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if(window.location.pathname.indexOf(“647856”) != -1) {console.log(“hedva connatix”);document.getElementsByClassName(“divConnatix”)[0].style.display =”none”;}Iran has chosen Israel as a target for its rhetoric because it pays off in terms of Iran’s status in the region, but Israel is not the reason for Iran’s motivation to acquire nuclear weapons.As in Israel, the Iranian public is one of the most educated and creative in the world. The Iranian people, from all over the Muslim world, are most similar to us Israelis.The governments of Israel and Iran are similar in the disproportionate influence of religious leaders and the lack of separation between religion and state, as opposed to liberal democracies. Israel often talks about the lack of democracy in Iran, but in the global ranking of democracies, Iran is ahead of Saudi Arabia, which we see as a moderate country. In Iran, it is remembered that the West supported the tyranny of the shah and that the United States assisted in a coup that brought the shah to power instead of a semi-democratic Mosaddegh regime. Israel, on the other hand, is in the process of declining in the democracy index.Extremist elements in Iran have grown stronger thanks to the hysterical treatment of Iran by Israel and the United States. During the Gulf War, the Bush administration overthrew Iran’s enemy in Iraq – the Sunni Ba’ath party – and turned it into a chaotic Shi’ite-dominated state. Israel helped Iran export the revolution to Lebanon during its long stay in Lebanon after an unnecessary war (in which I participated) that turned Hezbollah into a legitimate organization in the eyes of the Lebanese.Netanyahu encouraged president George Bush to overthrow the Ba’athist regime in Iraq. Netanyahu encouraged President Donald Trump to abandon the JCPOA agreement between Iran and the powers (P5 + 1). The abandonment of the agreement dismantled the international coalition that imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, which eventually brought Iran into negotiations; weakened Rouhani’s moderate leadership, which prefers a functioning economy to regional hegemony, strengthened extremist Revolutionary Guards, and brought Iran closer to a nuclear weapon.I still remember as a diplomat serving in the US that the line we presented was that sanctions were not enough to bring about a change in Iranian policy, and after the agreement was signed, that if only they had continued with the sanctions, Iran would have surrendered.I remember the concern we expressed during the negotiations about the possibility that president Barack Obama would include regional agreements with Iran. And after the agreement was signed, Obama was accused of failing to reach a regional agreement that would prevent Iran from promoting terrorism. The alarmist Israeli position has caused harm and continues to do so. Israel is perceived as inconsistent, failing to convince the Europeans, Russians and Chinese, whose cooperation is necessary.Israel must be part of an international coalition trying to reach an agreement with Iran that will prevent it from reaching a nuclear bomb, but it must be understood that an agreement requires compromise. Israel must prevent Iran from transferring weapons to Hezbollah, but alongside military action, smart diplomacy must be exercised vis-à-vis Lebanon, where the mechanism of negotiations about the naval border can serve as an opportunity. Israel needs to find ways to reach out to the Iranian people and make a clear separation between our attitude toward the ayatollah’s regime and our attitude toward the general public.The Iranian people are a proud people who do not support the rule of the ayatollahs, but want the change to come from within and not from outside intervention. A day will come and this proud people will change the political reality in Iran and the Arab Spring will also become the “Persian Spring.”One can find Iranian exiles in the West who will say that an overthrow of the regime by US force will be welcomed there with flowers, as there were Iraqi exiles who claimed this before the attack on Iraq, and we know how that ended.Another very important point of similarity between the Iranian and Israeli governments is that they are the only governments in the world that do not support the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and both benefit politically from this conflict as well as from the conflict between them.The Iranian position is understandable, the only way the apocalyptic calls of its leaders against Israel be realized is if we fail to reach a two-state solution with the Palestinians and the status quo will eliminate us demographically or morally. But in this case, it is us eliminating Zionism, not the Iranians. The possible change of leadership in the US is an opportunity for Israel to change course to a more appropriate policy also in terms of the Iranian challenge.The writer is an adviser for international affairs at the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, a member of the board of directors at Mitvim – the Israel Institute of Regional Foreign Policy and of J Street Israel. He served as political adviser to president Shimon Peres, and served in the embassy in Washington and as consul-general to New England in Boston.