After the 1979
While Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel, the two states do not currently have diplomatic relations with each other, due to Iran's withdrawal of its recognition of Israel.
Israel and Iran's militaries are neck and neck
According to the GFP index, although Iran takes the spot just ahead of Israel, the power index ratings for the two countries are neck and neck - Israel with a rating of 0.2757, and Iran with a rating of 0.2712.
Israel supported Iran during the war so that Iran could provide a counterweight to Iraq; to re-establish influence in Iran which Israel lost with the overthrow of the shah in 1979, and to create business for the Israeli weapons industry.
The United States was the first country to recognize Israel as an independent state on May 14, 1948, when President Harry Truman issued a statement of recognition following Israel's proclamation of independence on the same date.
The British controlled Palestine until Israel, in the years following the end of World War II, became an independent state in 1947.
While the State of Israel was established on 15 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
Although it had voted against the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Turkey recognized the State of Israel in 1949.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs, both geared towards attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East.
Following the revolution, an additional 10,000 to 15,000 Iranian Jews immigrated directly to Israel. Many others migrated first to the United States or Europe and then to Israel, mainly out of fear of the new Ayatollah's regime but also from lack of familiarity with Israel.
Since 1985, Iran and Israel have been engaged in an ongoing proxy conflict that has greatly affected the geopolitics of the Middle East, and has included direct military confrontations between Iranian and Israeli organizations, such as in the 2006 Lebanon War.
This is reinforced by the annual rankings of the U.S. based Global Firepower Index, which ranks Egypt as having the ninth most powerful military in the world, while Israel is ranked as having the eighteenth.
Israel is one of the 10 most powerful, politically influential, and militarily strong countries in the world, according to a roundup for 2022 published by US News & World Report.
Relations were established in 1961, but severed on 28 November 1972. In 2005, reports emerged of a mutual intention to renew diplomatic relations. Relations restored on 20 January 2019. The Republic of China granted de jure recognition to Israel on 1 March 1949.
Twenty-two countries ban direct flights and overflights to and from Israel. These are Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen.
Syria. Syria and Iran are strategic allies. Syria is often called Iran's "closest ally", the Arab nationalism ideology of Syria's ruling Baath party notwithstanding.
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
The Arab-Israeli War of 1948 broke out when five Arab nations invaded territory in the former Palestinian mandate immediately following the announcement of the independence of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948.
The two countries have never established diplomatic relations; in 1947, Saudi Arabia voted against the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which aimed to split the territory of British Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state. As of 2023, negotiations to establish diplomatic relations were ongoing.
Pakistan officially endorses the two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and has maintained its longstanding position of non-recognition of Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established within the pre-1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital city.
Palestine's Early Roots
Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by numerous groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians and Mamelukes. From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region.
It is inaccurate to say Arab Palestinians lived there first. Jews have lived on the land of Israel continuously for almost 4,000 years. The land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people.
The lands were originally inhabited by nomadic hunter-gatherers who most likely immigrated from Mesopotamia but became sedentary agriculturalists by the Early Bronze Age (c. 3300-c. 2000 BCE).