PARTNERSHIP, NOT PEACE

A Visionary Proposal for an Iranian-Israeli Alliance

The Islamic Republic is on the brink of collapse as Iran’s form of government. An imminent change of regime in Iran presents a tremendous opportunity for a partnership between Iran and Israel that is based on deep cultural-historical ties and shared geo-strategic interests. Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and others have spoken about a widening of the Abraham Accords into “the Cyrus Accords,” but it is mistaken to think of the future of Iran and Israel in terms of the paradigm of peace-making. Enemies or adversaries “make peace” with one another but, this fundamentally un-Iranian regime notwithstanding, Iran and Israel have never had a relationship of enmity or rivalry. On the contrary, each is the most natural ally of the other. The future relationship between Iran and Israel should be one of profound and far-reaching partnership.

The first Zionist project in history was the re-creation of the state of Israel by the Achaemenid rulers of Ancient Iran. A revival and reclamation of Iran’s ancient heritage is the basis for a contemporary cultural revolution in Iran that will define the ideological substrate of Iran’s near-future form of government, and also because the content of this ancient Iranian heritage is inherently pro-Israel. Cyrus the Great is the only non-Jew hailed as a Messiah in the Tanakh, chiefly for his liberation of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity and his commissioning of the reconstruction of the Temple of Solomon at cost to the Persian treasury. This is a project that was actually executed by Darius the Great, who also developed the first credit-based checking and banking system in collaboration with the Jews of Babylon (a city that became the Achaemenid capital). Then, in the reign of Xerxes, we have the folklore of a Persian Emperor and his Jewish consort, Queen Esther, putting down a conspiracy to orchestrate an anti-Jewish pogrom, another ancient Iranian protection of the Jews that is still commemorated by Purim. Whereas Xerxes burned pagan Greek temples to the ground, he allowed Jerusalem to be the only city within the Achaemenid realm to have its own fortification walls. What is more significant is that careful research can demonstrate that during the Achaemenid period, and apparently under the guidance of Mithraic Magi, Judaism as we know it took shape and the Tanakh was compiled and canonized in the form in which we have it today. The book of Job is especially telling in this regard.

To this day, in the Middle East, there are only two nations that have preserved a continuous linguistic and cultural identity from ancient times. Besides Hebrew, Persian is the only ancient language of the region that is still spoken by Iranians as their national tongue, a language with incomparable structural stability (Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh is a thousand years old and yet completely comprehensible by a modern Persian speaker), and one which succeeded in becoming a lingua franca from Istanbul to Delhi for centuries.

Israel and tomorrow’s Iran face multiple common threats and challenges. These include: the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, potentially under the leadership of a Neo-Ottoman, anti-Persian and anti-Semitic Caliphate, with Islam projected to achieve demographic dominance of Earth by 2075; the rise of the Chinese and Russian-led BRICS bloc as a global hegemon replacing the United States and NATO; a potential terminal decline and collapse of Western civilization, which has – until now – been a haven for Jews and which progressive Iranians had hoped to count on as their civilizational ally; the rise of anti-Semitic ‘Woke’ Leftism and regressive and reactionary Right-wing Traditionalism within the collapsing West; and, consequently, the extreme isolation and existential threat faced by both Iran and Israel within the foreseeable future. We can forge a robust Iranian-Israeli partnership, an unbreakable alliance that addresses these convergent and shared challenges.

As the world leader in science and technology from circa 900–1100, Iran has demonstrated the potential to partner with Israel as a guardian of continued techno-scientific advancement toward a Singularity that emerges from out of mutually reinforcing breakthroughs in Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Nanotechnology (GRAIN). Israeli technological expertise can assist in the development of Technology Acceleration Zones (TAZ) within Iranian territory, as well as the building of seasteads in the Persian Gulf and South Caspian Sea, and the interconnection of this new Iran with Israel through a blockchain-based Network State. The TAZ where GRAIN is pursued, free from overly restrictive regulations imposed by China, Russia, Islam, and an increasingly regressive West, will be akin to the qanat watered Paridâezâs of Ancient Iran but they can benefit from the latest Israeli hydro-engineering technology.

Meanwhile, a policy of the exclusive trade of Persian Gulf and South Caspian oil and gas resources in bitcoin, with the aim of challenging the BRICS cartel, will demand energy-intensive bitcoin mining that would best be served by a dramatic increase of Iran’s nuclear energy infrastructure. Israel’s influence with regard to the diaspora Jewish community involved in the international banking and monetary system can be leveraged in the service of this crypto-based economic and industrial revolution.

Israel can also benefit from Iran’s expanded nuclear power industry through a joint Israeli-Iranian development of nuclear weapons, including the use of the vast Iranian Lot Desert as an Israeli nuclear weapons testing range. This would require a level of military and intelligence collaboration comparable to that of the Five Eyes in the Anglosphere, and a bilateral mutual defense pact comparable to the NATO Charter. Such a military-intelligence structure would be employed, among other things, to prevent the further nuclearization of the Middle East with a view to the shared security concerns of Iran and Israel.

The most far-reaching horizon of this restored ancient relationship and future partnership would be joint Iranian-Israeli Space exploration, colonization, and resource exploitation. Ultimately, I envision a united Iranian-Israeli space program, using Iranian territory (a country three times the size of France) as a launch platform for Israeli astronauts, who would join their Iranian counterparts on missions to mine the Moon for Helium-3 as a fuel for nuclear fusion power plants and to mine the Asteroid Belt for precious metals that would afford the new Iran-based blockchain-crypto economy with a global competitive advantage. Eventually, Iranians and Israelis should consider colonizing the Asteroid Belt, turning it into a new frontier for freedom, creative experimentation, and bold innovation on the way to and beyond the technological Singularity that was first forecasted by Iranian futurist Fereidoun Esfandiary.