A few reasons as for why the support began:

• Israel believed Iran would change its hostile stance on the United States, according to Deputy Defense Minister Mordechai Zippori. He said: "Israel has the possibility to extend significant aid to Iran and enable it, from the logistical point of view, to continue its war with Iraq. Of course this cannot take place as long as there is no serious change in the extremist Iranian regime."

• Israel was deathly afraid of Saddam and what he would do. Stopping Saddam was paramount, and if “that meant going along with the request for arms by the Iranians, and that could prevent an Iraqi victory, so be it,” asserted David Kimche, former head of the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

• People believed that Iran was a "natural ally" of Israel, and thought they would continue the "periphery doctrine". This doctrine stated that because Israel was surrounded by enemy states, it had to build good relations to counter those states with countries on the "periphery", like Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia.

So when Iran and Iraq went to war, Israel closed its eyes to Iranian rhetoric, hoping that Iran would change its mind on Israel in gratitude. It also hoped it could stop or stall Saddam and rekindle an alliance that had existed during the Shah's era, and been very helpful to Israel.

Unfortunately, none of that was to be. Iran took the help but refused to acknowledge the utility of a tie with Israel. As Shmuel Bar of the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel put it, "In the Iranian worldview, you can do business with Satan himself, but Satan always remains Satan."