Eurasia Press & News
Reza Pahlavi’s trip to Israel and his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to be part of his campaign to garner support for regime change in Iran, as the opposition camps were scrambling for unity.
A visit to Israel this week by Iran’s last crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has cost him a barrage of diatribes, particularly from hard-liners in his home country.
Pahlavi, who has been in exile since the ouster of his father, Mohammad Reza, in the 1979 Islamic revolution, landed in Israel on Monday, sat down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, paid tribute to Holocaust victims and prayed at the Western Wall.
The 62-year-old opposition figure who is advocating for regime change in Iran said his country and Israel could stand as “strategic partners.” Pahlavi was admired by Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel who described him as a fighter for “the justice and freedom that Iranians deserve.”
Yet the crown prince photographed in meetings with leaders of the Islamic Republic’s sworn enemy, unsurprisingly, drew fire from hard-liners and government loyalists at home.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of #Iran’s Shah visits #Israel, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. pic.twitter.com/DarVdEumHf
— عبدالرحمن Abdulrahman (@3bdulr2hmn) April 18, 2023The ultra-conservative daily, Vatan Emrooz, known for its scathing headlines targeting critics, described Pahlavi as a “beggar stretching his hand for help toward the Zionist regime.”
Since mid-September, when Iran was engulfed in a wave of unrest following 22-year-old Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody, Pahlavi has been presenting a much more active profile as an opposition figure, supporting a nonviolent campaign of civil disobedience. He has also been seen attempting to bury differences with other opposition groups and mobilizing them for the common goal of toppling the Islamic Republic.
“The question is how on earth would the Iranian people ever leave their fate to the mercy of such a person with such level of foolishness,” the hard-line paper asked, arguing that Pahlavi’s Israel visit came against a backdrop of rifts within the exiled opposition in search of new solutions for their regime change plans.
In multiple public speeches, however, Pahlavi has pledged not to seek reinstatement of the monarchy, saying he envisions a transition stage in which Iranians will go past the Islamic Republic with free elections and by voting for a new constitution.
Elsewhere, conservative lawmaker Esmail Kowsari, who is also a brigadier general with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, expressed his criticism through pejorative language and body-shaming the crown prince, referring to him as a “child” who lacks the ability to make distinctions. “He shouldn’t have gone there,” the parliamentarian told Dideban-e Iran news outlet. “But he did so as he has no discretion and acts as a servant [of Israel] who is ordered to obey.”
On social media, debates over the visit have heated up over the past few days. Islamic Republic loyalists have unleashed ferocious attacks, ridiculing Pahlavi for meeting his “master” and claiming that he did not receive a warm welcome.
While a majority of opposition activists applauded Pahlavi, some criticized him by pointing out the far-right leanings of the sitting Israeli prime minister.
“The main partners of the protest movement in Iran are activists from regional and global civil rights movements and politicians who are fighting for equal human rights, not far-right, extremist, war-mongering fascists who are detested even in their own countries,” wrote Fatemeh Shams, a political activist and University of Pennsylvania lecturer of Persian literature.
جنبش #ژن_ژيان_ئازادی از روز نخست یک جنبش رهایی‌بخش بوده و با تمام جنبش‌های رهایی‌بخش منطقه و جهان پیوندی نزدیک و معنادار داشته و دارد. متّحدان اصلی این جنبش، فعالان جنبش‌های مدنی و سیاستمدارانی هستند که برای حقوق برابر انسانی شهروندانشان می‌جنگند، نه راست‌گرایان افراطی جنگ‌طلب و… pic.twitter.com/1iHTKL7Lpg
— Fatemeh (Shahrzad) Shams (@ShazzShams) April 18, 2023Shams was responding to women’s rights activist, journalist and one of the leading opposition figures, Masih Alinejad, who has thrown her weight behind Pahlavi and the Israel visit. According to Alinejad, the trip underlined “the clear message that following the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, peace and friendship will replace hatred and hostility in the region.”
