for as long as humanly possible the CIA report goes on to say quote they also undoubtedly hope to retain at least some influence with tyan in the interest of encouraging Humane treatment of the 40,000 Jews who still live in Iran end quote from the CIA it's estimated that before 1979 about 100,000 Jewish people lived in Iran and that number is down to between 8 and 10,000 today and it's
not a big mystery as to why Iran's Ayatollah Kini came in this new Theocratic ideology that was rooted in political Islam this ideology viewed Israel as an extension of Western imperialism now Iran saw Israel as a settler State a colonial project who oppressed Muslims in Palestine I'm not taking either side here I'm not telling you what to think what I'm trying to say is just what happened I'm not doing I'm doing my best to not add any value judgments onto these events no judgment here it's a safe space personally I think when I look at
the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel one thing stands out as odd to me it's unusual compared to some other wars in the modern world because I think it's primarily driven by ideological factors rather than direct material concerns like Territory Resources or economic gain not just for Iran but for Israel as well Israel's ideological Drive is framed as protecting its identity as a Jewish State and ensuring the security of its population but these two would have a number of reasons why it would be difficult to go directly to war with one another and why we
saw a proxy war there are two quick stats that I think help contextualize this rivalry Israel is a nation of about 9.5 million while Iran is 88 million although Israel has a GDP of over 500 billion while Iran's is just over 400 billion this suggests that Israel's economic power outpaces irans despite the population difference this is one lens to look at the conflict through Iran's larger population in Geographic size granted influence over the broader Middle East though meanwhile Israel relies more heavily on alliances and Technology as we'll see in this next part because by the
late 1960s Israel was widely believed to have acquired the technology and built a nuclear bomb this made full-scale war against Israel a lot less likely at the time each side had to instead fight with each other using plausible deniability assets what that means is we saw covert actions in neighboring nations in an attempt to destabilize Israel instead starting in 1982 after Israel's invasion of Lebanon Iran began their support for the Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon the Islamic revolutionary guard Corps sent a contingent of 1500 of their best soldiers to Lebanon to help train equip and establish
Hezbollah as an effective armed militant group since the early 1980s Iran has annually sent hundreds of millions of dollars to support Hezbollah a decade later in the mid1 1990s Iran stood up another proxy inside Gaza this time in 1993 Iran sold millions of dollars worth of weapons and training to arm Hamas Fighters inside Gaza this support and influence has grown to new levels since then facilitating attacks throughout Israel I think and this is just my personal opinion and Theory here since the early 1990s something major has change the widespread adoption of the internet and the
speed of information has exploded this means that proxies are no longer that plausible deniable option I can go and buy satellite images myself and see Iran flying weapons to Israel I can buy satellite images that see Israel's blockading Gaza with walls it's harder to fight this kind of covert war in the 2020s that's one small reason why I think Israel and Iran's War has escalated so much from a proxy war to direct fighting or maybe I'm just tripping and took way too many drugs in the early 2000s and I'm completely off base here you tell
me but it's not just that there are many factors pushing escalation here welcome to my barely credible defense briefing on Israeli proxies very often we hear about Iran proxies in the media but something we don't hear about as much is Israel's attempt to support proxies or dissent against Iran the people's madin of Iran is a group that is rebelling against the Iranian government inside their territory and as early as 2012 NBC News ran a story that quoted two unnamed of us officials that this organization was in part financed trained and armed by Israel that group
of course denies it there are some other reports that claim Israel in the United States have provided some level of support to Kurdish separatist groups inside Iran and particularly I'm talking about the Kurdistan free life party or the PGA there group fighting for Kurdish autonomy inside Iran Israel does not have the same ability to set up a large proxy group inside Iran largely because of cultural differences diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way Israel has had a relationship with aiding the separatist Kurds inside Iraq since the 1960s allying with Kurdish forces
would be in line with Israel's periphery Doctrine most recently though Reuters actually reported that Iran had attacked a Kurdish base inside Iraq where they said they destroyed and hit an Israeli intelligence headquarters located in Iraq on their border here's the direct quote from the the Iranian revolutionary guard quote in response to the recent atrocities of the Zionist regime causing the killing of commanders of the guards in the axis of resistance one of the main mad Espionage headquarters in Iraq Kurdistan was destroyed with ballistic missiles end quote while direct Israeli involvement has not been confirmed as
far as I can tell analysts have widely speculated that Israel and the United States has provided training and intelligence to the Kurdish separatists as part of its broader strategy to counter Iran's influence in the region we know for example that Israel has conducted other covert operations against Iran in this Shadow War including the 2010 computer virus that affected their nuclear program and several prominent assassinations of Iranian scientists by this point the alliances in the region looked like they'd all been flipped upside down on their heads since the end of the World War II in June
2017 former Israeli defense minister said quote we and the Arabs the same Arab who organized in a Coalition in the six- day war to try to destroy the Jewish state today find themselves in the same boat with us the Sunni Arab countries apart from Qatar are largely in the same boat with us since we all see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat against all of us end quote from the Israeli defense minister but where this really starts to concern me and others is when we get into how it's spilling over into the wider
cold war in the Middle East tensions between Israel and Iran have become so high at points that is spilled over into other countries conflicts a major turning point in the Israeli Iran proxy war I think was the Syrian Civil War starting in 2011 we observed both Israel and Iran found a way to bring their battle there where there is and a fighter aircraft there is a way this is because Syria is an important Transit country for Iran to get weapons and Aid to their proxies while with the near collapse of the Syrian government though there
was initially a power vacuum and lawlessness instability that allowed Iran to grow more influence near Israel Israel used just an Unholy amount of air strikes to limit this influence seriously between 2011 and today the proxy war between Israel and Iran got a whole lot worse after this Syrian Civil War it went from Little tit for tats to who let the dogs out when the October 7 attacks by Hamas were carried out if you weren't paying close attention it might look like it was relatively speaking pretty peaceful between Iran and Israel but in reality the battle
had been growing worse for years there are many different explanations for why direct fire between the two Nations has broken out one is that Israel's attempt to form a kind of alliance with Saudi Arabia was seen as a threat by Iran Iran has clear motivations for derailing Israeli Arab normalization because they don't want a coalition United by their shared opposition to Iran in this view of the world Iran knowingly supported the October 7th attacks against Israel in order to prevent that deal from being struck the battle has evolved now to Iran openly firing ballistic missiles
on Israel and Israel carrying out attacks inside Iran tensions between Israel and Iran have existed for decades but those tensions have only recently escalated right up that escalator proxy wars between the two development of nuclear weapons differences in ideology and a competition in a broader influence war that has been evolving since at least the end of World War II is now pushing us all to the brink again there are many important factors and parts of this story that I undoubtedly was unable to fully cover but this was my attempt to try to understand the different
perspectives in this region thank you for watching spare parts Army I'm your average infantryman Chris Cappy check out one of these related videos if you have a chance and I'll see you again soon
