JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran’s exiled crown prince is scheduled to come to Israel this week on a visit that reflects the warm ties his father once had with Israel and the current state of hostility between Israel and the Islamic Republic.
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Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah to rule Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said Sunday that he will be delivering “a message of friendship from the Iranian people.”
He is set to participate in Israel’s annual Holocaust memorial ceremony on Monday night, said Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who will host him. He is also set to visit a desalination plant, see the Western Wall and meet representatives of the local Bahai community and Israeli Jews of Iranian descent, she said.
Gamliel praised the “brave decision” by Pahlavi to make what she said would be his first visit to Israel. “The crown prince symbolizes a leadership different from that of the ayatollah regime, and leads values of peace and tolerance, in contrast to the extremists who rule Iran,” she said.
Pahlavi left Iran at age 17 for military flight school in the U.S., just before his cancer-stricken father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi abandoned the throne for exile. The revolution followed, with the creation of the Islamic Republic, the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the sweeping away of the last vestiges of the American-backed monarchy.
Pahlavi, who still resides in the U.S., has called for a peaceful revolution that would replace clerical rule with a parliamentary monarchy, enshrine human rights and modernize its state-run economy.
Whether he can galvanize support for a return to power is unknown. His father ruled lavishly and repressively and benefitted from a CIA-supported coup in 1953. The late shah also had close diplomatic and military ties with Israel.
That ended in 1979, when the Iranian revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, declared Israel an “enemy of Islam” and cut all ties. Today, the countries are arch-enemies. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing the country’s calls for Israel’s destruction, its support of hostile militant groups on Israel’s borders and its nuclear program. Iran denies accusations by Israel and its western allies that it is pursuing a nuclear bomb.
“I want the people of Israel to know that the Islamic Republic does not represent the Iranian people. The ancient bond between our people can be rekindled for the benefit of both nations,” Pahlavi said on Twitter.
The Shah was an evil, brutal tyrant who used his Savak torturers to control the country. Yes, he was an “ally” of Israel, but only to try to balance power with the Saudis at that time. Israel’s relationship with his regime was a low point for Israeli diplomacy and Israel disavowed it as soon as he was thrown out. And Carter did not “depose” him. In fact he allowed the evil Shah into America for cancer treatment. He was then overthrown by his own people and replaced by the Islamic regime.
Your majesty, You are welcome.
Yea the shah was our ally . We can thank the dumb peanut farmer carter for deposing him and building this monster called the ayatollah. But wait wasn’t the shah an evil dictator? Yes . But that’s the only language Arabs understand. The world would have been safer had we proooed him and let him crush the demonstrators