Palestine’s imprint on the 1978-79 revolution and its global vision is indelible. From the outset, when Ayatollah Khomeini staged a revolt from within the clergy against the Shah in the 1960s, the Zionist colonization of Palestine and their ties with the Shah were central to Khomeini’s revolutionary struggle. During the 1970s, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), especially al-Fateh, emerged as a crucial node in the transnational anti-Shah movement. It embraced the Iranian leftist and clerical revolutionaries, provided expertise, training, and links with liberation fighters from around the globe. Some of the Iranians who forged bonds with the PLO became, after 1979, the cofounders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. How did the Palestinian revolution inspire the globalization of the IRGC? How has Palestine defined the Axis of Resistance and propelled it to the center of Middle Eastern politics? By highlighting the 1978-79 revolution’s roots in anti-colonial pan-Islamism and Third-Worldist solidarity, my presentation seeks to respond to these questions in the context of the global 1970s and the Islamist international. I draw insights from archival research and oral history interviews with individuals who were involved in the transnationalism of the revolution to demonstrate how the heroes and martyrs of Palestine inspired the cofounders of the IRGC and its globalization. My presentation will center on the connections between the PLO and roving Iranian revolutionaries in the 1970s, the formation of the Islamic Liberation Movements Unit in the early 1980s, and the establishment of the Qods Force, the extraterritorial branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in the early 1990s. I will revisit this trajectory in relation to the formation of the Axis of Resistance as part of the broader debate about the Qods Force and the axis and their role in the wake of October 7.

Iran and the Palestinian Cause: A History of an Uneasy Pursuit For about 45 years now, the Islamic Republic Government in Iran has produced radical anti-Israel propaganda that is unrivaled in its consistency and severity. After 1979, the Iranian government has been more radical in is discourse than even the most prominent Palestinian resistance organizations, which have at some point in their history acknowledged the need to recognize the Israeli state, and have even worked towards a two-state solution. In this roundtable contribution I point out the intentional detachment of Iran’s propaganda from action and trace its history back to the early post-revolutionary days. Between February 1979, when the revolution succeeded, and September 1980, when the Iraqi invasion of Iran shifted the focus of foreign policy all together, the new state media in Iran had an uneasy relationship with the coverage of the Palestinian resistance, as it was spearheaded by the left-leaning and secular PLO. Based on the coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in state-sponsored newspapers as well as public speeches of the political elite in the following decades, I trace the transformations of this uneasy discourse and study it in parallel to watershed moments of institutional change in Iranian foreign policy. These changes include military transformations such as the dissolution of an early branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, known as the Liberation Movements Branch, and the formation of a different exterritorial branch, i.e. the Quds Force; as well as political changes in Iran and the region, including but not limited to the shifts in Iranian presidency, political election of Hamas, and the start of civil war in Syria. Through this trajectory, I argue that Iran has historically refrained from working towards a solution to the Palestinian plight. Instead, I demonstrate, it has favored the prolongation of the conflict a source of tension in the region, which would in turn justify Iran’s ideological raison d’etre and its Middle East policy at the same time.

On October 17th, 2023, a missile struck Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, resulting in the death of 471 Palestinians. Palestinians attributed the incident to an Israeli airstrike, while Israel pointed the blame at the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militant group. Designated as 'terrorist' by Western governments, PIJ collaborated with Hamas in the October 7 attack, involving rocket launches and the kidnapping of Israeli civilians. Often referred to as the "more violent and uncompromising Hamas’ little brother" (Skare 2021), PIJ is relatively less known than Hamas. The prevailing perception of PIJ typically depicts it as a terrorist group operating in the shadow of Hamas, aiming to destroy Israel with the support of Iran. Who is PIJ? What role does it play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? What links does it has to the 'Axis of Resistance'? These questions matter because today PIJ is the third largest organisation in Palestine after Fatah and Hamas. However, to date, research on this group remains rare. Drawing upon a content analysis on thousands of PIJ’s unedited sources – including public speeches, political reports, military communiques, flyers, slogans, songs, and much more – this paper answers these questions by dispelling three common misconceptions about PIJ: its perceived dependence on Hamas, its radicalism within Palestinian politics, and its characterization as an 'Iranian proxy' in Palestine. By doing so, the paper provides insights into PIJ as a pragmatic and flexible entity, challenging prevalent views that categorize it as a monolithic and terrorist organization in its entirety.

Lebanon’s and Palestine’s shared experiences of occupation and displacement My remarks will address the shared history of occupation and displacement between southern Lebanon and Palestine and the support for resistance. Since October 7, Hezbollah and Israel have been steadily increasing hostilities on Lebanon’s southern border, fueling fears among its inhabitants, and raising the prospect of a full-on war between the two, which would be devastating for the region. It is imperative that the history of Israel’s bombardments, occupation, invasions of Lebanon, and the repeated forced displacement of its residents, is put at the forefront of our understanding of why the Lebanese front remains an active battleground. This current war and resulting displacement, is yet another episode of wars the inhabitants of the border areas on the Lebanese side have been exposed to since Israel’s creation in 1948, known as “Nakba” or “catastrophe” in the Arab world. During Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, several Lebanese border villages were occupied alongside Palestinian villages and their residents displaced. After 1948, a period of emigration to Beirut began, as the southern border villages lost their vital economic, social, and kinship ties to Palestine, disrupting social, economic, and trade relationships. From the late 1960s, there was a continuous gradual and repeated displacement of Lebanese border inhabitants. From 1967, the presence of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanese resistance groups fighting against Israel in South Lebanon began to grow. Israel responded to this mobilization by stepping up its attacks on Lebanese territory. This cumulated with Israel’s invasion of south Lebanon in 1978, in an attempt to destroy the PLO and its supporters. Israel occupied large parts of south Lebanon from 1978 until 2000. Between 1982-1985, the Israeli army occupied about half of the country reaching up to Beirut, laying siege to the capital in the summer of 1982. Based on oral history interviews, archival research, and ethnographic fieldwork I collected in Lebanon between 2009 and 2023 my remarks will explore the common experiences and history of support for Palestinian liberation which is intimately linked to the liberation of south Lebanon from Israeli occupation. I address why given this history there has been steady support for resistance to Israeli aggression in the region.