Israel launched a massive attack on Iran and the media is acting like it never happened

Back in 2003, the empire got away with its WMDs lie, in part, because many who didn’t believe it chose to stay silent. Journalists and politicians who later admitted to their scepticism kept quiet because it was safer. It was better for their careers.

One of those who chose to stay silent was Gordon Brown, the UK’s chancellor at the time. We were witnessing massive antiwar protests, and if he had spoken out and threatened to resign, that might have been enough to tip the balance. Certainly, if others had joined him, we could have been looking at a very different 21st century.

We have seen regime change after regime change because of cowardice, because it is easier to demonise the truth tellers than challenge the liars. Back in 2003, the safe option was to agree Saddam was a bad guy and shut up about the other stuff, and because tensions were high post 9/11, war was guaranteed.

Today, we are seeing the same regime change propaganda, and while many are objecting to war, few are pushing back on the lies intended to drive us into war. We are faced with a choice: we can once again cower from stigma, or we can can push back by laying out the facts. I’m not one to cower so here goes:

It starts with Israeli research that showed Israel can’t repair its reputation among westerners following the Gaza genocide, but it can demonise Muslims. Polling conducted in the US and Europe by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs found that while people were disgusted at Israel, they still perceived Islamic extremism as a serious threat and showed a higher favourability towards Israel than countries such as Iran.

Here are the messages that performed well among the public in the survey, the implication being these are the messages Zionists should push.

The results suggested the best way to combat anti-Israel sentiment was to foment hatred of radical Islam, and in order to achieve that, Israel needed something bad to happen, something like a false flag operation that could topple its number one enemy…

Israel had been building a network inside Iran since the early 2000s, offering dissidents incentives such as cash, healthcare, and the opportunity for their families to study abroad in exchange for running safe houses or executing strikes, such as the 2018 theft of Iran’s nuclear archives.

In recent months, Israel’s efforts focused on fomenting civil unrest which would lead to violence and a pretext for war. They set up coordination centres with the goal of sparking regime change and balkanising Iran. They drafted constitutions in each separatist region and planned sabotage operations. They sent weapons and equipment into Iran through the Pakistan border.

All of this was conducted with the help of the CIA and MI6, according to retired US Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson.

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou (known for blowing the whistle on CIA torture and going to jail) explained how the media framing favours Israel’s regime change efforts. He explained how most of the human rights organisations that report on Iran are fronts for the CIA and how Israel-backed rioters caused violence. All of this is in contradiction to the official narrative that the unrest was organic and the violence was driven by the Iranian authorities.

Ask yourself this: at a time when the US and Israel were desperately seeking an excuse to attack Iran and had spent months meticulously planning for civil unrest, do you think it is a coincidence this unrest happened right on cue?

Bear in mind, this is not the first time Israel has provoked civil unrest in Iran. Human rights researcher Elahe Hicks explained in an interview that elements of the Iranian opposition had been trained and funded by Israel. She stated that members of the exiled group Mujahedin-e Khalq were behind protests in 2021. She later said in response to criticism:

“My interview was not full of false info. I too have sources in Khuzestan (2021). The point I was making was that the demonstrations were being exploited by interests like the MEK and Israel. I stand by that analysis. Whatever I said was not worth years of threats and harassment.”

Hicks has worked for Human Rights Watch and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She now stands accused of “regime propaganda” and Human Rights Watch has faced calls to disavow her. This is the kind of political pressure experts face when they go against imperial narratives.

The West has smothered the Iranian economy with sanctions, creating the perfect conditions for unrest by driving Iranians into poverty. The US made no secret that its “maximum pressure” campaign had the intended goal of regime change. Mike Pompeo spoke of “economic distress” in Iran and said “the people can change the government” in this 2019 interview:

With the conditions ripe for unrest, Israel encouraged its recruits to get onto the streets, bragging on social media: “We are with you in the field.” It then started the violence.

It burnt vehicles and buildings (including mosques), shot police officers, and beat Iranians to a pulp. We are not talking about “regime members” here, we are talking about ordinary Iranians who were beaten to death or half to death. Israel knew such violence would provoke a violent response from the Iranian authorities. It knew it could pin the blame on those authorities.

Iran cut off telecommunications and shut down Starlink to prevent Israel from coordinating the violent riots. This quickly became Iran is carrying out a “genocide under digital darkness” as the media remembered how to use the word “genocide”.

Israeli media bragged that Mossad was arming the rioters and killing hundreds of security personnel as western media ignored this context. The void of information enabled the West to make one ludicrous claim after another without a shred of evidence. It enabled imperialists to inflate the death toll, to make up stories about people who never existed being murdered by authorities.

CBS News, Iran International, The Sunday Times and other publications cited death figures of 12,000 to 20,000, even though the most widely reported figure is now around 4,000. They inflated the Iran death toll as eagerly as they understated the Gaza death toll.

“We can’t show you the evidence because there was a telecommunications blackout”, they said. Only story after story turned out to be lie after lie.

The BBC and other outlets reported that protester Erfan Soltani’s execution was imminent without any corroborating evidence. Soltani was never charged with capital offences, but an Israeli journalist ran with the following story:

Erfan Soltani has been confirmed by CNN to be alive and in good physical health. So-called journalists made up a story to make Iran look bad and push the regime change narrative. Contrast this with how I’ve evidenced and explained all of my claims. Nowhere will you find me citing an anonymous source and saying: “Trust me, bro.”

The regime change narrative is collapsing, but the evidence of Israeli violence is undeniable. We have video after video of rioters doing all of the terrible things the Iranian authorities were accused of. That’s not to say there wasn’t violence from the Iranian authorities, just that Israel was the driving force.

Here is a video that shows a mob attacking Tehran-Pars police station that was shown on Iranian TV. Five police officers were reportedly killed.

Here is footage of a well-equipped, heavily-armed team of operatives making their preparations. Do they look like ordinary protesters to you?

Here are rioters beating someone senseless and throwing rocks at them while another person lies motionless beside them. Is this legitimate protest? What about self-defence?

Here is a compilation of armed rioters shooting people, and chasing them down and beating them up.

Here is a video of armed men on rooftops. Why would protesters be on rooftops firing guns?

There are many more videos I could include, but Substack imposes size limits on our newsletters. Other videos show mostly the same things with armed men shooting and beating civilians and police. Here are some images of the victims of stabbings. Are we pretending Iranian police were going around stabbing people? How does that make sense?

The evidence of Israeli planning and infiltration, and of rioter violence, is undeniable, not least because Israel can’t stop gloating. Israel is now running recruitment ads in Farsi, saying: "Our organisation has heard the voice of you, the people of Iran, and is planning the final blows against the regime. Your compatriots inside Iran are engaged in a fateful struggle, and we intend to help you." The ads link to application forms to become Mossad informants.

The violent response from Iranian authorities was as inevitable as it would be in any other country, and all we’ve seen is misrepresentation to promote regime change.

We are told that Iranian authorities gunned down whole crowds, but not one shred of evidence has been presented. The Washington Post claims to have evidence behind a pay wall so I can’t review it without paying them! Amnesty International reported that Iranian police were firing pellets, and while being shot with pellets is not nice, this does not result in 20,000 deaths.

I was unable to find any footage of the reported massacres, but I found one video showing a small group of Iranians saying “they are shooting” and then running. I found another video apparently showing a police officer firing pot shots from a window. (it is unclear if anyone was hit). Finally, I found a video in which police were involved in a struggle with protesters and one was shot at close range.

These videos may or may not be evidence of crimes committed by Iranian police. However, they are certainly not evidence of the kind of massacres that are being reported. For 20,000 to be dead, tanks and machine guns must have been mowing down entire crowds, but there is no evidence of anything on that scale.

If such a thing happened, it would be easy to demonstrate and yet nobody has. All I’ve seen are media claims of “We’ve reviewed the footage”, but I’m not allowed to review that footage and nor are you!

Even if we accept the worst accusations against Iran, it does not change the fact Israel has instigated riots and committed murders. The key point is that Israel wanted large numbers of Iranians to die so it had an excuse for war in which larger numbers of Iranians would die. You will find that context nowhere in the mainstream media.

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