0:00 This week, our coverage of the war on Iran starts with the media story coming out of Israel. Citizens there are not getting the full picture. Military sensors are filtering what they see. Israel is growing more oppressive, whether it's free speech or a new law that could sentence Palestinians to death by execution, translating propaganda and exporting it online. Israel in Persian is the name of the account, and it's being used to target Iranians. Plus the Iranian counter specials. They include an internet blackout. >> This is a way for them to show the populace that they are in control and exporting their own content, including AI, in the battle over hearts and minds.
0:50 The fog of war created by the USIsraeli attack on Iran is not lifting, it is thickening. Mixed messages keep coming out of Washington, rehashed by the day, it seems, generating more confusion than clarity. In Israel, the gap between political rhetoric and the on the ground reality has been widening. The Netanyahu government's prediction of a quick war to topple Iran's leadership and destroy its nuclear program has given way to a reality that is far messier and much more dangerous for Israeli civilians. Complicating matters further still is what Israelis are allowed to see of this war that is being tightly controlled. Journalists face unprecedented levels of military censorship while being urged to
1:36 raise morale rather than just report the facts. And Israelis who do push back against the war or against a controversial new law legalizing the death penalty, but only against Palestinians know that the authorities are out to repress them, if not silence them. Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn't put it this way, but 5 weeks into the USIsraeli war against Iran, this is what he's up against domestically. Iranian missiles keep hitting Israeli targets, causing casualties and severely injuring the country's infrastructure. The collapse that Israel was hoping for of the Iranian government, the galvanizing of rebellion there has not happened. Given the multiple fronts and entanglements,
2:23 Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and the unprecedented number of reserveists called up, Israel risks running out of soldiers. And like his ally Donald Trump, Netanyahu has no clear exit strategy. >> What he can be counted on, however, at times like these is having a media strategy, scapegoating his grades. In the theatrics that Netanyahu sometimes indulges in, he says, "What are you doing in the TV studios? Why are you sapping the morale of the public? Why are you helping the enemy, not our own people?
3:09 And that's Netanyahu calling out the media for 2 and 1/2 years. You've done the job designated to you of being a fully mobilized machine to create consensus for genocide and now to make sure this war can continue indefinitely. And those are your marching orders and go back to them. Those orders in their most specific form come from Israel's military sensors. >> Any journalist based there working for foreign outlets or Israeli ones grows used to dealing with them whether the country is at war or not. But reporters and citizens alike say they have never seen censorship to this extent where it
3:57 can inadvertently put the citizens the sensors are supposed to protect at greater risk. Nir Garars works for the Israeli newspaper Haritz. After a military base was hit by an Iranian missile, he went on X, saying, "It's nice that they put up warning signs about the Isabestos scattered from the military base throughout the neighborhood following the strike." But no government official explained what the implications and dangers are, what the kids are breathing while the soldiers on the base walk around in protective suits and masks. Tightly controlled images and carefully shaped narratives from Israel. AI material on social media designed to exaggerate Iran's military prowess, combined with
4:42 videos first posted weeks ago of missile strikes on Israeli targets, then reposted and presented as new, have caused all kinds of confusion. With mainstream outlets under the thumb of the sensors, Israelis are scouring sources online where it is increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction, reality from propaganda. The image that you see out of Israel is very carefully choreographed. This is a country self-p profofessed as a democracy, but it has a military sensor that can and does control the kind of information that can be um you know used or disseminated by the media. But in this war, the kind of restrictions that
5:28 have been imposed are unprecedented. The only thing you see are damage to civilian areas. and so on. You know that you're not getting the full picture and that in itself tells you that it's something that you know the state doesn't want you to know about. >> They are definitely trying to portray an Israel that is much more capable of defending itself than it actually is and is implying that Iran knows less about the country's infrastructure and sensitive sites than it does. There is a reason why only after the fact when Israeli officials are on the scene are news crews able to film exact locations of strike sites and why most of these
6:13 videos of sensitive sites being bombed are often times by anonymous people not journalists on the ground. >> Although the percentage has fallen slightly from roughly 90% down to 80, an overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis still support this war. The authorities are out to keep it that way, cracking down on the relatively small anti-war protests on the streets. This protester says she was roughed up just for being there. >> Another demonstration called after Israel's parliament passed a new capital punishment law applicable only to Palestinians got similar treatment. Protesters rounded up, journalists hit by water cannons. For the security
6:59 minister who championed the law, Itamar Bengavir, its passage was a champagne moment worth savoring. For this popular and sometimes depraved Israeli TV comedy show, the prospect of executing Palestinians was played for laughs. The law essentially forces the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners who are convicted of terrorism offenses. But even within opposition to this law, it was on the basis that it would threaten potential future Israeli hostages. Not the crime of mass executing by hanging Palestinian detainees. So, it's a
7:48 problem of process, not of moral depravity. And this was an extremely popular bill amongst the Israeli public. >> I went to the protest in Tel Aviv and the security forces were very quick to crack down. I told them I'm a journalist. I'm, you know, filming and they took a clearly aggressive position. The death penalty, some people say, well, there will be challenges. It will never really be implemented even if it is passed. You know, I don't think it matters. These are signposts of where a country is going and it is not a good direction. >> With news feeds still dominated by Iran's blocking of the straight of Hormuz, the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, the missile still landing in Israel and Iran, the typically scant
8:33 coverage of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has all but evaporated. When the West Bank story does get reported in Israel, the settlers are usually described as rogue operators, separate from the state and the army that supports them. This week, an American news crew from CNN was confronted by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, their guns pointed at the journalists, one of whom was put in a chokeold. That story made news even in Israel, not because it happened, but because of who it happened to. >> It's rare to hear these soldiers speak so openly uh especially to uh foreign uh
9:18 media. They believe that all of the West Bank is uh Israel's land, that it is Jewish territory only. I watched that report from our colleagues at CNN and I would never dare do what he did because had this crew not been an American crew, things would have turned out very different. Many of our colleagues were beaten to a pulp in similar situations because they were Palestinian. But Israelis don't hear and don't see what happens to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. And at this point, most of them don't care. They want to try to show that they are doing something about Israeli perpetrators committing terrorist attacks in the West Bank to show the White House primarily that
10:04 they're doing something. But it's really the system of settlement expansion, annexation. Many Israelis will say, "Oh yes, it's terrible. These very few people, a handful of bad eggs. And what the settler leaders say is that many of them are not even from the settlements. They're troubled youth. That they give the entire settlement project a bad name. We better crack down on them so that we can continue expanding the settlement project. That's what they say very openly. >> Israel is in an impunityfueled march towards seeing how far it can go to impose its its domination. the largest
10:49 military operations in the West Bank in half a century, seizing more territory in Lebanon, still holding 60% of Gaza. That continues as long as Israel can get away with it. But it only actually becomes overreach when blowback arrives, when something holds Israel to account diplomatically or on the battlefield. And unless that moment comes, I don't expect the Israeli side to recognize how far out of its depth this may take it. Staying with Israel and the propaganda it has directed at Iranians in their native tongue. This is a playbook we've
11:36 seen before with Palestinians. Tarak Nafa is here with more. Since the start of the war on Iran, one of the most active platforms for messaging aimed at Iranians has been Israel in Persian, the Israeli government's official Farsy language account on X. It's posted a steady stream of content mocking Iran's leaders, framing them as the drivers of this conflict, and trying to position Israel as a friend of Iranians. This week, the account posted this video ridiculing a woman whose home had just been destroyed in an air strike because she was holding a nice handbag. There are also these posts which suggested scenes of destruction in Tehran had been
12:21 fabricated by the Iranian government using a paid actor. These claims have been thoroughly debunked by factcheckers, but that hasn't stopped this narrative that the Iranians are faking it from spreading, including by voices in the Iranian diaspora who are supportive of the Israeli US war, casting doubt on victims, questioning their legitimacy. These are tactics that the Israelis have used before on Palestinians, summed up in terms like piwood that suggest Palestinians have staged their own suffering. Another Farsy language account is operated by MSAD, Israel's foreign intelligence agency. It is being used to openly try and recruit Iranians as spies. Just as
13:06 it has done elsewhere in the region in Arabic, Israel's use of Farsi is designed to whitewash its image and shape public opinion, leaving Iranians with the realization that even their online spaces have been infiltrated. Thanks T. Turning now to the counter narrative, the one that's coming out of Tehran. Officials there have been framing their case to international audiences, tailoring their language and ideas accordingly while accusing Western media outlets of distorting the facts of this war. Inside Iran, a sweeping internet blackout remains in place, severely limiting what people can see and share. And a new front has been opened, shaped by some increasingly sophisticated AI content, further blurring the line
13:53 between information and the truth. To help us understand the strategy behind all of this, we're joined now from Washington by the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Treata Parcy. Mr. Parsy, let's start with this. This past week, Iran's president, Massud Peshki, addressed an open letter to the American people, urging them to look beyond what he called a machinery of misinformation in the US. What are the chances of a message like that actually cutting through given the current media environment in America? >> I find the likelihood of that message getting through to be rather limited. At the end of the day, the American public is very skeptical of this war. Even Trump's voters are starting to turn
14:40 against this war. Uh and certainly they're already very much against going in with ground troops. But the Iranian government's ability to be able to take advantage of some of those schisms beyond scoring points on um social media, I've not seen any clear signs that there's any success there. And again, through the mainstream media, you will hardly be able to get any um um impact from that end. But the Iranians are nevertheless doing this because from their standpoint, this is not America's war. They strongly believe that Israel led America into this war. And the more they can hammer that point home with an American audience that already is very receptive to that view, particularly on the right, the more they think they can increase the opposition inside of the US
15:27 against this war. >> Now, the Iranian state is displaying some online skills here that many in the West were unaware that it had. Both the foreign minister and the speaker of the parliament there have acquired a fan following onx and there are AI animations that are in the mix as well. What are the core messages being sent here? How effective do you think those techniques have been in influencing public opinion outside of Iran? It's really fascinating because I don't know if there's been a lot of other major wars that simultaneously
16:14 have been fought on uh the ground, but also within an arena of meme wars essentially various videos produced by both sides, propaganda videos, AI produced propaganda videos. We really haven't seen that until this war. And the Iranians are clearly scoring some points. Now whether that is the core reason why the public is negative to this uh war or not is really difficult to disagregate because at the end of the day the public was overwhelmingly against this war from the outset. It may have reinforced their opposition to it. It may have made it stronger but I don't think it necessarily has led to a shift in public opinion. If anything what has shifted is because of higher gas prices.
17:02 a clear sign that Trump doesn't have a plan and certainly I think there will be an even greater shift if he goes in with ground troops and you have a large number of American soldiers coming home in coffins. >> Let's turn to Iran itself now. The internal narrative there. The Iranian authorities as you know have largely blacked out the internet there for more than a month now and it's not the first time that this has happened. give us an idea of how crippled communications are there with the outside world and is this blackout and the censorship within the Iranian media space defensible in your view? So the manner in which the government closed the internet entirely on January 8th roughly till January 10
17:48 and then slowly slowly they'd open it up is a degree of closure I don't think we have ever seen before and it's during this short period as well that a very large number of Iranian protesters and others were killed uh by the government but also by some elements amongst the protesters who used violence That level of closure is not what you're having right now. There's still a lot of limitations. It's still difficult to get through to friends etc. But if they use VPNs, etc., it is possible. Whereas during those first couple of days in January, even with VPNs, even with Starlink, it was very difficult to get in touch with people because the Iranian government was shutting everything down and jamming Starlink as well. What what
18:33 do you make of the Iranian authorities and their argument that part of this is defensive protecting Iranians and their institutions by blocking off the outside world from penetrating via the internet? >> Well, let's first remind ourselves that during these times of war, this is measures not necessarily similar to this one, but others that are taken by almost everyone. So in Israel right now if you film Iranian missiles hitting uh Israel you can end up in jail. Same thing is happening in Dubai in which everything is being censored right now in order to make sure that this information does not come out. Now internal communication has not been blocked by those countries. It has been by the Iranian government. Now is there an element of uh truth in some
19:21 of what they're saying? I think there is because you already have admissions from the former head of uh the CIA that uh Mossad and other American agents were on the ground in Iran during those days of protests. Uh you have opposition figures who have more or less admitted that they were some of their elements that also stood for some of the violence. But is that the only reason why the government is shutting them down? No. I think this is both because of those first stated reasons, but also because this is a way for them to show the populace that they are in control and that they will tolerate absolutely no uprisings or protest, but also in order to make sure that outside elements that are trying to penetrate Iran during these sensitive times are blocked. What do you make of
20:07 the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps's message from just a few days back that it would target all those US tech companies including Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Palanteer? And what does that list of targets tell you about Iran's larger strategy in this war? Well, the larger strategy is that they're going after elements that exist in within the GCC countries that are being used directly or indirectly by the United States in order to conduct the offensive elements of this war. going after the tech companies would be an indication of them identifying that these companies particularly their AI elements are being used extensively
20:54 within this war in a manner that has not been the case in previous war because of course a lot of these technologies are entirely new. We saw the Israelis use AI extensively and using Palenter extensively in the genocide in Gaza. Now the Iranians uh have not done these attacks yet. It's not clear whether they cannot or whether this is a warning because they want to prevent Trump from going forward with some of his escalatory threats. But part of the reason why Trump hasn't gone forward these escalatory threats is precisely because of the knowledge that the Iranians can strike back very hard at the US itself and that will only aggravate the situation rather than enable him to get out of this war. >> Let's get to the label Epstein regime. was popularized under the late Ayatollah
21:40 who was assassinated in that Israeli attack. It's now embedded throughout Iranian messaging and it seems to resonate not just at home in Iran but also abroad. Why does that label stick? What do you think makes it so effective as a narrative weapon? >> It is effective because his base were dead set against new wars. They voted for Trump because he promised that he wouldn't start any new wars. His conduct right now, not only with the new wars, the stronger alliance with Israel, uh, uh, regime change efforts are all completely contradictory to what he promised his base that he would do. And in the absence of a better
22:26 explanation, the Epsene factor has emerged as a potential explanatory factor as to why Trump is doing things that is not in the interest of the United States and that clearly he said that he would not do. Uh and so the Epstein factor emerged on the US side. The Iranians are taking advantage of it rather than inventing it because a lot of people, particularly on the American right, being completely perplexed by Trump going in this direction, uh, drew the conclusion with or without evidence that this has something to do with Epstein, that this has something to do with the Israelis using Epstein uh, and other things against Trump in order to
23:12 force him in this direction. And I want to emphasize no evidence has been emerging uh to support these type of theories. But precisely because there are no other strong theories that explains why in a rational sense Trump would be doing any of this stuff. Those type of conspiracy theories or theories about Epstein have actually become quite popular. And it's not just in the US or in Iran. We saw Canadian officials explicitly saying that no Canadian should be partaking or dying uh in this Epstein war. Instead, the Epstein war should be fought by the Epstein class. >> Trita Parcy of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, thank you for speaking with us here at the listening post today. >> Thank you so much for having me.
23:58 >> And finally, a Pentagon policy restricting press access which ended up back in front of a judge this past week. It all started with changes that came from Defense Secretary Pete Hexth that put journalists at risk of losing their access to the Pentagon if they pursued information the Defense Department had not approved of. A federal judge then struck that measure down, declaring it unconstitutional. A few days later, the Pentagon came back with a different set of restrictions. Limiting where reporters could go, requiring escorts inside the building and preserving the new rules that could deter anonymous sourcing. So, back to court, it all went where the same judge struggled to make sense of it, describing parts of the policy as quote weird, even Kfka-esque,
24:43 and questioning whether the Pentagon was simply working around his initial ruling. And all of this is unfolding as the war in Iran plays out. With Hegth still harping at the press, accusing American journalists of distorting their coverage and even suggesting what their headlines should look like. The Pentagon is supposed to determine what happens on the battlefield. Instead, it has become one over how American reporters should cover this war.
