Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi Visits Israel and Invokes Cyrus the Great — Vows a Free Iran Will Become Israel's Greatest Ally in the Entire Middle East

In one of the most symbolically powerful moments in Middle Eastern politics in decades, Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi traveled to Israel and delivered a message that cut straight through 45 years of Islamic Republic hatred and hostility — invoking the legacy of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who freed the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity 25 centuries ago and enabled the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, to declare that the historic friendship between the Persian and Jewish peoples is not dead but merely suppressed by a murderous theocratic regime in Tehran. Pahlavi's visit was not simply a diplomatic gesture — it was a declaration of civilizational solidarity, a rejection of the ayatollahs' genocidal ideology, and a vivid reminder that the Iran the mullahs rule today is not the Iran that Iranians themselves chose or desire. Standing on Israeli soil, the heir to the Peacock Throne made clear that the bond between Persia and the Jewish people stretches back millennia and cannot be extinguished by the revolutionary fanaticism of 1979. It was a moment of extraordinary moral and historical courage.

"I went to Israel to show that we are the descendants of Cyrus the Great, who 25 centuries ago helped free the Jewish people and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem." — Reza Pahlavi