(CNSNews.com) – The son of the late Shah of Iran is due to arrive in Israel on Monday for a visit rich in symbolism at a time when the clerical regime that deposed his father is stepping up its support for Palestinian terrorist groups in their shared campaign against the Jewish state.
“I want the people of Israel to know that the Islamic Republic does not represent the Iranian people,” Reza Pahlavi said on Sunday, ahead of his first visit to Israel.
“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.”
Pahlavi said he would be carrying “a message of peace and friendship from the Iranian people in the spirit of Cyrus the Great” – a reference to the Persian king who allowed the ancient Jewish nation to return from their Babylonian exile and rebuild the destroyed Temple 2,500 years ago.
Pahlavi, who has lived in exile since Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, will be hosted in Israel by Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who said she was looking forward to his visit “and starting to build bridges between our nations.”
“The crown prince symbolizes a leadership different from that of the ayatollah regime, and leads values of peace and tolerance, in contrast to the extremists who rule Iran,” Gamliel said.
The visit will include participation in Holocaust Memorial Day events at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem memorial on Monday evening, together with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog.
According to a statement posted on his Twitter account, he plans to deliver remarks “outlining his vision for an Iranian democracy that celebrates freedoms of speech and religion, safeguards human rights, protects its natural resources, and invests its treasure in the Iranian people rather than foreign terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
The Iranian regime’s support for those groups has been highlighted again during the month of Ramadan, when Hamas terrorists used Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon to fire rockets into northern Israel amid tensions at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah then held coordination talks in Beirut, where they were photographed seated in front of portraits of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
During that time, according to a Wall Street Journal report, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Esmail Ghaani, met at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut with leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.
On Friday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a virtual speech to Hamas and Islamic Jihad “leaders and commanders” in Gaza reaffirmed the Tehran regime’s support for “the resistance front” and said all indicators point to the fact that “the Zionist regime is declining.”
Friday was “Quds Day,” an annual event on the last Friday of Ramadan launched in 1979 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as an expression of opposition to the State of Israel.
At rallies in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran, Israeli and U.S. flags were burned as demonstrators chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”
In stark contrast to the officially encouraged sentiment stoked in such events, Pahlavi pointed to longstanding historical bonds between the Iranians and Jews, dating back to Cyrus and the biblical Queen Esther.
He said millions of Iranians “reject the regime’s genocidal anti-Israel and anti-Semitic policies and yearn for cultural, scientific, and economic exchange with Israel. A democratic Iran will seek to re-establish ties with Israel and our Arab neighbors – perhaps as part of a future Cyrus Accords. In my view, that day is closer than ever.”
‘Secular, democratic’
Iran-born pro-democracy campaigner Mariam Memarsadeghi, founder and director of the Cyrus Forum, called the planned visit “uplifting and historic.”
Imagine the global transformation when Iran is democratic,” she tweeted. “Israel and Iran have a friendship dating back to Cyrus The Great’s decree of religious freedom and universal rights. A heritage fundamentally at odds with the evil that has taken Iran captive.”
While the U.S.-backed Shah ruled as an autocrat until the 1979 revolution, his son speaks in favor of a peaceful transition to a democratic Iran.
At a press conference in Washington last fall, Pahlavi said a diverse and pluralistic interim government needs to be ready to take the reins, and it should oversee a referendum “to determine the form of secular, democratic government” Iran will have.
He pledged that he will not seek power or political office for himself.
Pahlavi was speaking against the backdrop of protests sweeping Iran following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman arrested by the morality police enforcing the regime’s hijab rules.
The continuing protests recently passed the 200-day mark. More than 530 Iranians including at least 68 children are reported to have been killed by regime forces cracking down on dissent, and tens of thousands have been detained.
During his visit to Israel, Pahlavi plans to meet with water and agriculture experts, exploring “the possibility of utilizing Israel’s water technology expertise to reverse Iran’s water crisis caused by decades of the Islamic Republic’s corruption and mismanagement.”
He also will visit the Western Wall in Jerusalem, meet with Israelis of Iranian descent and with representatives of the Baha’i community. The regime in Tehran does not recognize the Baha’i religion and views its adherents – who comprise one of Iran’s largest minority groups – as apostates.