Iran's exiled crown prince is scheduled to come to Israel this week on a visit that reflects the warm ties his father once had with Israel and the current state of hostility between Israel and the Islamic Republic.

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Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah to rule Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said Sunday that he will be delivering "a message of friendship from the Iranian people."

He is set to participate in Israel's annual Holocaust memorial ceremony on Monday night, said Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who will host him. He is also set to visit a desalination plant, see the Western Wall and meet representatives of the local Bahai community and Israeli Jews of Iranian descent, she said.

Gamliel praised the "brave decision" by Pahlavi to make what she said would be his first visit to Israel. "The crown prince symbolizes a leadership different from that of the ayatollah regime, and leads values of peace and tolerance, in contrast to the extremists who rule Iran," she said.

Pahlavi left Iran at age 17 for military flight school in the US, just before his cancer-stricken father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi abandoned the throne for exile. The revolution followed, with the creation of the Islamic Republic, the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran and the sweeping away of the last vestiges of the American-backed monarchy.

Pahlavi, who still resides in the US, has called for a peaceful revolution that would replace clerical rule with a parliamentary monarchy, enshrine human rights and modernize its state-run economy.

Whether he can galvanize support for a return to power is unknown. His father ruled lavishly and repressively and benefitted from a CIA-supported coup in 1953. The late shah also had close diplomatic and military ties with Israel.

That ended in 1979, when the Iranian revolution's leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, declared Israel an "enemy of Islam" and cut all ties. Today, the countries are arch-enemies. Israel considers Iran to be its greatest threat, citing the country's calls for Israel's destruction, its support of hostile militant groups on Israel's borders and its nuclear program. Iran denies accusations by Israel and its western allies that it is pursuing a nuclear bomb.

"I want the people of Israel to know that the Islamic Republic does not represent the Iranian people. The ancient bond between our people can be rekindled for the benefit of both nations," Pahlavi said on Twitter.

In an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom in 2021, Pahlavi said he believed that the majority of the Iranian people see the Islamic republic's track record in the global theater as a failure, and would therefore be happy to strike peace with the Jewish state.

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Iranian expatriate Atusa Sabagh is leading the protests against the Vienna nuclear talks, holding up a sign calling leaders of the Iranian regime "terrorists."

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Speaking to Israel Hayom, Sabagh explains that the protesters managed to upset, if only momentarily, head of the Iranian delegation to the talks, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bakri Kani.

"He turned in our direction and pointed at us," she says with satisfaction as she discusses the incident, which was caught on camera.

Bakri appeared surprised that the Austrians had allowed the protesters to approach the corner near the Palais Coburg.

In Austria, a logistics official explained, security arrangements are low-key, so aside from police personnel and occasional security checks, there are no barricades set up when events like these talks are under way.

Bakri was able to hear every word the demonstrators yelled at him.

"He was very worried by us," says fellow activist Abbas, who adds, "Bakri is almost [Iranian President] Ebrahim Raisi, he's a terrorist, too."

Safar knows from personal experience how brutal the Iranian regime can be. She fled Iran five years ago after she was arrested and faced a lengthy prison sentence. She says she made her escape via Turkey and is in direct contact with hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter, who tell her about the recent government quashing of protests in Isfahan.

"The regime is drying up the Isfahan area, turning it into desert. I've seen their crimes. The Iranian people are suffering from the crimes of this inhumane regime," she says.

"Every day, I'm in contact with hundreds of thousands of people who support us, not the Iranian terrorist regime," she says.

When asked how people could trust the son of the former shah of Iran, who wants to return to power and says he will not be corrupt like his late father, Safar and Abbas reject the working assumption about the former shah that is prevalent in the West.

"Do you really believe the shah was corrupt? There weren't more than 300,000 people who took to the streets in 1979," they say.

Q: But he wasn't particularly popular, right?

"That's wrong. We don't believe that. In Isfahan, people are shouting, 'Death to the dictator! Bring back the shah of Iran! God bless Reza Shah, and long live the king!'"

Q: Do you have anything to say to the people of Israel?

"We, the Iranians, always loved the Jewish people, for thousands of years. We were always friends and fought terrorism together."

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Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of Monday's 40th anniversary of the attack, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh acknowledged that the repercussions of the crisis still reverberate as tensions remain high between the US and Iran over Tehran's collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.

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Asgharzadeh cautioned others against following in his footsteps, despite the takeover becoming enshrined in hard-line mythology. He also disputed a revisionist history now being offered by supporters of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that they directed the attack, insisting all the blame rested with the Islamist students who let the crisis spin out of control.

"Like Jesus Christ, I bear all the sins on my shoulders," Asgharzadeh said.

At the time, what led to the 1979 takeover remained obscure to Americans who for months could only watch in horror as TV newscasts showed Iranian protests at the embassy. Popular anger against the US was rooted in the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that toppled Iran's elected prime minister and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The shah, dying from cancer, fled Iran in February 1979, paving the way for its Islamic Revolution. But for months, Iran faced widespread unrest ranging from separatist attacks, worker revolts and internal power struggles. Police reported for work but not for duty, allowing chaos like Marxist students briefly seizing the US Embassy.

In this power vacuum, then-US President Jimmy Carter allowed the shah to seek medical treatment in New York. That lit the fuse for the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover, though at first the Islamist students argued over which embassy to seize. A student leader named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later became president in 2005, argued they should seize the Soviet Embassy compound in Tehran as leftists had caused political chaos.

But the students settled on the US Embassy, hoping to pressure Carter to send the shah back to Iran to stand trial on corruption charges. Asgharzadeh, then a 23-year-old engineering student, remembers friends going to Tehran's Grand Bazaar to buy a bolt cutter, a popular tool used by criminals, and the salesman saying: "You do not look like thieves! You certainly want to open up the US Embassy door with it!"

"The society was ready for it to happen. Everything happened so fast," Asgharzadeh said. "We cut off the chains on the embassy's gate. Some of us climbed up the walls and we occupied the embassy compound very fast."

Like other former students, Asgharzadeh said the plan had been simply to stage a sit-in. But the situation soon spun out of their control. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the long-exiled Shiite cleric whose return to Iran sparked the revolution, gave his support to the takeover. He would use that popular angle to expand the Islamists' power.

"We, the students, take responsibility for the first 48 hours of the takeover," Asgharzadeh said. "Later, it was out of our hands since the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the establishment supported it."

He added: "Our plan was one of students, unprofessional and temporary."

As time went on, it slowly dawned on the naive students that Americans wouldn't join their revolution. While a rescue attempt by the US military would fail and Carter would lose to Ronald Reagan amid the crisis, the US as a whole expressed worry about the hostages by displaying yellow ribbons and counting the days of their captivity.

As the months passed, things only got worse. Asgharzadeh said he thought it would end once the shah left America or later with his death in Egypt in July 1980. It didn't.

"A few months after the takeover, it appeared to be turning into a rotten fruit hanging down from a tree and no one had the courage to take it down and resolve the matter," he said. "There was a lot of public opinion support behind the move in the society. The society felt it had slapped America, a superpower, on the mouth and people believed that the takeover proved to America that their democratic revolution had been stabilized."

It hadn't, though. The eight-year Iran-Iraq War would break out during the crisis. The hostage crisis and later the war boosted the position of hard-liners who sought strict implementation of their version of Islamic beliefs.

Seizing or attacking diplomatic posts remains a tactic of Iranian hard-liners to this day. A mob stormed the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011, while another attacked diplomatic posts of Saudi Arabia in 2016, which led to diplomatic ties being cut between Tehran and Riyadh. And Iran will commemorate the 40th anniversary of US Embassy takeover on Monday by staging a rally in front of the Tehran compound where it was located.

However, Asgharzadeh denied that Iran's then-nascent Revolutionary Guard directed the US Embassy takeover, although he said it was informed before the attack over fears that security forces would storm the compound and retake it. Many at the time believed the shah would launch a coup, like in 1953, to regain power.

"In a very limited way, we informed one of the Guard's units and they accepted to protect the embassy from outside," Asgharzadeh said. "The claim [by hard-liners] on the Guard's role lacks credit. I am the main narrator of the incident and I am still alive."

In the years since, Asgharzadeh has become a reformist politician and served prison time for his views. He has argued that Iran should work toward improving ties with the US, a difficult task amid US President Donald Trump's maximalist campaign against Tehran.

"It is too difficult to say when the relations between Tehran and Washington can be restored," Asgharzadeh said. "I do not see any prospect."

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In what many considered a victory in a decadeslong fight by women in Iran to attend sporting events, they wrapped themselves in the country's vibrant red, green and white colors and watched with excitement as Iran thrashed Cambodia 14-0 in a 2022 World Cup qualifier at Tehran's Azadi, or Freedom, Stadium.

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"We are so happy that finally we got the chance to go to the stadium. It's an extraordinary feeling," said Zahra Pashaei, a 29-year-old nurse who has only known soccer games from television. "At least for me, 22 or 23 years of longing and regret lies behind this."

As one woman shouted from a passing minibus before the match: "We are here finally!"

So far, Iran's hard-line Islamic theocracy is not willing to go as far as some women would like. Authorities announced they will allow women to attend only international soccer matches.

Women have been banned from many sporting events in Iran since 1981, during the early years of the country's Islamic Revolution. Iran is the world's last nation to bar women from soccer matches. Saudi Arabia recently began letting women see games.

Under pressure from FIFA, Iran let a carefully controlled number of women into the stadium, allocating them 4,000 tickets in a venue that seats about 80,000 people and arranged for 150 female security personnel in black chadors to watch them. They sat at least 200 meters (218 yards) from the few thousand men at the match.

'We are so happy that finally we got the chance to go to the stadium. It's an extraordinary feeling'

Iranian state television, which long has been controlled by hard-liners, aired footage of women cheering, and commentators even acknowledged their presence.

"There can be no stopping or turning back now," FIFA President Gianni Infantino said in a statement. "History teaches us that progress comes in stages, and this is just the beginning of a journey."

Iran faced a potential ban from FIFA international matches if it didn't allow women into the game. The pressure from FIFA and Iran's soccer-loving public has grown since September, when an Iranian woman detained for dressing as a man to sneak into a match set herself on fire and died upon learning she could get six months in prison.

The self-immolation of 29-year-old Sahar Khodayari, who became known as the "Blue Girl" for her love of the Iranian team Esteghlal, whose uniforms are blue, shocked Iranian officials and the public.

At the match Thursday, a reporter with Iran's state-run IRNA news agency posted a video online of chador-wearing officers trying to grab a woman she said had a sign in Khodayari's honor. The crowd could be heard chanting, "Let her go!" The reporter wrote on Twitter that the woman slipped away from officers and ran off.

Hard-liners and traditional Shiite clerics, citing their interpretation of Islamic law, believe in segregating men and women at public events, as well as keeping women out of men's sporting events.

The effort to allow women back into stadiums has gone through fits and starts.

In 2006, then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wanted women to attend matches to "improve soccer-watching manners and promote a healthy atmosphere." However, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state, opposed the decision.

Then, last year, Iranian authorities allowed a select group of women into Azadi Stadium by invitation only to watch the Asian Champion League final.

Infantino said that "FIFA now looks more than ever toward a future when all girls and women wishing to attend football matches in Iran will be free to do so, and in a safe environment."

Activist groups outside of Iran remain suspicious of Tehran.

Amnesty International called the latest decision "a cynical publicity stunt by the authorities intended to whitewash their image."

"Instead of taking halfhearted steps to address their discriminatory treatment of women who want to watch football, the Iranian authorities should lift all restrictions on women attending football matches, including domestic league games, across the country," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa research and advocacy director.

Still, many in Iran embraced the move, like shopkeeper Amir Ali Bagheri, who sold Pashaei a Team Melli jersey ahead of the match.

Women "are so excited they are going to the stadium," he said. "God willing, there will be freedom sooner so that they can attend all matches, not just the national team matches. That will be much better."

After the match, Pashaei said she hoped authorities would open up more matches to women so she could attend them with her family.

"The 'Blue Girl' and her stories did help. Of course, efforts by women activists and feminists were very effective," she said. "We are happy anyway and hope this will continue, not just in national team matches."

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The targets are being used in drills designed to simulate fighting in populated urban areas.

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In June, a report from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs revealed that the IRGC was actively working to arm various terrorist organizations in Judea and Samaria, with the hope of sparking fresh hostilities against Israel.

Former IRGC commander Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi said on Quds Day (May 31) that support for the Palestinians was a fundamental principle of the Islamic Revolution, and would continue until the "Zionist regime" was eliminated. Safavi praised the upgraded weapons the Palestinians have been using and stressed that the "blessed" process of procuring advanced weaponry was still underway.

In April, Trump designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization, the first time the US formally labeled another country's military a terrorist group.

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