Iran, Israel and the Lost Legacy of Natural Resource Cooperation
Drip Irrigation System in Lorestan, Iran. Photo by Saeed Yeganeh
The current war between Iran and Israel should not prevent us from reimagining a future of peace between these current foes. Indeed, within living memory, there was a time when Iran and Israel cooperated extensively on a range of issues, most notably on natural resources and environmental technologies. Before the Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran and Israel had relatively close relations that came out of collective suspicion of neighboring Arab states. After Türkiye, Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel's sovereignty. Reza Shah Pahlavi, the ruler of Iran before the revolution saw the value of cooperating with Israel for economic and technical reasons.
The nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 by Egypt and the ensuing conflict led to Israel and Iran cooperating on the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline which would negate the need for using the canal for oil transport from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. The company was set up as a 50/50 joint venture between the two governments and started flowing oil in 1968. Iran helped Israel with oil supply during subsequent constraints on credit and is still asking through tribunals for the debt payments of over a billion dollars from that era of cooperation. In 2015, a Swiss court ordered Israel to pay back Iran which it has refused to do given provisions of the 'Trading with the Enemy Act' of the United States.
Israel's support for Iran during natural disasters was particularly noteworthy after the devastating Buin-Zahra earthquake in the Qazvin region which killed more than 12,000 people. Moshe Dayan was the Agricultural Minister of Israel at the time and was planning to visit Iran just before the earthquake struck. Although his visit as postponed, Dayan offered a comprehensive plan for use of relief funds towards more sustainable urban revitalization of the region. He dispatched urban planner Micha Talmon and architect Yehuda Drexler to develop a comprehensive plan with transfer of technology and expertise. This episode has been documented in detail by researchers Rachel Kallus and Neta Feniger in an open-source article with copies of original manuscripts and interviews.
Even after the Iranian revolution, Iran and Israel had opportunistic cooperation albeit largely around the military industrial complex that is well-researched by Trita Parsi in his notable book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States. As far as agricultural technologies are concerned, there has been no direct cooperation after the revolution but many of the drip irrigation systems which were set up during the 1960s and 1970s remain active to this day. The name of Netafim, the Israeli drip irrigation firm, which was established by the pioneering engineer Simcha Bass, is still used in agricultural equipment sales in Iran.
Having visited both Iran and Israel, I see much in common between the ancient cultures of both lands. They have ecological commonalities as well that could be a source of enduring ties along with their Arab neighbors. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington issued a report in 2023 on the 'Unique Promise of Environmental Cooperation in the Gulf,' which in a future peace scenario could include Israel as well. At the Expo 2020, following the Abraham Accords, Israel had a prominent pavilion in Dubai which had a focus on environmental technologies. While the current conflict may lead us to think such cooperation is fanciful, who could have thought that the U.S. and Japan would be G7 allies after a nuclear bombing within a generation? Peace can come swiftly -- and when there is already a legacy of natural resource cooperation to build upon, we should hold out hope for both Israel and Iran finding a better future together.
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