4 June 2023
Reza Pahlavi has surfaced as a born-again Zionist and contender in any political scenario that might unfold should the Islamic Republic collapse
L to R: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara with Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the toppled Shah of Iran, and Israeli Minister of Intelligence Gila Gamliel, on 17 April 2023 (Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence)
What in the world was Reza Pahlavi doing in Israel, of all places?
Who in the world is Reza Pahlavi, anyway, you may first wonder. Allow me to indulge.
Reza Pahlavi, 62, is the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran, and once upon a time the heir-apparent and crown prince of the Pahlavi dynasty (1926-1979) before it was toppled by a massive popular revolution during the 1977-1979 uprising.
After their dynasty collapsed and his royal father passed away in 1980 and was buried in Cairo, Egypt, then the Crown Prince Pahlavi and his family moved to the United States.
Pahlavi has been sporadically in the news for denouncing the Islamic Republic.
Since the Mahsa Amini uprising, Pahlavi and a platoon of militant monarchists have sought to recast him as a leader of this ‘revolution’
But over the past year, since the outburst of the grassroots Mahsa Amini (Zhina) uprising, Pahlavi and a platoon of militant monarchists have sought to recast him as a leader of this “revolution” as they wish to call it.
It is in that presumed capacity that Pahlavi has now resurfaced as a born-again Zionist and rebranded himself as a contender in any political scenario that might unfold should the protesters demand the collapse of the Islamic Republic and there be a power vacuum.
Pahlavi and his wife, Yasmine, have been gallivanting around Israel – reason and sanity even in his own interests be damned – to promote the cause of “leading” the uprising.
An ‘American politician’
Those who advised Pahlavi to go to Israel seem to know nothing about the nature and history of Iranian anti-colonial nationalism.
Why does the Iranian opposition continue to support a failed approach?
Soraya Lennie
The picture of Pahlavi standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is worse than the picture of Massoud Rajavi, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) leader, sitting on expensive (but still gaudy) armchairs next to Saddam Hussein as he was waging war against Iran.
What is most peculiar about this whole spectacle, and thus the inanity of his visit to Israel, is the fact that in this new gestation, the former crown prince looks like an American politician – say a used-car salesman from Kalamazoo, Michigan, or better yet from one of Florida’s congressional districts – who wishes to run for office and some pollster has told him that there is a serious pro-Israel contingency in his district and that he’d better make a quick visit to Israel and take advantage of some lovely photo ops with “Bibi”.
After Israel, Pahlavi wasted no time flying to Italy and visiting the Vatican. Again, it was nothing remotely resembling a state visit, for he is the son of a deposed monarch from about half-a-century ago with no claim to any sovereign country.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (right) meets with Iranian MEK leader Massoud Rajavi (left) in 1987 (public domain via VOA)
What are we to make of the current unrest in Iran if this Pahlavi and his Zionist enablers have a claim on leading it? Nothing, really, or very little.
Today, too, we must make a clear distinction between the Zhina uprising by masses of millions of Iranians and the outdated hacks like Reza Pahlavi or Maryam Rajavi or Massih Alinejad falsely projecting themselves as its leaders.
They are no such things.
There is, to be sure, a profound nostalgia for the late shah, but these sentiments are not at the heart of this uprising that has had its own logic and basis, and has shaken the Islamic Republic to its foundations.
Tempest in a teapot
Neither Israel nor, in fact, Palestine is an important issue in this current uprising. There are enduring and profound roots in a sustained course of solidarity with the Palestinians in Iran going back to 1948 and the Nakba because of its own anti-colonial struggles that long predate the establishment of the settler colony of Israel and the dispossession of Palestinians – and yet there are also those who so detest the ruling regime in Iran that they extend that hatred to places like Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, or Yemen where the ruling regime has expanded its theatre of operation.
Pahlavi is taken for a ride by his Zionist handlers, who snap his photo at the Wailing Wall (a perfectly fine thing to do), when, as a Muslim, he fails even to look up to see where Haram al-Sharif is located – where the Israeli police savagely attacked praying Palestinians just days before. While visiting the Western Wall, the Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi said: “For peace, freedom, serenity, human dignity and living together. I salute the people of Iran and Israel.”
I am traveling to Israel to deliver a message of friendship from the Iranian people, engage Israeli water experts on ways to address the regime’s abuse of Iran’s natural resources and pay respects to the victims of the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah. I want the people of Israel to know that the Islamic Republic does not represent the Iranian people. The ancient bond between our people can be rekindled for the benefit of both nations. I’m going to Israel to play my role in building toward that brighter future.
Donald Trump is also seen as Cyrus the Great.
From the Jerusalem Post
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