Zionism is the legacy of Cyrus the Great and the national inheritance of the Iranians. The Islamic Republic\u2019s anti-Zionism is not a historical norm, but a radical break from history by a radical regime. The Iranian revolution seeks to return to its historical origins, and Zionists must rejoice if it succeeds.<\/p>\n
The former crown prince of Iran and the most prominent opposition figure, Reza Pahlavi, became the most prominent Iranian to have ever visited Israel this week. He made history by taking the first step to restore it. Pahlavi\u2019s cautious approach to leadership, out of the fear of alienating Iranians from different camps, has been a point of criticism over the decades. His trip doesn\u2019t suggest that he has overnight become more risk-taking, but that he understands that anti-Zionism is no longer a political force among his audience inside his country. This is an early sign that a free Iran will cease hostilities with Israel and end the region\u2019s most destabilizing conflict, caused by one of the most destabilizing regimes in the world. Only a few years after Abraham Accords, we can now envision the potential for the future Cyrus Accords.<\/p>\n
Pahlavi\u2019s trip was as much about symbolic gestures as it was political business, evident by his decision to visit during Holocaust Remembrance Day and participate in the ceremonies. He posted a picture of himself wearing a kippah and his wife praying at the Western Wall. His post\u2019s caption cited the Book of Ezra and Cyrus the Great\u2019s edict to rebuild the Second Temple. On Farsi social media, Cyrus Accords immediately began to trend, with more than 100,000 tweets in 24 hours.<\/p>\n
The Iranian opposition leader also met with Israeli government officials, likely to seek their assistance for the protest movement that has been roiling Iran for the last seven months. Minister of Intelligence Gila Gamliel hosted the crown prince, and the itinerary included meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. Given Israel\u2019s covert assets in Iran, Pahlavi\u2019s following there, and the two parties\u2019 mutual interest in regime change, it is a reasonable guess that they discussed avenues of cooperation to effect change. He had also mentioned that, given Iran\u2019s water crisis and Israel\u2019s expertise in desalination, he intended to meet with Israeli water experts, so Gamliel gave him a tour of the water desalination facility in Shurk.<\/p>\n
As seen by their reactions to Pahlavi\u2019s visit, for many Iranians, Israel has transformed from an enemy to an ally against the Islamic Republic. Masih Alinejad, another opposition leader, tweeted that \u201cthe nation of Iran has no enmity with Israel. It is the Islamic Republic that has conquered the borders of hostility against Jews, not just in Iran, but also in the region and the world.\u201d Hichkas, the first professional Iranian rapper, humorously tweeted his wish that the trip would result in countless Qassem Soleimani-like assassinations. Former national soccer team captain Ali Karimi, the opposition leader most in tune with the Iranian street, posted a picture of the Pahlavis and Gamliel with Iranian-flag-colored hearts.<\/p>\n
The regime\u2019s response, on the other hand, has been official silence. The spokesperson for the ministry of foreign affairs dismissed a question on the topic for it concerned \u201can irrelevant individual to an irrelevant destination country.\u201d Unofficial and semi-official media tried to downplay it by mentioning Israel\u2019s domestic political turmoil and the Pahlavi dynasty\u2019s historically warm views of Israel. The combination of the regime\u2019s dismissiveness and the opposition\u2019s embrace is a hint that both sides are aware that Israel has ceased being a bogeyman in Iran.<\/p>\n
Read more at: providencemag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zionism is the legacy of Cyrus the Great and the national inheritance of the Iranians. The Islamic Republic\u2019s anti-Zionism is not a historical norm, but a radical break from history by a radical regime. The Iranian revolution seeks to return to its historical origins, and Zionists must rejoice if it succeeds. The former crown prince … Continue reading The Coming Cyrus Accords?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-watching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/watching-300x100-300x100-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-6jr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24270,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24269\/revisions\/24270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}