Carter told Israel not to arm Iran Israel did it anyway | WHEN ISRAEL ARMED IRAN Part 2

History Onion · Part 2 · 2:56

In November 1980, Menachem Begin asked Jimmy Carter for permission to send Israeli weapons to Iran. Carter refused — Iran was holding fifty-two Americans hostage in Tehran, and the sale would break his embargo. Begin promised to comply. He had already shipped. And he did not stop. The record of that meeting is now declassified. Begin never mentioned the shipment he'd already sent, and argued that arming Iran might help free the American hostages. Carter told him it "would be very bad for us." Carter's own note of the meeting ends: "He promised to comply." Why did Israel arm a regime that called it the Little Satan? Because Israel feared an Iraqi victory more. David Kimche, who ran Israel's foreign ministry, put it plainly: they had to stop Iraq winning — and if that meant arming the Ayatollah, so be it.