Good afternoon. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the first meeting of our, uh, uh, new term term. Um, if you may recall, earlier this year we had a lecture on Iran in Israel, and the promise was that we also will cover the third and side of the triangle of the Iranian Palestinian relationship. And today we are, uh, happily introducing I'm happy. I'm very happy and delighted to introduce the speakers.
Dr. Sayed Ali Allawi, who wrote the book, which is now projected Iran and Palestine Past, Present and Future. Um Ali is a teaching fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at US University of London. He was he holds his Ph.D. from Suez. The book at Hand, which is also the title of The Talk Today, was published by Routledge in last year.
Ali, it's important to note also write in comments about contemporary politics in the Middle East and Europe in various media outlets, and you could easily run into him when you watch the Global News. Ali, thank you for coming. Thank you very much for having me. Well, thank you, Professor Jaco. And it's a privilege to be here in Oxford about the topic is Iran and Palestine is a topic, but why did I write this book?
And why we are teaching it now is because there was nothing written in English or Arabic or Hebrew or Farsi. And the concept of Iran and Palestine, the Palestinian concept always lies within the and within the Arab Israeli conflict. And since 1979, we hear a lot of news about Iran and Palestinians and Israel. Why is the reason a Persian Shia state majority supports Palestinians, Arab and Sunni and Iran and Israel don't have even border. They don't share border and historically good relations.
So the two the topic of discussion here is not about Iran. Israel, because other colleagues actually covered it. Professor Jacobo also kindly mentioned, but is mainly immediately looking to the history of Iran's relations with with Palestine. We start that started with a. So what we do and what we want to underscore is. Okay. It's not showing the other side. That's what I'm trying to do. Let's try again. So it starts. Okay. It goes back. Before we talk about Iran and Palestine.
One thing is important in Iran and Israel sees the creation of state of Israel had cordial relations between the of his government and Israel regardless to mention that Iran is the only country still in the Middle East that actually house and the country and the homeland for thousands of Jewish communities as we speak. So but the relations between Iranians and Palestinian cause started from the very beginning, and it goes to two camps. One of them is Iranian left. Am I talk about this?
And then we go to the Iranian Islamists. Iranian leftists in 1960s and seventies categorised with Iranian Fattah's M.k.o Mujahideen to their party Group of Palestine and National Front, 1960s and seventies. It was the era of guerrilla movements in the in the developing countries is not only in Iran.
So we had it in Cuba, Algeria and Latin America and more importantly, in Palestine, in the Palestinian territories, and under the leadership of PLO here, Palestinian liberation organisations, the Iranian leftist anti Shah oppositions were quite motivated by the concept of federalism against imperialism. It was in 1960s the East established good relations with with the Palestinians.
It was the concept of Palestine for the first time started to go into the leaflets of the Iranian leftist movements as if they see it as they are fighting together in the same frontline, having the Shah of Shah's government good relations with Israel and United States.
The leftist movements believed that there is a frontline and in one side is the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Iranian leftists, and the other side is the Shah's government and Israel and the United States, which they labelled as imperialism. The history of it. In Chapter one, I discuss it in depth. For example, when for the first time in 1967, two prominent members of Fatah is nicknamed I mean, they were Ashtiani and Safa Farahani, they nicknamed as Abu Abbas.
And Abu Masood escaped to Iraq through the borders. They were arrested by the Iraqi government at that time, tortured for a month, but they managed to contact PLO, their comrades, and the PLO came to save them. And then they take them to to to Syria and to train them. It was also are the guys that call Iraq slippery that he was nicknamed Abu Saeed al Irani. And he also joined PLO. He crossed the border from Iran, went to Iraq, and actually he crossed the Iraqi border.
And they are night just hiding during the days and going there the nights, go to Syria and join the PLO camps. And he was trained and actually he was fighting in Golan Heights with the Palestinians and killed the Mujahideen, which now you may hear them as the opposition today to the Islamic Republic. Also, they created a contact with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, PLO in 1970 in Dubai when they tried to reach the PLO office.
And the high point, the high point was 1970 when some of the members of MK Mujahideen hijacked a plane from Dubai, planes supposed to deport them back to Iran, but they hijacked it and the plane landed in Baghdad. They contact the PLO. PLO picked them up and then training and connections between PLO and Mujahideen or the People's Mujahideen Party. Many of those people were trained by PLO.
Later on, if you are interested in Iranian politics, they were killed during the so-called forest movement in 1971 and. And later on by the Shah's government. In other words, the Shah's government also put it in the newspapers in Iran and call them the agents of PLO, the agents of Arab imperialism against the Persian Empire and against the newly born state of Israel.
So it was the propaganda discussion and [INAUDIBLE] for tat between the Iranian leftists, which they put themselves as the freedom fighters supporting anti-Zionism anti-imperialist movements and the Shah's government on the other side call them the agents of Yasser Arafat. Agents of Jamal Abdel-nasser. Agents of Arab nationalism on the other side. And. So. I hope I can move that. So this continuation of the relations between two sides. Also, what is the lesser? Cause it does it down and up.
Every one of you. You need to press. Which was Jeremy Lee. The liberation. The National Liberation. Which was not part of the leftist as such. But also they created a newsletter. I will show you later on called The Battalion Rules Today's East. And they were actually printed by the Palestinian PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command in Lebanon in 1971, projecting the concept of Palestine and then smuggling it and then bringing it back to Iran.
All these leaflets. There was another group in 1970 called the Group of Palestine, and the Group of Palestine was a very small group in Iran, and they were they were very keen on supporting the Palestinians. The leader publish when he was arrested, when he wanted to cross the border to Iraq to join the PLO in 1970, and he was in jail to 1979 and after revolution in Islamic Republic. Later on he was executed by the Israeli government because of his anti Khomeini also tendencies.
The other one, before we get back to the concept of a post Islamic republic is see I as a new confederation of Iranian Students National Union Abroad. These are the group of students in the United Kingdom and the United States that actually created a group connected with the Palestinian students.
And one of the interesting thing is connection was made in 1969 and it was one case study was quite interesting that in March 1972, when the Palestinian students were arrested, they wanted to be arrested, sorry. And they ran away to the to the embassy of the Arab League in Munich, 1972. And the German police were waiting outside to deport them.
Iranian members of this Confederation of Iranian Student Union clandestinely entered the embassy, changed their clothes, and the Palestinians could come out and they they stayed in. When the German police was waiting for them, they came out that they were not Palestinian. So that kind of connections that the Iranian leftists had with PLO, it had at least 20 years of history before the Iranian revolution. Between all these parties, Islamists.
Before we get back to this, I explain this Islam is not coming back to even older. Connections are more historical than Iranian leftist. It goes back to 1948 with Ayatollah Kashani, a prominent Shia cleric in 1948, declared a fatwa and condemned the creation of state of Israel, condemned the Shah's government, and also declared that all the Iranian Shia muslims should support the Palestinians.
It was another organisation called Islamic Father is now Verbal Safari, which he actually created the group for the Palestinians travelled to Jerusalem and he travelled to Egypt, connected with the Muslim Brotherhood and he was collecting donations to support the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat in 1979 when he came to Iran.
I will get back to that point. He mentioned he was a student in Egypt when he met Never Sahrawi and Never Safavi actually motivated him to create the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. The others, if you are into Iranian politics, such as Ayatollah Muntari was also from the 1960s very active in supporting the Palestinian cause and having a proper donations. It's many times arrested and these are all coming from a book.
He actually delves into the Today documents from the SAVAK during the during the Shah about the connections between the Iranian clerics. One of the also elements within it was Ali Sharia and he Sharia t an Islamic thinker, but not a cleric. And he created a line in his speech and his writings between Zionism, imperialism, colonialism, and he denounced it, actually seeing it as anti-Jewish, anti Semitic from his point of view, the state of Israel and also anti suppressed.
So from Ali Sharia to his point of view, Israel meant the state of Zionism and also goes in the. Line of imperialism. The other person was General Allen at the West Ification. It was writing against the West ification or westernisation of Iran. And he used to be Marxist Communist, but joined with the Islamic oriented thinkers. He also created a line between that actually put the Israel in the line with imperialism.
All these elements. But they didn't have actually coordinated work with the Iranian leftists separately.
From the Islamic point of view, they did see Palestine as Islamic cause, which because of the Jerusalem and because of the Al-Aqsa mosque and also because of the concept of Israel against the Palestinian Muslims from the Israeli left east was not religious, but it was more about the concept of liberation and about fighting against United States imperialism and Zionism and all these utopian notions that they put it in their own concept of of manifestos.
But only as we know. So I don't want to make me sick again. So those organisations, we keep it as is the next one. Okay, so the revolution happened. The Islamists, Ayatollah Khomeini actually started supporting the Palestinian cause and be very vocal against Israel in 1960, 1962, 1963, when he talked about Palestine and Israel.
And according to Professor Hamid Dabashi, Khomeini was more actually talking about Palestine and Israel in 1960 than talking about Iran or talking about the Iranian notion of Iran. It was not actually the beginning talking against the removal of the Shah. He was mainly critical about the connections that the Shah had with us and with Israel. So the revolution was successful. The Shah's government was removed and revolutionaries came to power.
And of course, in the beginning it was not merely Islamic. So it was a connection because it was a kind of a coalition of all the forces I mentioned. But what did it mean for the Palestinians? 24 hours after the revolution, the first person to enter Iran was Yasser Arafat. Yasser Arafat that I see. You can see this is the 24 hour, 24 hours after the Iranian revolution, he came to Tehran, the Ayatollah Talabani. And the story of how he came to Iran is also interesting.
In chapter two, I explained that his plane was nearly getting shot down because the Iranian air force is to know that he's on the plane. But he insisted when he went there, he was actually showing off his Arabic scarf, which is a Palestinian, trying to show it to the Iranian fighter jets. This is according to his memoir, also out of a memoir that this is out on the plane. So he managed to land in Tehran and he was received as a hero.
He met with all the revolutionaries, including Ayatollah Talabani. You can see gave him a Kalashnikov as a gift. And also Khomeini, we can't see others slides because there are a lot of interesting slides that I will I will show about your work if it comes from the Palestinian leftist Marxists, about Iran time and a lot of the scene as well. Iran, which in Arabic means there, there the greeting to the Iranian revolutionaries. That was actually before the Iranian revolution by the Marxists.
This is Arafat when he arrived in Iran, is visiting Nasser Rajavi from the NGO. And then you can see all the guy in the lobby, philistine. So he says, we are still seeing ourselves Rajavi as the students of the revolutionary PLO. I want I want to make a mistake again. I'm very cautious. This is a yes. This is the newspaper that actually was published in 1970, 71 by the and they explains about Petrusma that Glover fell asleep in 97. Actually, that's my victory to the Palestinian revolution.
This is well before the revolution down. But also these are these are this argument that is before the revolution. I want to show you this is a again, the same newspaper in 1970. This is Philistine, a photo newspaper fired by PLO, the 90 also 71 that in Arabic explains about it, talks about connections with the Iranian revolutionaries. And this one is about the Marxist Iranians. But he put it in his in his.
Memoir about his connections with Palestine. These two photos that I tried to put it as a cover of the book by the publisher said no for some reason. Anyway, maybe other things. I don't know. Is it because of the kissing or because of what? But the point is, this is the first day that Arafat arrived in Tehran. I visited Khomeini, and Khomeini received him as as a hero. He was actually received by all the Iranian revolutionaries, Islamists and leftists as a hero.
And he was the first person to arrive. Rafsanjani with with with Arafat and also with the temporary government of Iran by position. It was it was a kind of a nationwide carnival of Arafat when he came to Iran, because, as I said, the connections between the Palestinians and Iranian revolutionaries has decades of history. Before the Iranian revolution, it was not something that does come up. So it was a kind of a connection re union with the Iranian anti-Shia forces.
Symbolically, Arafat was given the key of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran. By. By these guys. By. Sorry, I'm just looking at that side because I can't see it here. So the diplomatic mission of the Israeli government, not the embassy, the diplomatic mission was given to to the to Arafat, according to Arafat.
It was the first piece of I'm just quoting Piece of Palestine was given was taken away from Israel, given to the Palestinians, not by the Arab national is not by Jamal Abdel Nasser, not by Hafez al Assad, but by Iranian revolutionaries. So if you travel to Tehran, you see the same building still is the Palestinian embassy and controlled by the PLO, not by Hamas, and not by risk.
So it was a very symbolic and emotional gesture that they attended and also with the Iranian Communist Party to their party, Mujahideen father is and also Khomeini son to give giving the key of the Israeli diplomatic mission, remove the Israeli flag and put the Palestinian flag. Khomeini also declared the day of Jerusalem, the last day of the Friday of Ramadan, as as the as a ruse of the goods which he tried to islamise the concept of the Palestinian conflict.
This is very important, because since then, 1948, 70, 67, 56, 73 conflict all was about Israeli-Arab conflict. What Khamenei was trying to do was bring it out of the concept of Arab ized conflict and make it Islamised Islamization of the Palestinian conflict goes beyond the Arab countries, but to change again. So I shouldn't touch it when I suggested, if you want to read, oh, I don't need it. I'll just go through it here and you can click and scroll down and select and then you just need.
But the relations between Iran and Arafat, the honeymoon was very short lived. Yes. How many tried to islamise it? Ayatollah Khomeini tried to move it out from the concept of pan-Arabism to pan Islamism. The Israeli romantic mission was given to to the Palestinian liberation movement. But there was something else that actually made this honeymoon to be short lived. Two episodes of the hostage crisis in Iran and the Iran-Iraq War when the American Embassy was stoned by the students.
Uh, at that point, Yasser Arafat immediately and travelled to Iran and tried to mediate and he contacted the American and diplomatic missions through Arab mediators and tried to mediate between Khomeini's student followers, followers and Americans. When he travelled to Iran, he was he didn't go very well. He didn't go down very well because from the Iranian revolutionaries point of view, American embassy meant imperialism and PLO meant the fight against imperialism.
And now the leader of PLO is coming to mediate between the revolutionaries and imperialists. From their point of view, what happened is they didn't go down well and Arafat later on backed away. And and he said that actually he didn't come to Iran to mediate. But in 1986, in another interview, Yasser Arafat admitted that actually went there for mediation. So before we get back to this, Iran Iraq war was another episode when Saddam Hussein in 1980 invaded Iran,
and it was an opportunity for Saddam Hussein. Iran was challenging Saddam's Arab nationalism versus Islamic revolutionaries. But a lot of other elements we're not going to go there now. But it's about Saddam. Seize the opportunity to fight against Iran. Arab nationalism, barbarism against the Iranian, Persian, Shia Islamic. So whatever was was the element of Saddam attacked Iran. For Yasser Arafat, it was it was a it was a dark day, according to his memoir.
And for him, Iran and the Baathist Arab nationalist Iraq, fighting against each other meant the front line against Israel will be weakened. So Yasser Arafat again immediately travelled to Iran and travelled to Baghdad and tried to mediate between Iran and Iraq. Iranian revolutionaries demanded him directly that he needs to denounce Saddam Hussein and needs to stand with Iran against Saddam Hussein.
They expected him to do so because they had this kind of perception of anti-imperialism, and they did see Saddam as part of that campaign. And. But Yasser Arafat was in the corner. Needs to decide either to be with Iran or to be with his own Arab brothers, which is actually because PLO is a secular Arab nationalist movement. Inevitably, siding with Iran would be a kind of a political suicide because Yasser Arafat needed Iraq more than needed Iran.
And because of the negotiations and coming and going at least he travelled to Iran back and forth to Iraq 12 times, tried to negotiate, and at the end, actually, Ayatollah Khomeini refused to see him. And one of the meetings, Yasser Arafat returned to Iraq, as we can see, hugging Saddam Hussein. And he denounced Iran. And the relations between Iran and PLO actually went down. So it was the end of the honeymoon between Iranian revolutionaries and Yasser Arafat.
And Yasser Arafat directly supported Saddam. But what did it mean for the concept of Palestine? Did Iranian Islamic Republic changes relations and be cordial with Israel and change its policies? No, it didn't happen because for them the Israeli government is ideologue and the ideology of anti-Zionism anti-imperialism and against anti-Israel is embedded in the dictionary of this government in Iran.
As I mentioned, because of the history that I gave you for three or four decades before the Iranian revolutionaries. This is a part of the concept of the pan Islamism of the regime. So these continued the cold relations with the Palestinians until Iran-Iraq war ended. Ayatollah Khomeini passed away. And we have a new concept in Palestinian territories, the emergence of the Islamic movements in Palestinian within Palestinians. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is the first one. And Hamas.
So Dr. Fathi Shikaki was a marxist communist Palestinian who was living in Egypt in exile, studying medicine. But he was amazed by the concept of Iranian revolutionary can could remove the Shah's government. And also disillusioned with the pan-Arabism failure in 1967. He did write a book in the late 1979 about Khomeini, and he praised the revolution. And he changed the idea of of him of his political ideologies.
And he established something called Palestinian Islamic Jihad with a group, a small group of Marxist communist Palestinians. Intifada, first Palestinian intifada was done in 1987, when some groups of Palestine Islamic Jihad were arrested by the Israeli government, the Israeli army and few of them were actually killed when they wanted it. They tried to run away and created a kind of anger, triggered a kind of demonstrations in Israel, Palestine.
And in other words, the intifada triggered and was actually was the moment in the Palestinian conflict. And PLO was surprised because mainly the conflict was triggered by not necessarily the followers of Yasser Arafat. So what does it mean the creation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad and Islamization of Palestinian movement? The other impact was the creation of Hamas. Hamas existed in Palestine, Israel as Muslim Brotherhood, as a Palestinian branch of Muslim Brotherhood.
And in fact, in the beginning, it didn't have a conflict with Israel. And it was the movement that created social services in Gaza for the for the ghettoised communities. But under the pressure by its younger members and see the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is actually coming up with the concept of fighting against Israel. The pressure from the younger generation galvanised the Palestinian Muslim Muslim Brotherhood to create a new force called Hamas Halacha movement,
Islamic and Philistine. And then, of course, they participated in intifada immediately when they realised is actually active. So it was it it was a moment of the of the of the entrance, the gate of Islamization, of the Palestinian cause. It started Hamas policy, Islamic Jihad. But policies of Egypt, as I said, was more emotionally connected during the revolution that Hamas Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
So this continued and many of the leaders of Hamas, a policy, were arrested later on and sent to exile by the Israeli government to south Lebanon. That was the point in 1989 and 1990 that Patricia Gangi and the Hamas leaders contacted the Iranian authorities in south Lebanon and Hezbollah. So it was the moment, in fact, sending them into south Lebanon, allow them to have direct connection with the Iranian government and with Hezbollah.
And, of course, to to create that kind of organic connections for Iran. When they did see PLO sided with Saddam's regime and turning his back on Iran, but they insisted of supporting the Palestinians seem to Palestinian Islamic movements was actually a kind of a new wedding day. It was a time that they found their own organic allies. So, in fact, they tried to sideline a marginalised PLO at the same time to pressurise Israel. So the connection was cemented. These photos are all selected.
Not because these guys are good looking or not is because, for example, we can see Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad separately meeting with the Iranian leader. The concept of Palestine Israel in 1990 between 1980s coincided with Madrid and Oslo treaty between PLO and Israel. PLO recognised the state of Israel and in other words, PLO is out of the frontline and is not actually standing directly against Israel and and and recognise Israel.
So for the Iranian government, that meant that they need to also create a counterbalance to that element, which was Tehran Conference was the first conference 24 hours after the Madrid conference inviting Palestine Islamic Jihad, inviting Hamas and inviting Marxist Palestinian PFLP all together with Hezbollah.
And they and they created so-called axis of resistance, the resistance of those who are going to factions and the forces of Palestinians that do not recognise Israel and they do not necessarily accept the legitimacy of state of Israel. So this continued and they became actually important allies.
One of the reason why Iran is so keen Iranian government on the Hamas and policies damage are beside the concept of Palestinian cause is the element of try to be the leader of the Islamic Uma and in order to do so supporting in Palestine opens the gate of Palestine as a one of the most important causes for the Arab and the Sunni world. So, in other words, introducing Iran as not a sectarian system but is supporting even non-secular is a Sunni Arab cause of Palestine.
In other words, opens the gate for expansion of hegemony and influence in the region. So in other words, the cause of Palestine, Hamas, the Palestinian jihad opened ideological gate, political and political gates, hegemony, expansion of influence. At the same time, it serves its ideological, ideological outlook. He has continued to support for Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad until the concept of Iran and Arab Spring. Syria. The honeymoon between all these organisations I mention to you.
Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestine, Islamic Jihad and the bridge between them and the platform. Assad's, Syria. Because all the organisation mentioned they have HQ in Damascus and in other words the connection between between them and Iran was facilitated by, by, by Assad's regime. Therefore they call it axis of resistance within all these states.
After the demise of Saddam Hussein and having a Shia dominated government in Baghdad actually cemented that kind of a connection between Iran, Palestine, Islamic movement, Hamas and and also Hezbollah and Syria. But the concept of uprising in Syria in 2011, it was a big momentum for Iran and it was a litmus test. Iran, of course, could not see the country that facilitated that support with the Israeli and with the Palestinian and Israeli.
And in states that supported Iran, the Iran-Iraq war was the only country in the world that supported Iran to fall. So they supported Assad. But here, Hamas, as I mentioned, because of it, has its own Muslim Brotherhood roots, supported anti-Assad forces. In other words, it was a hiccup in relations between them. Reminded many Iranians PLO when supported Saddam and that time Hamas is supporting anti Assad forces. Interestingly, policy Islamic Jihad supported Iran and Hezbollah against Assad.
But what did it mean for Iran to Qatar relations with Hamas to downgrade it or to or to how to see it? It didn't change its relations to Palestine. Again, another litmus test. PLO It didn't change the relations within the concept of Israeli-Palestinian conflict by changing Iran's relation. PLO But with Hamas. Iran tried not to criticise Hamas but emphasised on the concept of axis of resistance and support for the Palestinians.
This continued until 2000 and but there were two wars during that time. Gaza war, Israeli conflict with Gaza in 2012 inches of water and again was a litmus test for Iran. It was a mobilisation. Iranian media support for four, four, four, Hamas support for Gaza. And Ismail Haniyeh was invited to Iran. Again, regardless, Hamas behaviour towards Syria. Iran tried not to allow that to change the relations between two sides. And Hamas, of course, is not a homogenous party.
It has different factions within it. So the only thing Iran did was downgraded relations with Khalid Mashaal, but continued relations with the military wings of of Hamas under the name of axis of resistance.
In other words, what brings Israel, Iran and Syria, a secular pan-Arab Baathist regime of Assad and Islamic Republic of Iran would be the concept of fighting against state of Israel rather than having a connection, ideological connection, as a platform between Iran and the Palestinian movement and Hezbollah. Therefore, Iran tried to implement to to amplify the reason to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese that these are the reasons for supporting Assad.
But how about within the concept of Iran, within the concept of Islamic Republic? When I say Iran, I'm talking about the Islamic Republic. We have reformers and we have conservatives. They have a lot of differences in concept of international relations, in concept of the use of language. But these two photos are selected. This is Javad Zarif, 1976, before the revolution in the United States behind him.
Long live Palestine. Javad Zarif is actually calling himself a reformer and fighting is a conservative orthodox in the Iranian government. Down there is Khatami and Yasser Arafat. The relations of Iranian reformers and the Palestinian mobilisations. Mobilising, mobilising forces are as deep and historic as those Iranian conservatives. They do have unwritten consciences when it comes to Israel and Palestine.
They do have a lot of disagreements when it comes to the internal politics, dealing with the JCPOA, dealing with the United Kingdom, Europe, so on and so forth. But when it comes to Israel and Palestine, they do not have much differences. They only use different language of all caps. But maybe Ahmadinejad uses a harsher vocab. But both they have these connections with the Palestinian cause, as you can see.
So therefore, for the Iranian revolutionaries, whomever subscribed in himself or herself to the Islamic Republic, the concept of Palestine is not about the land for them is not about Israel versus Arabs, Israel versus Palestinians. They see this as a concept, as a concept, a Palestinian cause. This is a cause rather than to be a political concept per se. So as I come back again to the importance of Palestine, this is the end of my discussion.
How they try to utilise it is Palestinian cause serves Iranian national interests. Iranian Islamic Republic's national interest allows Iran to have connections with the Islamic world, allows Iran to open the gates to the Sunni world, allows Iran to to counterbalance the propaganda that they have in the Arab countries against Persians or against Iran or against Shias. Over is that and as we can see the photos this Afghanistan and Iraq and the rest.
In other words, allows Iran to to exercise its its home in Germany and it sees itself as a legitimate leader of the Islamic Ummah because of the the history that I gave you now and also is is also a competition with Saudi Arabia, because it doesn't see Saudi Arabia as a country, for example, to stand for the Palestinian cause. So therefore tries to emphasise on it. Yes. Is 40 years is gone from the revolution, 70 years from the Israel-Palestine conflict even more.
But for them is not going to get expired because is the part of the DNA of this state. How will other communities in Iran, as I mentioned, Iranian Jewish communities, what the Iranian state tried to do during those years is to not to alienate the Iranian Jewish community at the same time. So they see this as as you can see, the rabbis and that this is the Iranian Jewish community in Farsi says we condemn inhuman behaviour of the Zionist government.
And also this is the ceremony of the of the Jewish martyrs and the speaker of the parliament with the with the chief rabbis and all the rest of it. In other words, they tried to create an umbrella that brings all the Iranians in the concept of fighting, the concept of Zionism. So in their dictionary and in their propaganda read, they don't use the language of anti-Semitism and Judaism from their point of view. They try to create a line in order not to alienate their Jewish community as well.
So in the Gaza war between 12 and 1214 Iranian Jewish communities, which they actually designated two hospitals in Iran and they received the Palestinian injured and also sent supports and donated many Iranian Jewish and medical doctors. But can we say the pro-Palestinian and Israeli tendency is within everybody in Iran? The book is not claiming that. So he says yes is part of the Islamic Republic.
And those are subscribe to the Islamic Republic. And many of the regardless reformers are conservatives. But when it comes back to first, how Palestinians see Iran. This is a billboard in Gaza, in Hebrew, in Farsi and Arabic. Old says thank you to Iran for Palestine is also divided. Some see Iran as expanding the hegemony because especially those Palestinians that actually subscribe to the pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism.
But for some Palestinians, any support or we say every little help in Tesco, so we can say these, every little help comes and they they receive it, they accept it, they they actually greet that support. So you can see the Palestinians specifically in Gaza, but in Iran, the child with the concept of Palestine, when it comes to Iran, you see the emphasis is on Al-Aqsa mosque, on Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, rather than Palestine as a as a land, unlike the Arab states.
So it's a concept of seeing it as has been occupied by the imperialism, Zionism and so on and so forth. But again, within the Iranian nation, we do have other voices. We do have other voices according to the ideology. Those are not subscribe to the Islamic Republic's ideology and those are not subscribe to the leftist ideologies.
And they see this as in the book even explains they see this as has nothing to do with Iranian, some say, or is kind of being more Palestinian, the Palestinians, or let the Arab states to deal with it because Iran actually faced four decades of sanctions because of the war camps against Israel and has been punished severely because of that. So, yes, there are elements that are having a different voices about the concept of Palestine. They do not see the Palestinian Israeli concern.
They do not actually denounce the Palestine, but they see it as not actually very relevant to day to day life in Iran, which is the other voice that some Iranians actually criticise the Iranian government for being so pro-Palestinian and so anti-Israeli.
But as I mentioned and stripping the Iranian, the last word of the book or my my speech is stripping Iranian Islamic Republic and divorcing it from the Palestinian cause is literally not possible because is a part of its DNA is part of its DNA that is actually chromosomes that introduces itself. It cannot this regime to be passive about this, and it cannot simply change its course.
Another U-turn of relations with Israel. So but how it goes, as I said, it depends of the ideologies of whomever continues to be as Iran had cordial relations with Israel during the policies stage has not good relations or as I say, animosity with the state of Israel after that based on the ideologies they do have. And those revolutionaries that I and I explained to you about, there are many other things that the book explains much more. Well, thank you. Thank you so.