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Targeted assassinations, bombings, unidentified military attacks are piling up all over the Middle East. Can the "secret war" between Iran and Israel turn into a major regional if not global confrontation? The two countries are nowadays the two dominant powers in the Middle East.
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00:00This is the story of the war that dares not speak its name.
00:15A war that started over 40 years ago, but has never officially been declared.
00:21The war between Iran on the one side, and the United States and Israel on the other, is
00:30both ideological and strategic.
00:33A conflict that never fails to stir up passions, resentment, and hatred.
00:41And if it ever really did kick off in earnest, the entire Middle East would go up in flames,
00:46very possibly triggering a new global conflict.
00:51So to understand this potential return to barbaric violence, we must go back in time to unravel
00:57the tangled threads of tragedy, and seek the elusive truths behind the dogmas and certainties.
01:05And tell this story.
01:16The End
01:21The End
01:24The End
03:32A year before Khomeini's return, an uprising began in Tehran.
03:45In 1978, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to challenge their ruler.
03:51The regime of Shah was a dictatorship, a military dictatorship.
04:03Army people are everywhere, and it's corrupt.
04:09Not only in money and injustice for the people, but in the levels of the power, it's a closed
04:20door for everybody and there is no equal opportunity for the members of the society.
04:25And this corruption is a very good motivation to encourage you to oppose to a regime.
04:40Demonstrators had had enough of a ruler who, bent on making Iran a great power, sought
04:45to impose Western-style modernity on them, either willingly or by force.
04:50They viewed it as an unfair and corrupt system that failed to meet the most basic needs of
04:55the population.
05:12Two countries had come to embody the imperialism condemned by the demonstrators.
05:17two countries that supported the Shah's regime, the United States and Israel.
05:29Today, it is difficult to imagine those two countries were the Iranian state's closest allies.
05:38Relations with Iran were excellent at the time.
05:42Many Israelis lived in Iran and helped the country in many areas.
05:46For us, Iran was arguably our most important partner after the United States in terms of economic interests.
05:57We undertook some grandiose projects with them.
06:04Back in the 1950s, Israel had made overtures to the Shah.
06:08Isolated in an Arab world that refused to acknowledge its existence,
06:13the Hebrew state was looking for non-Arab partners a little further afield in the Middle East.
06:20Iran, Persian, pro-Western, built on a different kind of Islam to the other Arab countries, stood out as a natural ally.
06:28Iranians often came to us.
06:31It's hard to imagine now, but it was a very close-knit collaboration.
06:35Itzhak Segev took up his post as military attache in Iran in 1977, a year before the protests began.
06:44His mission was to strengthen security cooperation between the two countries.
06:49At the time, I was in charge of fulfilling a contract between Iran and Israel worth 1.2 billion.
07:02Iran was paying Israel to provide equipment and know-how in very sensitive areas, such as missiles, aircraft, etc.
07:11Itzhak Segev.
07:12Itzhak Segev.
07:15Washington as well had chosen to make Iran the cornerstone of its influence in the region.
07:25The high degree of military cooperation was designed to keep Tehran in the Western camp.
07:30Also, this was the time of the Cold War, of course, and Iran was a major arena of U.S.-Soviet competition.
07:47So, yes, the Shah was close to America because he felt that it needed the American support in confronting the USSR and maintaining his government in power.
08:00So today, when I'm giving lectures to young people, they don't believe me when I tell them that in 77 and 78,
08:07Iran's two greatest allies were the United States and Israel.
08:16For both Tel Aviv and Washington, Iran under the Shah was an invaluable partner,
08:22the key piece in the great Middle Eastern game.
08:24But neither Israel nor America realized the extent and strength of an opposition that was destined to prevail.
08:36When I spoke with the generals, they would tell me,
08:43look, it's like measles.
08:45We're seeing demonstrations at the moment.
08:47That's the way it is.
08:49The Shah has asked us to sort it out because he's the military chief.
08:53Well, we're sorting it out.
08:54America was blind to what was going on in Iran's society because we didn't have people blending in with the society.
09:07Our contacts were with higher class people or military people, people who were interested in the status quo,
09:21who wanted to justify their belief in the Shah and that things were going well and would continue to go well.
09:27So those were the people that we dealt with.
09:32They were the people that were not well informed and were not going to give us bad news.
09:48The blindness and incomprehension of a regime faced with such a powerful and determined uprising was heading for tragedy.
09:54That day, Black Friday, the Shah's army opened fire in the streets of Tehran.
10:05The official death toll was 87, but according to opposition estimates, it was closer to 4,000.
10:13The monarchy had just revealed its true face.
10:16I remember taking a shower that morning after Black Friday, it was called.
10:20And it seemed to me that what we were dealing with was a war between the Shah and his people.
10:29And it seemed to me that the Shah was not going to win.
10:33That we were going to deal with a different future in Iran than we had known in the past.
10:38The revolutionary process was underway and now there was no stopping it.
10:52Regarded as supporters of the Shah, Israel and American expatriates became targets and began to leave the country.
10:58Protestors attacked cafes, restaurants, banks and cinemas, the Western symbols of modernity associated with the stranglehold Israel and the United States had on their country.
11:13The anti-American slogans were because of the dominance of the leftist discourse that saw imperialism as the dominant threat, as the main contradiction, as we used to call it at the time, to be solved.
11:28The religious forces were equally adamant against the U.S.
11:37They saw the U.S. as a beacon of modernity and they still do.
11:41The Israeli issue was again connected to this discourse because the left identified then, as it identifies now, with the Palestinian cause.
11:56It felt that Israel had been complicit in denying the Palestinians their right.
12:03And there was a very powerful belief within the Iranian system that the secret service of Iran, SAWAG, is run by Israeli Mossad.
12:16Therefore, they were saying Americans are dominating, ripping off the country, and Israelis are also sharing for killing, tortures, managing, organizing the secret service of Shah, SAWAG and so on.
12:33That's why it was mainly about the U.S.
12:36But they have been always Iranian, they have seen Israel as part of the U.S.
12:46Tearing down the monarchy, breaking ties with Washington and Tel Aviv, rejecting Western-style modernity.
12:53All these objectives combined into a single battle.
12:57To succeed, the struggle needed a leader, someone to embody it.
13:01Gradually, as the movement began to pick up momentum, and it was a movement in need of a leadership, in need of a leader, the person that fit the bill seemed to have been Ayatollah Khomeini.
13:19I have to say that not only the different factions of Islamic movement followed Ayatollah Khomeini and joined him, but the other factions of the movement as well, like nationalists, like Marxists.
13:42All factions supported Ayatollah Khomeini as the leader of the revolution.
13:46The time had come for him to realize his dream, the application of a radical doctrine and establishment of an Islamic Republic.
14:07A theocracy wherein the ultimate power lay with a religious authority, the supreme leader, him.
14:13Him.
14:14Him.
14:15Him.
14:16Him.
14:17Him.
14:18Him.
14:19Khomeini set foot on Iranian soil, ready to deliver the fatal blow to the monarchy.
14:49And no one could stand in his way.
15:19I can't remember 10 million people to come to welcome a leadership.
15:28And everybody looked at him as the leader of the revolution, a charismatic leader, and
15:37a man of God at the same time that he will rescue the country and we will have a paradise
15:47on the earth.
15:50Khomeini was now the man who embodied the legitimacy of power, especially as the Shah, weakened by
15:59ill health, had departed the country three weeks earlier.
16:06Ten days later, after only 48 hours of fighting in the streets of Tehran, the overthrow of
16:13the Iranian monarchy the Shah had ruled over for 37 years was complete.
16:21The revolution had achieved a total victory.
16:28Ayatollah Khomeini was the country's new leader.
16:34The revolution had achieved a total victory.
16:41Ayatollah Khomeini was the country's new leader.
16:45This had been the Israeli mission in Tehran, responsible for the economic ties between the
16:47Iran of the Shah and Israel.
16:49The revolutionaries immediately attacked the enemies identified by the new regime, with
17:08the Israeli diplomatic mission sacked and completely devastated.
17:12its 33 members, the last Israeli still in Iran, needed to find a way out of the country.
17:25Nobody went home.
17:26We moved into temporary addresses, with five or six of us in each apartment.
17:31And we stayed there for a week.
17:34We all had guns, some had passports.
17:40We were getting ready to flee.
17:43At that time, it was hard.
17:46Very few people were able to venture out into the street.
17:49A week later, it was finally time to leave.
17:55They traveled in small groups to the Hilton Hotel in central Tehran, where a bus was waiting
18:00to take them to the airport, a distance of some 17 kilometers.
18:0617 kilometers through a hotbed of revolution.
18:09Anything could happen.
18:1117 kilometers, 10 million Iranians on the other side of the road, all with tomatoes and
18:19eggs.
18:20In the bus, there was a driver and two Iranians with Kalishnikovs.
18:25Our bus moved on.
18:27They thought it was a revolutionary bus.
18:30Not an egg or tomato was thrown.
18:36On reaching the airport, they could finally board the aircraft.
18:40Then, take off and deliverance.
18:43Perhaps.
18:44We boarded the plane, the engine started, and it began to taxi.
18:57Then, all of a sudden, it stopped.
19:00The doors opened, and those revolutionary bastards barged in again.
19:05I thought to myself, what is it this time?
19:10They wanted to carry out one final check.
19:12I don't know what for.
19:14Then, they closed the door, and we took off.
19:18But it was a security creation to the people, the Israelis.
19:27Meanwhile, the Israelis great enemy, Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, the Palestine Liberation
19:33Organization, was arriving in Tehran.
19:36He was welcomed like a true Head of State.
19:41Arafat had become leader of the PLO in 1969.
19:48Its stated ambition was to create a Palestinian state, independent of its Arab backers.
19:56From his base in Lebanon, Arafat, alongside his Fedayeen, had been leading his fighters
20:02into guerrilla actions on the northern border with Israel.
20:06Now he had come to seek the support of Khomeini, a man he hoped could help Palestinians achieve
20:11their independence.
20:13Definitely, it's changed completely the whole strategic policy in this area.
20:20In case of a war...
20:21Upset down completely.
20:33By inviting Arafat to Tehran, Khomeini was sending a powerful message to the entire Muslim world.
20:40From now on, Iran would be supporting the Palestinian cause, regarding it as an existential struggle
20:46between Islam and the Christian imperialist West, godfather of the Jewish state.
21:01It must be acknowledged that for the West, Israel is a means of oppression in the Muslim world.
21:06Saying that they wanted to create a country for a people, the Jewish people, is nonsense.
21:19Jewish people is nonsense.
21:33The West has propagated a lie in order to wield power throughout the whole region,
21:38knowing full well that we will never accept this country.
21:42Khomeini then took a spectacular initiative.
21:49Instead of the Israeli diplomatic mission,
21:52there would now be the Palestinian Embassy.
21:55It was quite a statement.
21:59With this gesture, the Ayatollah was severing all links with Israel,
22:03a state whose existence had no legitimacy for him.
22:06Any strategic alliance between Israel and Iran
22:12was now unquestionably a thing of the past.
22:21The United States recognized the young Islamic Republic.
22:25But in Washington, there was some concern about what kind of relations
22:29would be possible with Iran's new rulers.
22:32Within the American government, there were differing opinions.
22:36Some thought that Khomeini was an extreme force
22:42and it would be very difficult for us to deal with.
22:47I think most people still thought of Iran as a country that,
22:52you know, we could continue to get along with,
22:55that even though the Shah was gone,
22:57that, you know, we would maintain relations.
23:01We had our embassy there.
23:07Then on November 4th, 1979,
23:10hundreds of Islamist students invaded the American embassy,
23:13taking 52 diplomats hostage.
23:16Khomeini was hesitant.
23:28Would he support these students and risk seriously jeopardizing relations
23:31with the United States?
23:33Would he support them to keep control of the movement?
23:35On this day, nearly 90,000 Israeli soldiers,
23:531,300 tanks and 1,500 personal carriers invaded Lebanon,
23:57a country seemingly unconnected to the emerging confrontation between Iran, Israel and the United States.
24:06Torn apart by civil war for many years, Lebanon had become a regional battleground.
24:11Syria occupied a part of the country to the east, but in the south especially, the PLO was all-powerful.
24:18The Palestinian organization had made the area its operational base for instigating deadly raids against Israel.
24:26On June 6th, 1982, Tel Aviv launched Operation Peace for Galilee.
24:40The objective was spelled out loud and clear to purge southern Lebanon, seize control,
24:46and thus put an end to the guerrilla operations launched by Arafat's Fedayeen.
24:58We came here to fight and destroy the terrorist organizations that have been killing and murdering our people for years and years.
25:09That is our goal here.
25:11Ariel Sharon, recently appointed Minister of Defense, was leading the offensive.
25:15In the eyes of his fellow countrymen, Sharon was a hero,
25:18a man who had been at the forefront of every military victory Israel had won since its inception in 1948.
25:26Once we'll finish it, we'll move immediately back.
25:29We don't have any interest whatsoever to stay here, not our country.
25:34We don't need even one square inch of this country.
25:38It was all about pushing back the terrorists, mainly members of the PLO.
25:44They had to be forced back beyond a line that would keep Israel safe from their fire.
25:50Rumor had it that they had a long-tom long-range cannon, which had a range of 40 kilometers,
25:55so they had to be driven back 40 kilometers or more from the border.
25:59That was the plan, no more, no less.
26:12Within a week, Sharon had far exceeded the initial objectives, as his army made dazzling advances.
26:18The operation turned into something much bigger.
26:33Sharon kept advancing further and further north until he got within striking distance of Beirut.
26:39Tehran looked on, stupefied.
26:53With Israeli troops advancing towards the Lebanese capital,
26:56the balance of power in the Middle East was radically shifting.
26:59For Khomeini, it was unthinkable.
27:02But how should he react?
27:12Engaged in an all-out war against Iraq after the attack launched by Saddam Hussein two years previously,
27:18in September of 1980, the young Islamic Republic would be forced to fight for its survival for eight long years,
27:25in what became known as the Iran-Iraq War.
27:28At this stage, the Iranian leader did not have the resources to open another front against Israel in Lebanon.
27:35Khomeini issued a statement justifying this decision, saying,
27:39the road to Quds, which is Jerusalem, goes through Karbala,
27:43which was a religious way of expressing a deeply strategic decision,
27:49meaning first things first.
27:52The aspiration for Iran to play some role in the liberation of Jerusalem
27:57comes after Iran has managed to defeat Saddam Hussein.
28:02In Beirut, heavy shelling was now falling on the west of the capital,
28:16where Arafat and most of his troops had taken refuge.
28:19Part of the city was razed to the ground.
28:36Thousands were dead, mostly civilians.
28:40on August 21st, 1982, the Israeli siege ended.
28:53Yasser Arafat made a final visit to his West Beirut headquarters.
28:58Defeated, Arafat departed Lebanon and went into exile in Tunisia,
29:02with 10,000 of his Fedayeen.
29:08They would soon be replaced by a multinational force composed mainly of American and French troops,
29:14assigned with ensuring the safety of the Lebanese capital.
29:18of the country.
29:19For Sharon and Prime Minister Menahem Begin,
29:24the Palestinian question was settled.
29:27They could now proceed with their secret objective of transforming Lebanon.
29:31The multi-faith country would become a Christian state,
29:35led by the Maronite minority.
29:38This new Lebanon would be a powerful state, and above all, an ally.
29:51But their plans would unknowingly awaken another Lebanese community,
29:55the largest in the country, the Shiite community.
29:59The Shias at one time lived quietly in the south of Lebanon.
30:03They became politicized when their Palestinian neighbors attacked Israel,
30:07and the Israelis bombed them in return.
30:14Settled mainly in the east and in the south of Lebanon,
30:18the Shiites had suffered directly from the invasion and Israeli occupation.
30:23Some resolved to take up arms and resist.
30:29It was my belief in 1982 that Israel was an enemy,
30:39and I supported the Palestinian cause.
30:44I considered myself to be on their side.
30:49Naeem Qasim was then 29 years old,
30:52a chemistry teacher in Beirut.
30:54He was leader of the Union of Islamist Educational Associations,
30:58a Shiite organization.
31:05For us, the thinking of Imam Khomeini chimed perfectly with our deep beliefs.
31:13So we got together with some other Islamist groups and came to an agreement.
31:17We went to Iran to proclaim our willingness to pledge allegiance to Imam Khomeini,
31:26allowing him to be our guide and respect his authority,
31:29and he gave us his blessing.
31:32and he gave us his blessing.
31:41Khomeini welcomed the offer of their service.
31:43It would allow him to get closer to the Jewish state
31:45and to better fight it through these new allies.
31:47It was an obvious union, given his old and deep ties with the Lebanese Shiites.
31:53Many of the leaders of the revolution in Iran, who became at top positions after the victory of the revolution,
32:05they had very good background in Lebanon before the revolution,
32:10good connection with Shia people in Lebanon.
32:14In 1982, it was thought that the confrontation with Israel was inauspicious for us.
32:23We had no way of striking back against them.
32:27We needed to take a creative initiative,
32:30commit an atypical act, an act of martyrdom.
32:33The cult of martyrs dates back to the origins of Shiism.
32:42In the 7th century, Imam Hussain and his companions were massacred in Karbala,
32:47in present-day Iraq, during a fratricidal fight to succeed the Prophet Muhammad.
32:53The event commemorated each year is the very foundation of Shiism.
32:57This predilection to sacrifice, this ability to fight injustice and corruption,
33:06is part of Shiite thinking.
33:09It was central to the mobilization of the Shiites in Lebanon.
33:14It is not a simple military question, rather part of a doctrine, a vision.
33:20The aim was to fight the occupation.
33:22But the martyrdom operations were also a new form of struggle,
33:26previously unheard of in the region.
33:357 a.m. November 11, 1982.
33:39Ahmed Kassir drives along the main thoroughfare through Tyre.
33:45Without hesitation, he accelerates and hurls himself and his vehicle
33:48into a large residential complex.
34:00The Israeli military headquarters for the whole of southern Lebanon had just collapsed.
34:08The seven-story building was demolished.
34:11The eight-story building had been on the left of St. Gatum's
34:15where the judicial facility provided.
34:17The eight-story building was at the right of St. Gatum.
34:19When he has been searched for a while,
34:21he was on the left of St. Gatum.
34:24The first one was on the right of St. Gatum.
34:25.
34:50I was in Tyre at the time.
34:52We had a grocery store there.
34:54I was on my way back following my usual route, but the Jews had blocked the road.
34:59I'll never forget.
35:01The fire was still blazing, the building, the masonry, everything was on fire.
35:07We were proud. Something was finally happening.
35:12Lebanese prisoners were killed.
35:15Ariel Sharon was mystified.
35:17How could something like this occur when the only known enemy, the PLO, had been crushed more than two months ago?
35:47This is one of the goals of the court of the court in the investigation.
35:53This state of terror, the shafist state, has been destroyed.
35:58Now it has to be clear that it will not stop and keep the guard down.
36:04Three weeks later, the commission of inquiry concluded that a gas pipe had exploded,
36:10declaring the incident to have been an accident.
36:13This mind-blowing version of events was never officially questioned,
36:18further emphasizing the blindness of Israeli intelligence services,
36:22oblivious to what was going on in the Becca plane.
36:30We didn't have information in real time.
36:33It was very unfortunate, in retrospect.
36:37We knew that some clerics were planning action.
36:39Some we knew, others we didn't know who they were.
36:59I was in for a far greater shock when I began to conduct some research
37:05into what was known within intelligence circles about the Shiites in Lebanon.
37:13I was very disappointed.
37:17I found almost nothing, zero paperwork on the subject.
37:21There wasn't much in the academic departments either.
37:25Very little information.
37:26The multinational force in Lebanon, led by the Americans and French,
37:38was as blind as the Israeli military.
37:41On October 23rd, 1983, almost a year later,
37:46it was their turn to suffer a similar attack of unprecedented violence.
37:50The two-ton bomb devastated the four-story building
37:54in which 200 Marines may have been sleeping.
37:57At the same time, a suicide bomber blew himself up
38:00in the French military headquarters, the Drakkar building.
38:0458 were killed.
38:09A double strike claimed by a mysterious Islamic Jihad movement,
38:14almost certainly a figurehead for Hezbollah and Iran.
38:17I think there is much that indicates
38:21that the Iranians did have a role,
38:23if not a very important role, in that.
38:25Do you have any indication about responsibility, who's guilty?
38:28Yes, we have some,
38:31but we're not going to point the finger into it,
38:33we're absolutely certain.
38:34But I think the thing that does come through loud and clear
38:37is just the insidious nature of terror, international terror.
38:42The U.S. intelligence says that they had managed to bug a meeting
38:47in which the Iranian ambassador to Syria,
38:51who was a leading creator of Hezbollah,
38:54had explicitly asked for such an operation.
38:59Now, the U.S. intelligence has not made that evidence public.
39:04The U.S. intelligence has been wrong in the past.
39:07The U.S. intelligence has also lied in the past.
39:09So, we don't know 100% for sure.
39:16At the end of the day, perception is reality.
39:19The United States, France and other countries have acted
39:21on the perception that the Iranians were behind it.
39:28With this new attack,
39:30the Hezbollah Shiites could no longer be ignored.
39:33They saw themselves as the embodiment
39:35of the resistance movement against Israel and its allies.
39:39Day by day, their following grows.
39:46Thanks to their protector and benefactor, Iran,
39:51and the support of their capital, Baalbek,
39:54their fight had just begun in earnest.
39:57Intelligence experts have long regarded
39:59the city of Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley
40:01as a center of anti-American terrorism.
40:04I recall Hezbollah seeming to be a domestic factor.
40:10And then, by the mid-1980s,
40:13it was clear that there was this pipeline.
40:16Arms, materiel, men coming from Iran,
40:22hostages going from Lebanon to Iran,
40:29and political support.
40:31So, this was an emerging phenomenon.
40:36The Israelis were counting.
40:38600 men dead in two years.
40:41It was a price many were not prepared to pay.
40:43No!
40:45I think the Lord turned out!
40:47The Israeli army was increasingly
40:52becoming bogged down in Lebanon.
40:55On June 6, 1985,
40:58three years after the start of the invasion,
41:01the Israeli army pulled out,
41:03preserving a security zone in the south,
41:05an area representing 10% of Lebanese territory.
41:08The Israeli army remained there for 15 years,
41:12until 2000.
41:13For Israel, this first partial withdrawal
41:16constituted a severe, even humiliating, defeat.
41:20For Hezbollah, it was a first victory.
41:25The Shiite organization chose the moment
41:26to claim responsibility for the destruction
41:28of the Israeli headquarters in Tyre.
41:32The name of the Shaheed, Ahmed Kassir,
41:35was also revealed.
41:37November 11, the day of the attack,
41:40became the official martyrs' day
41:42for the resistance movement.
41:54By the time Ayatollah Khomeini
41:56passed away in June 1989,
41:59his legacy was more alive than ever.
42:01The Shiite theocracy,
42:08which he founded 10 years earlier,
42:10had been firmly established.
42:12And the fight he initiated
42:14against Israel and the United States
42:16through Hezbollah,
42:17had changed the landscape
42:19in the Middle East.
42:21But moving forward,
42:23what would his successors do
42:25with his legacy?
42:27See you next time.
42:53See you next time.
42:54Transcription by CastingWords
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