Evolution of the Iran-Israel relations in the context of the Syria crisis

The article analyses the evolution of different aspects of the Iran-Israeli relations in the context of the Syrian crisis. Main stages in development of the Iran-Israeli contacts are shown and their specifics are analyzed retrospectively. Key internal and external factors of influence on the nature of bilateral relations are examined. The author concludes that it is regional and broader international politics in the Middle East that primarily determined the nature of the Iran-Israel relations rather than religious, ethnic, and cultural differences between the two nations. Perceptions of external threats and defense of national sovereignty and territorial integrity played a critical role in bilateral relations. During the first three decades (from the late 1940s until the late 1970s), contacts between Tel-Aviv and Tehran were amicable. However, the dominant Arab environment, in which the relations between Iran and Israel evolved, in many ways predetermined their slide to confrontation, especially after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran. In the following decades, hostility in bilateral relation intensified, but remained geographically confined to the Levant. The Syria crisis reactivated the conflict potential in the Middle East and led to escalation of the Iran-Israel confrontation. In 2021–2022, it acquired new forms and expanded to other parts of the Middle East and South Caucasus. In the first months of 2023, the armed conflict between Iran and Israel entered a critical phase and brought the Middle East to the brink of a new “Big War”. However, steps taken in the Spring of 2023 by leading regional and international powers gave a positive impulse to international developments in the Middle East that might reduce the degree of tension in the Iran-Israel relations.