"The strange tale of Iran and Israel"

Alastair Crooke in Le Monde/Diplo, here, via War-in-context.

"...The right tried to put the strategy of the “alliance of the minorities” into practice. In 1982, Ariel Sharon invaded Lebanon with the aim of ousting the Palestine Liberation Organisation and establishing a friendly Christian Maronite hegemony in Beirut – so inflicting a devastating defeat on Syria, a major pillar of Arabism. It proved a miscalculation, for it precipitated the decline of the Maronites and encouraged Shia mobilisation in the south and in the Bekaa valley, from which a formidable new enemy, Hizbullah, emerged...

At the same time as this failure in Lebanon, Israel’s relations with the periphery declined – at least with Iran (which made a strategic alliance with Syria, a key Arab enemy). This was because of a misperception by Israel, shared by the US: the Iranian Revolution was seen in the West as no more than a discontinuity in the western narrative of a historical progression from backwardness to western-style secular modernity. It was an aberration, a reaction against modernity that would be corrected over time. The ideological basis to the revolution was seen as “hollow”; “pragmatists” would soon pull it back on to the path of western material progress, the only course that made sense in the western optic. This is why both Israel and the US have been so preoccupied by signs of pragmatism and an obsessive hunt for “moderates”. And whenever Iran’s revolutionary leadership has shown any signs of pragmatism in its foreign policy, it reinforced the US and Israeli view that this would lead eventually to an alliance 
with Israel.....

Iran’s offer was a nuanced reformulation of an earlier proposal for partnership and a discussion of all issues in contention. To interpret the 2003 episode as a signal that “pressure works”, and that more pressure on Iran will yield these and further concessions, may lead to a catastrophic error of policy..."