Iran tried to inflame discord in Israel and incite violence against Arab-Israelis
via fake social media accounts targeting Chareidi and Dati Leumi Jews, BBC reported last week.
The campaign created the “Aduk” (stringently religious) newsgroup with multiple social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Telegram, with one of its profiles already having had garnered thousands of followers.
Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter discovered the group’s Iranian origins and notified Facebook and Twitter, which deactivated the accounts. However, the group is still active on Telegram. FakeReporter said the group’s “goal was to help fuel ‘religious war’ by amplifying ‘fear, hatred and chaos.'”
“We see this network rise up following the events in May, when Israel was at one of the lowest points in its history in the relations between Jewish and Arab citizens,” said FakeReporter chief executive Achiya Schatz.
“Aduk” posted inciteful content such as posts encouraging anti-police sentiment among the Chareidi sector, messages calling for targeted killings of Arab-Israeli rioters in mixed towns, and articles slamming the government for partnering with the Islamic Ra’am party.
One post was a video of a confrontation between Otzma Yehudi chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir and an Arab car attendant, with a comment, “It’s a shame he didn’t give him one in the head.”
The report said that “Aduk” went to great efforts to appear genuine, even creating a page for a fake Chareidi bakery in Israel and stealing the online identity of a Chareidi man who died four years ago as the administrator of the network.
“It’s something that we haven’t seen before, creating such a backstory,” said Mr. Schatz.
“It’s another concern because these networks are becoming more and more developed, to see them connecting with such extremists and violent groups… they’re very fluent in Israeli politics.”
The report quoted Simin Kargar of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab as saying that Iranian interference in internal relations in foreign countries has been seen before.
“Since the presidential elections in the US we’ve seen Iranian tactics getting more diverse, part of a broader and more complicated playbook… They see they’re being noticed and feared,” she said.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
Thus, only Hashem knows of more anti Arab expressions the vile Islamic Republic has initiated in order to pin it on Jews…so that anti-Jewish Haaretz can spread thdm.even further (I’ve seen the one the Iranian operatives called Ahmed Tibi a dog).
This is unbelievable. Literally, it is not believable. Iran is as much a puppet regime as the kofer captor occupant regime that appropriated the name “Israel”. Nukes are fake. The idea of organizing Yiddin and Arabs to join against the regime is contrived. If I had to guess, the establishment that runs all this propaganda non-sense wants to create an association between Torah Yiddin criticizing the regime and the great supposed foreign nefarious enemy, Iran. They are just trying to stigmatize any Torah Yid who brings up the shmad to make them suspect of working for the supposed evil enemy. That’s all. You criticize “Israel”, you must work for Iran. That’s the thought they hope to trigger. Anyway, there is plenty of material to undermine the kofer captivity as it is. We don’t need foreigners to provide us with the material. We’re doing just fine subverting the regime on our own, no need for a foreign intervention, thanks.
Sorry, meant to say the idea of stoking animosity of Yiddin against Arabs or visa versa probably would be in service of the regime and is contrived. The regime that appropriated the name “Israel” prefers if the sides channel opposition towards each other. Magavniks sometimes lie in police reports claiming that Yiddin opposed the state had expressed violent anti-Arab sentiments when evidence confirms that they did not. Both sides know their true enemy, and it’s not Iran or the other side.