Where does the clock begin?  The politics of choosing history

For those who don’t automatically take a side, or those who might be aligned but not completely onboard with the actions of its side, the war at the moment is at a stage of assessment, of ascertaining which side is ever slightly more inclined towards justice than the other.

Justice is not about affiliations, ideologies, technological advancement or military might, but about actions in the backdrop of memory and interpretation. And all this boils down to one decision, and that is what one decides to be the point at which the conflict began.

For Israel, the logical starting point of its confrontation with Iran is the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Before that moment, Iran was not perceived as an adversary. Under the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Israel and Iran maintained discreet yet meaningful strategic ties. Both countries saw themselves as non-Arab actors navigating a volatile regional environment, and cooperation between them extended across multiple domains, including intelligence coordination, economic exchanges, and limited security collaboration.

The revolution, however, transformed that relationship with remarkable speed. The Islamic Republic that replaced the monarchy adopted an openly hostile posture toward Israel, refusing to recognise its legitimacy and incorporating opposition to Israel into its ideological identity. From Israel’s perspective, the decades that followed appeared to confirm and deepen this threat perception. Iran expanded its missile capabilities, strengthened its regional alliances, and provided support to militant groups across the Middle East, most notably Hezbollah in Lebanon. Over time, concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions further intensified Israeli strategic anxieties. Seen from this vantage point, Israeli actions - ranging from covert intelligence operations and cyber campaigns to occasional military strikes - are framed not as acts of aggression but as measures of prevention. If the starting point of the story is 1979, Israel’s policies can be interpreted as the defensive response of a relatively small state confronting a revolutionary regime that has, for decades, questioned its legitimacy and security. The timeline matters profoundly. Begin the story in 1979, and Israel appears as a state reacting to a persistent threat rather than one generating the conflict itself.

Iran’s narrative, however, begins earlier. In Tehran’s telling, the story does not start with the Iranian Revolution but with the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and the regional upheaval that followed. The creation of Israel triggered the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, an event that remains deeply embedded in the political consciousness of the Middle East. For many in the region, this moment represents the foundational grievance of modern regional politics - a historical rupture that continues to shape perceptions of justice, sovereignty, and legitimacy. Iranian leaders frequently frame their policies within this broader historical context. Their support for allied groups across the region is presented not as an act of aggression toward Israel but as an expression of solidarity with Palestinians and opposition to what they perceive as an unjust regional order shaped by Western intervention and geopolitical power structures.

Within this narrative, Israel’s military actions against Iranian allies - whether in Lebanon, Syria, or elsewhere - are interpreted as part of a longer pattern of regional dominance. Iran, in turn, portrays itself as a counterbalancing force within what it describes as a broader “resistance” front. If the story begins in 1948, the conflict appears less as a bilateral rivalry between two states and more as a continuation of the unresolved tensions that have defined the Arab-Israeli struggle for decades. Once again, the starting point reshapes the moral framework. Begin the narrative in 1948, and Iran appears not as the instigator of the conflict but as a later participant in a much older regional dispute.

The Politics of Historical Memory

What emerges from these competing narratives is a simple yet powerful insight: history is rarely neutral in geopolitical argument. States consciously choose the moment at which the story begins, and that decision determines the moral architecture of the narrative that follows. Starting the timeline in 1979 emphasises ideological hostility and modern security threats. Beginning it in 1948 highlights questions of territory, displacement, and historical grievance. Both starting points contain elements of truth. Yet neither offers a complete account of the deeper historical forces that shaped the region. Long before Israel existed, and decades before the Iranian Revolution, another pivotal moment had already begun to influence the political future of the Middle East. In 1917, during the First World War, the British government issued a brief but consequential statement known as the Balfour Declaration. In a short letter, Britain expressed its support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” while simultaneously asserting that the rights of the non-Jewish communities living there should not be harmed. Within this brief statement lies a profound and unresolved contradiction. The declaration appeared to support two aspirations simultaneously - Jewish national self-determination and the rights of the Arab population already inhabiting the land - without offering a clear political framework capable of reconciling these competing visions.

At the time, Britain exercised authority over the region through the British Mandate for Palestine, established following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The declaration effectively transformed the Zionist movement from a political aspiration into a project backed by imperial power. Jewish immigration to Palestine increased significantly in the decades that followed, driven both by Zionist ambitions and by the pressures of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. At the same time, Arab communities grew increasingly apprehensive, fearing that the declaration threatened their own political future and demographic balance.

The tensions generated by these competing national aspirations intensified during the 1920s and 1930s. By the time Britain withdrew from Palestine in 1948, the political landscape had hardened into rival national movements with fundamentally incompatible visions of sovereignty. It would be simplistic to suggest that Britain alone “caused” the conflicts that followed. History rarely unfolds in such a linear manner. Yet the Balfour Declaration serves as a powerful illustration of how decisions made by imperial powers can reverberate across generations. By endorsing the creation of a national home for one people in a territory already inhabited by another, while failing to establish a political structure capable of accommodating both, Britain helped create a structural tension that would shape the region’s future. The conflicts that emerged after 1948, the alliances that developed during the Cold War, and even the modern rivalry between Israel and Iran all exist within a political landscape shaped in part by those earlier decisions. Every conflict carries with it a narrative about its origins, and the choice of that starting point often determines who appears justified and who appears responsible. Each starting point tells a different story about responsibility, legitimacy, and self-defence. Each contains elements of truth, yet each remains incomplete on its own. In geopolitics, history rarely functions simply as a record of the past; it becomes an argument about the present, and as long as the timelines themselves remain contested, the conflicts built upon them are unlikely to disappear, even in the future.

The writer is an Advisor at the Chintan Research Foundation and has expertise in emerging technology, global energy policy, defence & macroeconomics; views are personal