An Excerpt from the Memoirs of Mohammad-Hadi Ardabili

Compiled by: Faezeh Sassanikhah
Translated by Fazel Shirzad

2026-1-7

After finishing high school, I took the national university entrance exam and was admitted to the Chemical and Petrochemical Engineering program at Tehran Polytechnic (today’s Amirkabir University of Technology), where I began my studies.

Within the faculty there was a building called Jordan. In this building, religious students had turned a small room into a prayer space, where they performed the noon and afternoon prayers. In this modest prayer room, newly admitted religious students became acquainted with devout students from different cohorts of the faculty, and a kind of spiritual bond was formed among them.

I remember that during the era of the Pahlavi regime, the government had very strong and well-organized ties with the United States and Israel, to the extent that the Shah’s regime was known as America’s gendarme in the Persian Gulf and the region. A large number of American military advisers were present inside the country. Despite all this, deep within the Iranian nation there existed a strong sense of solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people, along with hatred and hostility toward the criminal and usurping Zionist regime of Israel—a regime that was formed through the massacre and displacement of the oppressed Palestinian people and by encouraging the immigration of Jews from America, Europe, and other parts of the world into Palestine. Nevertheless, the American-backed Shah’s regime, contrary to the ideals and beliefs of the Iranian people, proceeded to open an Israeli embassy in Tehran. There was also a branch office of Israel’s ELAL Airlines on Villa Street (which after the Revolution was renamed Shahid Nejatollahi Street), and various political, economic, military, and intelligence relations between the Zionist regime and Iran were expanding covertly.

During that period, one notable event was the organization of a football match between the national teams of Iran and Israel at Amjadieh Stadium (today’s Martyr Shiroudi Stadium). The purpose behind holding this match was the strong interest young people had in football, and the Shah’s regime intended, through this event, to facilitate Zionist influence among the youth. I remember that on the day of the match, all around the stadium, above the spectators’ stands, Iranian and Israeli flags were raised alternately, very close to one another, and in large numbers.

A group of faithful and revolutionary young people entered Amjadieh Stadium and mingled with the spectators. We too, as a number of religious students from Tehran Polytechnic, entered the stadium and took our seats in the stands. The match began, and by the grace of God, Iran’s national team, playing well, defeated the team of the Zionist regime by a score of two to one. Along with the faithful and revolutionary students, the crowd began chanting widespread slogans in support of the Palestinian people and against the Zionist regime. The intensity of the people’s emotions inside the stadium was such that Israeli newspapers later wrote: “In the hell of Amjadieh, the Israeli football team was defeated.”

At the end of the match, under the guidance of students and faithful revolutionary forces, the crowd moved toward the flags around the stadium, pulled down all the Israeli flags, and set them on fire. Then a large and magnificent demonstration in support of the Palestinian people, accompanied by slogans against Israel, began from the streets outside the stadium toward Villa Street. Along the route of the march, at various points, one of the faithful and revolutionary activists would deliver a fiery and emotional speech to the demonstrators in defense of the Palestinian people and against Israel.

Finally, on Villa Street, we reached the front of the ELAL Israeli Airlines office, which was set on fire by the demonstrators using stones and Molotov cocktails. At that point, SAVAK forces and the police suddenly attacked the demonstrators and arrested a number of them, but most people managed to escape.[i]