Policy of Iran towards Israel

The pursuit of the destruction of Israel is the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The policy is opposite to that of the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979) – friendly with Israel until 1979.

## Overview
 in 2016]]

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic's founder, called Israel an illegitimate "Zionist regime" and severed ties with Israel. Both Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei have called Israel a "cancerous tumor". Their rhetoric is backed by "reformist" clerics. Despite Iranian leaders claiming to be "anti-Zionist", their propaganda has promoted Holocaust denial with antisemitic tropes.

### State-sponsored Holocaust denial
In December 2006, the Iranian regime held a Holocaust-denying conference, which invited foreign Neo-Nazis, including David Duke, who repeated the Iranian official claim: "Zionists weaponizing the Holocaust to deny the rights of the Palestinians [...] The Holocaust [...] is the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder." [...] turn Poles into slaves and subhumans as Nazi Germans did". His views are also held by many Western "anti-Zionists".

## Supreme Leaders
### Ruhollah Khomeini
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had called Israel a "cancerous tumor" before he died. Khomeini called it "an obligation" to sponsor the Palestinian *mujahideen* "in order to abolish the infidel Zionists, who are the enemies of humanity".

 described Israel as a "malignant cancerous tumor" that must "be removed and eradicated"]]

### Ali Khamenei
#### 2013
In 2013, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called Israel "an illegitimate regime" led by "untouchable rabid dogs" and "doomed to failure and annihilation". 

#### 2015
In 2015, he said that there would be "no Zionist regime in 25 years" and that "during this period, the spirit of fighting, heroism and jihad will keep [Israel] worried every moment".

#### 2023
On October 3, 2023 – four days before the Hamas-led October 7 attacks – Khamenei said that Israel would "die of [its] rage" [...] be eradicated, God willing, at the hands of the Palestinian people and the resistance forces throughout the region."

## Presidents
 called for Israel to be "erased from the face of the earth"]]

### Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that the detonation of a single nuclear weapon inside Israel "will annihilate the entire country". In 2006, at the *World Without Zionism* conference, then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad invoked a quote from Ayatollah Khomeini calling for Israel to be "erased from the face of the earth". In 2007, he said that Iran would "witness the destruction of this regime in the near future".

### Hassan Rouhani
At the 2018 annual Islamic Unity Conference, ex-President Hassan Rouhani, called Israel a "cancerous tumor" and a "fake regime created by Western powers to serve their interests in the Middle East". In 2023, then-President Ebrahim Raisi said that he hoped for God to "liberate Palestine as soon as possible" and that Iran could "witness the final moments of Israel's existence and celebrate its end".

## Military commanders
### Ali Fadavi
Following the October 7 attacks, Ali Fadavi, the IRGC deputy commander-in-chief, said: "The resistance front's shocks against the Zionist regime will continue until this 'cancerous tumor' is eradicated from the world map."

### Hojatoleslam Ali Shirazi
In 2013, Hojatoleslam Ali Shirazi, representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said: "The Zionist regime will soon be destroyed, and this generation will be witness to its destruction." 

### Hossein Salami
#### 2014
In 2014, Hossein Salami, then IRGC's deputy commander, issued a series of aggressive statements against Israel. He threatened direct retaliation "for every drop of blood of our martyrs in Palestine, and this is the beginning point of Islamic nations awakening for your defeat".  

### Hossein Sheikholeslam
Hossein Sheikholeslam, then secretary-general of Iran's Committee for Support for the Palestinian Intifada, also stated that "the issue of Israel's destruction is important, no matter the method" and warned that "the region will not be quiet so long as Israel exists in it." The October 7 attacks, which saw the slaughter of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250 hostages, was an Iranian strategy. About 500 Hamas and PIJ terrorists were reportedly trained by the IRGC. 

Following Yahya Sinwar's death in an Israeli airstrike, a mural appeared in Tehran bearing the message "The storm of Sinwar will continue" in reference to *Al-Aqsa Storm*, the codename of the October 7 attacks.

### Nuclear program
The destruction of Israel is one of goals of Iran's nuclear pogram.

## Academic views
### Abdollah Nouri
Abdollah Nouri, a prominent cleric and former interior minister, was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in 1999, allegedly for opposing Khomeini's doctrine that Israel must be obliterated. 

### Ze'ev Magen
Ze'ev Magen said that *Death to Israel* and *Death to America* had been used by Iranian officials for over 25 years. He added that the call for Jerusalem's conquest is depicted as a unifying *jihad* redirecting Sunni opposition away from Shi'ite Iran by making Iran the vanguard of global Islamic resistance.

## Gallery

File:2019 Isfahan airbase expo (43).jpg|An Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter jet on display in Isfahan bearing the slogan "Down with Israel" next to the word "Expired" (2019)
File:2019 Sacred Defence Week exhibition in Mashhad (017).jpg|The slogan "Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth" inscribed on a Shahab-2 missile displayed in Mashhad (2019)
File:Opening ceremony of Iranian Army Aviation Museum (046).jpg|The phrase "Death to Israel" displayed in four languages (accompanied by a softened English translation reading "Down with Israel") at the Iranian Army Aviation Museum (2019)
File:2019 Sacred Defence Week exhibition in Mashhad (002).jpg|The slogan "Israel will not see more than five years into the future" inscribed on a missile during the Sacred Defense Week exhibition in Mashhad (2019)
File:روز جهانی قدس در شهر قم- Quds Day In Iran-Qom City 12.jpg|Children posing with an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Quds Day parade in Qom (2015)
File:Hossein Shariatmadari in Amirkabir University of Technology (2).jpg|Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the Iranian newspaper *Kayhan*, stepping on an Israeli flag at Amirkabir University of Technology (2015)

 

## Related pages
* Anti-Judaism and antisemitism
* June 2025 Israeli strikes on Iran

## Footnotes
## References