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Khomeini's Iran: Israel's Ally
"How can we tolerate the disgrace of having our Islamic country turned into a base for Israel and Zionism?...Israel wants to take our economy in its clutches. Israel wants to destroy our trade and agriculture. Israel wants to destroy that which stands between them and domination. This buffer is formed by the ulama who have to be broken...In this way Israel gets what it wants, and in this way the government of Iran threatens us with contempt to achieve its base wishes."
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Qum, June 1963
After the Shiite fundamentalist movement led by Ayatollah Khomeini seized political power in Iran, many observers predicted the end of the close political-military relationship between the shah's Iran and Israel, and the beginning of a realignment of Iran toward nationalist Arab states and movements including the Palestine Liberation Organization. Within two years, however, both predictions proved wrong.
Soon after the overthrow of the shah, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat went to Tehran, where Khomeini and a group of Iranian religious and secular leaders expressed their support for the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel. The newly established Islamic regime closed down the Israeli Embassy there and offered the building to the PLO as its new office in Tehran. After the American Embassy was seized by a mob, Yasser Arafat journeyed again to Tehran to plead for the release of the US staff. Had Khomeini allowed the PLO leader to conduct the Americans safely out of Iran, it could have reversed years of negative imagery of the Palestinians in the United States. Khomeini, however, had plans of his own to hold the Americans for arms if possible, and for the release of Iranian funds frozen in US banks.
After their spectacular beginning, relations between the Khomeini regime and the PLO quickly deteriorated. Iranian officials made clear that documents recovered from the Israeli Embassy would not be handed over to the PLO along with the building. The Iranians said the documents belonged to the state of Iran and could not be turned over to a foreign government or organization. (Iranian opposition newspapers claimed, however, that the documents revealed that influential members of the Iranian clergy had received regular payments from the shah's secret police.)...