By Dr. Davood Moradian 

Within the span of a few weeks this spring, three moments of profound spiritual meaning unfold across the Jewish and Persian worlds. Jewish communities celebrate Purim, commemorating the survival of Jews in ancient Persia. Shiite Muslims observe Laylat al-Qadr (Shab-e Qadr), the holiest night of Ramadan. And on March 20, millions across Iran, Afghanistan, and the wider Persian cultural sphere welcome Nowruz—the Persian New Year, a festival of renewal older than Islam itself.

This year, however, the season of renewal arrives beneath the shadow of missiles and war.

For Jews and Persians alike, these holidays are more than cultural rituals. They are repositories of civilizational memory—stories of survival, persecution, and rebirth that continue to shape political psychology and national identity. To understand the current confrontation between Israel and Iran, one must look beyond military developments and examine the deeper historical narratives that transformed centuries of coexistence into one of the most consequential rivalries in the modern Middle East.

A Shared Past Before the Conflict

For centuries, Jewish communities were an integral part of the Persian world. Cities such as Isfahan and Herat hosted vibrant Jewish populations, and Iran still contains one of the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the Middle East.

This long history makes the present hostility strikingly recent. Jewish Iranians were not only a religious minority but also participants in the country’s modernization. During the twentieth century—particularly before the 1979 revolution—cooperation between Iran and Israel quietly contributed to Iran’s development. Israeli engineers, technical experts, and Iranian Jewish professionals played roles in infrastructure projects that symbolized the Shah’s modernization drive. Tehran’s urban sewage system and the Iranian navy’s large residential infrastructure overlooking the Strait of Hormuz are among the projects often cited as products of this flourishing relationship.

The rupture came after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when the Islamic Republic transformed opposition to Israel into a central element of its revolutionary identity. In Israel, Iran gradually replaced earlier regional adversaries as the country’s primary strategic concern. During the long premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu, confronting Iran has become a central pillar of Israeli national security strategy. Yet even in the early years after the revolution, geopolitical realities complicated ideological hostility.

Moments of Strategic Convergence

During the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, Iran and Israel unexpectedly found themselves confronting a common enemy: the regime of Saddam Hussein. In that period, Israel quietly supplied weapons to Iran. Among those reportedly involved in facilitating these shipments was Ahmad Vahidi, today the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).   Even decades later, small symbolic moments revealed the persistence of historical connections. Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami once briefly met Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The encounter carried an unusual coincidence: both men were born in the Iranian city of Yazd.  Such episodes highlight a paradox of Middle Eastern geopolitics: even adversaries may share overlapping histories and interests.

The Rise of Rival Strategic Doctrines

Over time, however, the relationship evolved into a structured strategic confrontation. Iran constructed what many analysts describe as a “ring of fire”—a network of allied movements and pressure points surrounding Israel across multiple fronts. Israel responded with its own strategic metaphor: the “Iranian octopus.” In this framework, Tehran is seen as the central head directing tentacles across the region, and Israeli strategy seeks to weaken the center rather than merely confronting individual proxies.  These competing doctrines transformed the Iran–Israel rivalry into a regional security contest stretching across the Middle East and beyond.

War and Public Opinion

The current conflict reveals striking political dynamics inside both societies.  In Israel, the war enjoys an unusually high level of public support. A survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found that roughly 93 percent of Jewish Israelis support the military campaign against Iran.  Inside Iran, however, public sentiment toward the regime’s regional strategy appears far more divided. Many Iranians increasingly question the economic and political costs of confrontation abroad. The protest slogan “No Gaza, No Lebanon, my life for Iran” has become a powerful symbol of dissatisfaction with foreign entanglements. This divergence highlights an important reality: the conflict is not simply between two peoples but between competing political narratives.

Historical Trauma and Displacement

Behind the geopolitics lie deeper historical wounds. For Israelis, the memory of the Holocaust remains central to national identity. The systematic murder of six million Jews during World War II embedded within Israeli political culture a powerful lesson about existential threats and the necessity of vigilance.

The Holocaust also reshaped the demography of the broader Middle East. In the decades that followed, Jewish communities that had lived for centuries across countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, and Syria faced persecution, insecurity, and in many cases mass expulsions. The Taliban were the latest ruling group that forced the last Jew of Afghanistan to flee the country in 2021. One of the defining tragedies of the twentieth century across the region stretching from the Indian Subcontinent to West Asia was the massive and often forced displacement of indigenous communities from their ancestral homelands.

At the same time, Iran carries its own historical anxieties. Persian political consciousness has long been shaped by memories of lost empire and foreign intervention. The 1953 Iranian coup d’état reinforced a narrative of humiliation and external manipulation that continues to influence Iranian perceptions of international politics. When these traumas remain unrecognized by the other side, they reinforce ideological hostility.

A Conflict With Regional Consequences

The Iran–Israel confrontation has never been confined to the two states alone. It has evolved into a regional phenomenon stretching from Afghanistan to Yemen. One troubling consequence emerged during the recent twelve-day war. Rumors circulated inside Iran accusing Afghan refugees of acting as Israeli agents, triggering a nationwide backlash. Iranian authorities subsequently expelled hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees as part of a campaign affecting more than one million Afghans—one of the largest refugee expulsions in modern history.  The episode illustrates how geopolitical conflict can generate humanitarian consequences far beyond the battlefield.

Cultural Bridges That Endure

Despite political hostility, cultural connections between Jews and Persians have not disappeared. Large communities of Iranian Jews live today in Israel and across the diaspora. For many of them, known locally as Parsim ,Iran is not simply a distant historical memory but a lived cultural experience. Persian language, cuisine, music, and traditions continue to flourish within Israeli society, preserving a heritage that links the two civilizations. These communities remain an enduring bridge between societies whose political relationship has become deeply adversarial.

A Complex Contemporary Iran

Modern Iran itself defies simple black-and-white interpretations. The Islamic Republic seeks to position itself as the world’s leading Shiite power, yet its internal religious policies reveal striking contradictions. Sunni Muslims—despite representing one of the largest branches of Islam—are not permitted to build a mosque in Tehran. At the same time, the state officially recognizes the Jewish community and allows the operation of thirteen synagogues in the capital, along with a Jewish hospital, cemetery, schools, a Parliamentarian and community centers. Such realities illustrate the layered and sometimes paradoxical character of contemporary Iran.

The Role of Civil Society

Even if governments remain locked in confrontation, dialogue can begin elsewhere. Israeli civil society—academics, journalists, cultural figures, and intellectuals—can play an important role in opening channels of communication with Iranian counterparts. Historically, cultural and intellectual exchanges have often preceded political reconciliation.

It is also important to recognize that the predominantly anti-regime Iranian diaspora in Western countries does not represent the full spectrum of Iran’s political and social perspectives. Meaningful engagement requires listening to a broader range of Iranian voices.

A Choice Beyond War

The tragedies of the twentieth century created not only wars between states but conflicts between memories. As Purim, Shab-e Qadr, and Nowruz converge in a season overshadowed by war, both societies face a profound choice. They can continue to interpret history as destiny, or they can begin the slow and difficult work of recognizing each other’s fears and aspirations.  The estrangement between Israel and Iran is historically recent. Whether it becomes permanent—or eventually gives way to reconciliation—will depend not only on governments but on the choices of the societies themselves.

For history shows that even the deepest political conflicts can change—but only when former enemies remember that their past was not always defined by war.
 

This article was originally published in The Blogs on March 20, 2026.

Dr. Davood Moradian is the Director-General of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies and a Former Senior Policy Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He tweets @DrMoradian1.

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