A delegation of Iranian opposition figures from the United States and Europe traveled to Israel this week for a series of meetings meant to strengthen ties between Israelis and the Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic. The group included business and community leaders, journalists, activists, and representatives of Iran’s Christian community, and its agenda centered on an idea organizers are calling “Iranian Zionism.”

The premise is straightforward but ambitious: that Iran’s opposition, scattered across exile communities in the West, can learn practical lessons from the Zionist movement that built the modern State of Israel — and adapt that model of diaspora organizing, institution-building, and national rebirth to prepare for the day the Islamic Republic falls.

Events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem this week were organized in cooperation with the Abrahamic Movement, the Jerusalem Interfaith Center, the Cyrus Fund, and Project Aftab, which organizers describe as the first Israeli-Iranian collaboration of its kind since the 1979 revolution. Delegates met with Israeli political and civil leaders, business figures, and public diplomacy organizations, along with briefings for opinion leaders, executives, and innovators. Additional events are planned, including one for Israel’s crypto community.

A Movement With Ancient Roots

The bridge organizers are building rests on a foundation more than two millennia old. Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC, freed the Jewish exiles held there and permitted them to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple — an act remembered in Jewish scripture and, in the Book of Isaiah, one that names Cyrus God’s anointed, a ruler raised up to accomplish His purpose. For a delegation seeking common ground between two ancient peoples, that history is not incidental. It is the argument.

“Cyrus the Great, the father of the Iranian nation, is also the first Zionist and the liberator of the Jewish people. There is a secretive alliance between Israelis and Iranians. It’s not always on the table, but we share the same past.”

Tom Wegner — CEO, Abrahamic Movement; Co-Founder, Cyrus Fund

Wegner went further, framing the Islamic Republic itself as the common enemy of both peoples: the regime, he said, is killing Iranians even as it works to encircle Israel with terror. In his telling, the children of Israel and the children of Cyrus stand together against that injustice, bound by the same history and now by the same threat.

Studying the Zionist Blueprint

For the organizers, “Iranian Zionism” is less a slogan than a working method. The idea is to study how the Zionist movement built institutions, communities, and political infrastructure abroad long before 1948 — and to treat that as a template an Iranian opposition scattered across the diaspora can follow toward its own goal: taking their country back.

“The idea is really to copy what we have achieved successfully with Zionism and adapt it to the Iranian situation. They need to get their country back.”

Shachar Tal — CEO, Cyrus Fund

Voices From the Delegation

Iranian-American investor and advisor Ameen Soleimani, on his fifth visit to Israel, argued that most Iranians do not view the Jewish state as an enemy, whatever four decades of regime propaganda have insisted. He pointed to the Israeli flags that regularly appear at major Iranian diaspora protests against the regime, and to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s 2023 visit to Israel — including a stop at the Western Wall — as a moment that broke a longstanding taboo. Soleimani estimated that genuine popular support for the regime inside Iran runs only around 10 to 15 percent, though he acknowledged that independent polling is nearly impossible under the current level of repression.

Activist Lily Moo, who has led protests in London both against the Iranian regime and in support of Israel, described the delegation’s goal as building “a positive civilian bridge” and applying what she called the successful Zionist blueprint of nation-building to Iran’s own future.

“The Iranian people are held hostage by the regime. As soon as the oppressive regime of the ayatollah falls, the fruitful friendship of the Iranian people and the Israelis will be witnessed by the world.”

Lily Moo — Activist, London

Additional delegates included senior journalist Panthea Modiri and Pastor Foad Khorshidi, representing Iran’s Christian community. Israeli meetings involved officials from the Foreign Ministry and Knesset member Akram Hasson.

Faith, Persecution, and a Shared Enemy

Organizers were careful throughout the week to distinguish the Iranian people from the government that rules them, rejecting any notion of permanent enmity between the two nations. Iran and Israel maintained close, often quiet ties before the 1979 Islamic Revolution; it is the current regime, delegates argued, that made hostility toward Israel and support for regional terror proxies central to its identity — and that same regime, they said, is the one persecuting Iran’s own religious minorities, including the Christian community represented in the delegation.

That framing runs through the initiative’s broader vocabulary as well, including references to what organizers call the “Cyrus Accords” — a phrase meant to evoke both the ancient partnership between Persia and the Jewish people and a hoped-for future one, built once the Islamic Republic is gone.

Looking Toward a Free Iran

None of the delegates who spoke this week claimed the regime’s fall is imminent. What they described instead was groundwork: relationships, institutions, and a shared narrative that can outlast the current government and be ready the moment it does fall. Participants presented the week’s meetings as a small but deliberate step toward regional realignment after regime change — one delegation, one set of meetings, built on the premise that the friendship between two ancient peoples was never really broken, only interrupted.

This report draws on statements and interviews gathered during delegation events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, coordinated by the Abrahamic Movement, the Jerusalem Interfaith Center, the Cyrus Fund, and Project Aftab.