Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last Shah during an interview with Christian Malard on i24NEWS. Photo: i24 News

i24 News – Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former Iranian Shah, is set to visit Israel on Monday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Pahlavi is the eldest son of Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was sent into exile following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

In a tweet, Pahlavi said that he is traveling to Israel to “deliver a message of friendship from the Iranian people.”

“I am traveling to Israel to deliver a message of friendship from the Iranian people, engage Israeli water experts on ways to address the regime’s abuse of Iran’s natural resources and pay respects to the victims of the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah.”

He continued, “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. I’m going to Israel to play my role in building toward that brighter future.”

I am traveling to Israel to deliver a message of friendship from the Iranian people, engage Israeli water experts on ways to address the regime’s abuse of Iran’s natural resources and pay respects to the victims of the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah.

I want the people of Israel to… pic.twitter.com/wyzlqqm9A2

— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) April 16, 2023

Pahlavi is outspoken and regularly criticizes Iran’s Islamic Republic regime over the mistreatment of women and their pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Last September, he called for the West to support the Iranian people in removing the regime in Tehran during an interview with i24NEWS senior diplomatic correspondent Christian Malard that aired on his show Malard at Large.

“Resources should be allocated to support the Iranian people to get rid of this regime,” Pahlavi said.

He urged aiding anti-regime elements within Iranian society instead of direct military conflict, adding that he supports a democratically-elected government with a separation of church and state to lead the country.

Pahlavi accused Iran’s ayatollahs of using “nuclear blackmail” to get their way in indirect nuclear talks with the United States, saying a newly-signed deal would be “worse” than the one signed in 2015.

“The Iranian regime has the capability, the technology and the material to fabricate a bomb,” Pahlavi said.

“The bigger problem has always been and remains the same: it’s the finger on the trigger that is the problem. And as such, obviously this regime is a threat.”

The son of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza, accused Iran’s current leaders of using the threat of a nuclear bomb as leverage to export radicalism outside of its borders, including Syria and the Horn of Africa.

The failure of the original Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, resulted in “the regime becoming even more radical.”

“Repeating the same mistake with hindsight is even worse than the first one,” he added.

This past February, Pahlavi spoke to i24NEWS about the ongoing anti-regime protests in Iran and why the end of the mullah regime would be a “win-win scenario” for the Iranian people as well as for the rest of the world.

Pahlavi suggested that the killing of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman who died in the custody of Tehran’s morality police for wearing her hijab incorrectly, “triggered the first revolution of its kind in the world – a women’s movement for liberty.”

“The world is taking more notice. The Iranian people are fed up with this regime, they want to move beyond this regime, and therefore, the solution is to find something beyond this regime rather than staying stuck on the status quo,” he said.