Rising Conflict Between Iran and Israel

Context

Recently the Indian government sources confirmed that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had seized a Nhava Sheva-bound ship with 17 Indian nationals on board for its links with Israel.

How Iran and Israel Became Arch-Rivals?

• • 1979 was a pivotal year:
    • While Iran was dominated by the Pahlavi dynasty for more than half a-century, Iranian-Israeli bilateral relations remained cordial. 
    • Iran was one of the first Muslim countries to recognize the new country of Israel.
    • However, ties between the two nations collapsed after Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.
    • Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted, and the new ideal chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, pursued a status among “boastful” world powers.
    • Still, limited cooperation between Israel and Iran persisted into the 1980s. 
    • But later a hostile rivalry emerged as Iran built up and funded proxy militias in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
    • As a result, shadow warfare between Iran and Israel grew over time.

• Iran’s nuclear program is a first-rate goal:

• • Iran’s nuclear program (which it has regularly insisted is completely non violent) has been a primary focus of Israeli assaults.
  • Tehran believes Israel and the U.S. delivered the Stuxnet computer virus in the early 2000s to target the centrifuges enriching uranium for Iran’s nuclear program.
  • A collection of sabotage attacks persisted into the 2020s, as Israel sought to damage Iranian nuclear facilities.

War by proxy

• Iran has long sponsored armed groups across the area that focused on Israel in addition to the U.S. army.
• The leading one is Hezbollah in Lebanon, formed in the 1980s to fight the Israeli force in southern Lebanon.
• Hezbollah has been firing rockets into northern Israel for the reason that the Gaza struggle commenced in October 2023.

Are Israel and Iran Headed for a War?

• The Israeli warfare on Hamas is on the edge of exploding into a wider war with a probable Iranian retaliation over a suspected Israeli strike earlier this month on an Iranian consular building in Syria.
• The warfare has been unfolding across the Middle East since the eruption of the Gaza conflict, with Iran-sponsored corporations maintaining support for the Palestinians, waging attacks from Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq.
• Iran has thus far averted direct war of words with Israel or the USA, while maintaining support for its allies. However, the strike at the Iranian consular building in Syria changes that.

Source: The Economic Times

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q.What is piezoelectricity ? Discuss its day-to-day applications.

Download as PDF