Russia has found “a good opportunity in the Gaza war,” which has overshadowed the war in Ukraine, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top military advisor of Iran Supreme Leader, stated on Friday.
Iran’s state media quoted Safavi as saying that Russia has been able to consolidate its hold over occupied territories since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel that unleashed the Gaza war.
Ali Khamenei’s advisor also reiterated statements by other Islamic Republic officials that Israel is losing the Gaza war, and the United States is losing power and influence in the Middle East.
The leaders of the clerical, military government in Iran find themselves in an uncomfortable situation since April 1, when a precision Israeli air strike killed two top Revolutionary Guard generals and five other officers in Damascus. These individuals who were apparently in charge of Tehran’s war on Israel in Lebanon and Syria, were holding a meeting in one of the buildings in Iran’s embassy compound.
Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other officials vowed revenge, many experts and observers believe Iran’s rulers are reluctant to undertake actions that could precipitate a wider war with Israel. But at the same time, they could lose credibility among their domestic followers and regional proxies, if they do not launch a military response.
Rahim Safavi highlighted apparent rifts between the Biden administration and the Israeli government, saying that “Differences have emerged even between the US President and the Zionist regime, to the extent that the American side has told Israel that if they don’t change their policies, America will have to change its approach.”
Israeli attacks have killed 18 senior IRGC officers since December, a trend that has become difficult to explain away by the Islamic Republic.
Aftab News, an agency close to more moderate factions in Iran, highlighted the dilemma the Iranian regime faces in the wake of the Israeli strike in Syria. In an analysis on Friday, the website wrote that previous threats of retaliation after Israel killed Iranian forces never materialized.
“It seems that a series of Israeli attacks on individuals and interests of the Islamic Republic, and the failure to fulfil the promise of ‘hard revenge,’ have increased dissatisfaction among its own forces. This dissatisfaction recently reached a peak with Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, leading to calls for a ‘decisive and swift response’ from various political spectra, especially the Revolutionary Guards,” Aftab News said.
However, numerous commentators in Tehran, who are allowed to speak to the government-controlled media, have urged a measured reaction to Israel's Monday attack, cautioning that the strike could be a ploy to draw Iran into direct conflict.
Others in Tehran argue that if the Islamic Republic fails to show a forceful response, Israel will become more emboldened and increase the intensity of its attacks. Mohammad Sadeq Kooshki is a professor in Tehran University who told Etemad News that if in the past 30 years Iran had shown reacted forcefully to Israeli provocations, today, it would be safer from attacks.
The Iranian regime is not just vulnerable because of Israeli strikes, but it has lost popularity among the majority of the people who have suffered from runaway inflation and overall economic regression. The danger of fresh unrest is ever present following repeated nationwide protests since 2017.
Messages sent to Iran International revealed a deep disconnect between the state-sponsored event and public sentiment. These messages paint a clear picture: Iranians are increasingly critical of government-sponsored annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day rallies, viewing them as irrelevant and hypocritical distractions from pressing domestic issues.
A veteran of the Iran-Iraq war questioned the government's priorities. "Why there is no day of recognition for Sistan-Baluchestan, Kerman, Bam, or other neglected parts of Iran?" he asked, highlighting the government's lack of interest in the plight of the residents of the most deprived Iranian cities.
Disillusionment with the regime's narrative was evident in almost all the messages. A citizen condemned the government's purported concern for Palestinians as "hypocrisy and deceit," stating, "People no longer accept either the Islamic Republic or its Quds Day."
Political commentator Ali-Hossein Ghazizadeh criticized the Quds Day ceremony on Iran International, stating, "The ceremony lacks any representation of Iranian national symbols. The music played during the event is entirely Arabic and focuses on Jerusalem. It fails to connect with the Iranian people."
The declining popularity of the rallies was also noted. Another viewer emphasized that over the past four decades, public participation in such government-led ceremonies has waned, with little sign of ordinary Iranians or those unaffiliated with the ruling apparatus attending such gatherings.
Some people pointed out the disparity between the government's emphasis on these ceremonies and its approach to Iran's domestic issues, with many criticizing its focus on its regional policies while neglecting domestic problems.
One Iranian called Quds Day "a glossy cover-up for domestic corruption," while another stated that "These ceremonies and their promises of financial aid to the people in Gaza are a smokescreen for large-scale theft by government officials."
The metaphors used by some people were particularly striking. Using a Persian proverb that is the equivalent of “being more Catholic than the Pope,” one criticized the regime’s extravagant ceremonies for Quds Day in an audio message. While another linked Quds Day’s origins to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, implying its association with "the destruction and misery of the Iranian people." Directed against Israel’s existence, Al-Quds Day was proclaimed by the founder of the Islamic Republic Ruhollah Khomeini on August 7, 1979, a few months after the establishment of the Islamic Republic.
Another message went further, arguing that the Islamic Republic's regional policies not only fail to help Palestinians or achieve "Palestinian independence," but actually worsen their situation. A citizen stated it bluntly: "The Islamic Republic's meddling has left Palestinians and Lebanese helpless. Despite this government's rhetoric, where in the region do we see peace?"
This sentiment was echoed by another who viewed Quds Day as a day of "betrayal of peace and friendship in the region" which only contributes to the Islamic Republic's "warmongering approach." They argued that since the Islamic Republic's rise to power, the region has seen only the discord.
One message highlighted the contrasting approach of the Abraham Accords, through which Israel is pursuing peaceful relations with Arab countries. The message noted that before the recent escalation ignited by Hamas's invasion of Israel on October 7, normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia were nearing completion.
The recurring theme in people’s messages was comparing the Quds Day rallies to a "carnival" masking a destructive reality: The Islamic Republic keeps proclaiming its desire to eradicate Israel from the face of the earth but prioritizes turning Iranians into "sacrificial lambs" rather than directly confronting its archnemesis.
The precision airstrike that demolished a building in the Damascus embassy compound on April 1, prompted the chief commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami to announce on Friday during the anti-Israel Quds Day that no attack on “our sacred system [regime] will remain unanswered.”
“We will make them regret this crime and other similar ones with the help of God,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, said a day after the attack."
Despite Tehran's saber-rattling, Israeli experts are skeptical that Khamenei will authorize an attack, which would be directly attributable to Tehran.
Yossi Melman, a veteran Israeli columnist for the left-leaning Haaretz, told Iran International that the Iranians “will strike but not from their territory.” He said the attacks could emanate “From Iraq and or Syria and more intensively.”
The Islamic Republic has targeted Israeli diplomats for assassination and its installations via its proxies like Hezbollah across Europe over the past four decades. A telling example, Iran’s IRGC paid a Pakistani man in Germany to assassinate pro-Israel advocates, Melman noted. He also highlighted that the “Americans are warning Iran that Iran should not be involved in war.”
In a White House readout of the Thursday conversation between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the statement said “The two leaders also discussed public Iranian threats against Israel and the Israeli people. President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats.”
Melman said if the Islamic Republic launched missiles at Israel from within the territory of Iran, “Israel could use Jericho missiles for the first time because they are the only missiles that can reach Iran from Israeli soil.”
Yigal Carmon, the former counter-terrorism advisor to two Israeli Prime Ministers, told Iran International "Iran is not ready nor willing to have a direct total war with Israel. Therefore even a direct Iranian attack on an Israeli embassy abroad is not probable.”
Carmon, who is the president and founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), added, “Khamenei’s policies over the years show a combination of caution and cowardice. Iran’s reactions to Israeli and American attacks in the past show a pattern of escalation when they believe the adversary is weak. And they back down when they see their adversary is strong and shows deterrence, and is ready for war.”
Carmon famously predicted the Iran-backed Hamas attack on Israel in Iran International comment on September 5. He said a major attack will unfold either in September or October. Carmon is a fluent Arabic speaker and well-versed in the inner workings of the Islamic Republic.
He added that “Iran has a mega-plan, which is the vision and legacy of the founder of the Islamic Revolution, to turn the whole region gradually, in a long-term well planned process through local proxies, into a region under its Shiite hegemony.”
The Iranian regime’s imperialist reach has extended to Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria where Khamenei has cultivated terrorist movements and militias.
Carmon, who has been a sharp of critic of Netanyahu’s government for cooperating with the Islamist regime in Qatar in sending funds to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip prior to October 7, said “Contrary to what the Israeli establishment believe, that Israel’s preventive strikes deter Iran, the truth is that no attacks such as the one in Damascus deter it, in the same way that the killing of Soleimani did not deter Iran from pursuing its plans.”
The former colonel in Israel’s military intelligence, Carmon, warned that Iran “will follow their mega-plan undismayed by Israel’s attacks and move on to their next immediate target: Jordan.”
He said Iran seeks to “topple the Jordanian Kingdom” and, as part of its grand plan to reshape the Mideast to “turn Jordan from a pro-Western country into a country ruled by pro-Iran militias like Iraq.“
He warned that if the Jordanian state collapses into Iran’s yoke, Tehran “will activate the pro-Iran militias to attack Israel from the East, as well as escalate in the north and with whatever power Hamas still has in Gaza.”
Tehran-born Ben Sabti, an expert on Iran from the Israeli National Security and Strategy Institute, told Iran International “My assessment is that Iran won't attack Israel directly, because there is not any use in it.”
He said that “anything that Iran can do, their proxies can do too, so why will Iran, which has kept itself out of the war until now, suddenly should throw itself into the conflict.”
The viral jokes posted on Persian social media after the attack included “Iran's regime destroyed the country of Israel with a few buckets of water by the IRGC" and "Thank God, the embassy employees were not in the Kotlett #2 building".
Iranians protesting against the regime have used the word Kotlett, which are Persian meat patties, to describe the body of the IRGC Quds commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a precision strike by the US in Iraq in 2020.
Any success of the Israeli army in eliminating the IRGC commanders and their forces in Syria is typically welcomed by hundreds of thousands of Iranians via social media posts or comments under YouTube videos.
Users also use the expression Kotlett to address other eliminated IRGC commanders. They do so despite the arrest of hundreds of people by regime forces over such posts. That includes Navvab Ebrahimi, a chef with 3.2 million instagram followers, who was detained for posting a video tutorial of how to cook Kotlett on the anniversary of Soleimani’s death.
This week, no one was arrested for using the term Kotlett on social media – apparently because of the large number of violations. But, according to the Fars News Agency, the IRGC’s mouthpiece, a person who displayed the Israeli flag was arrested. Over the past four years, the Israeli flag has been observed flying over numerous bridges in major cities before being removed by municipal workers.
For years, Iranian people have frequently refused to step on the American and Israeli flags that the agents of the Islamic Republic painted on pavements – especially at universities. Many news websites, including some hardliner outlets have stopped labeling Israel as the "Zionist regime", instead using its official name. This shift has resulted in roughly half of them using the term "Zionist regime" and the other half using Israel's official name.
After the killing of Qassem Soleimani and his companions at the Baghdad airport, both traditional religious people and reformists found themselves in a unique emotional situation. Given the wave of hatred against former US President Donald Trump promoted by the world media, these Iranian factions were willing to attend Soleimani’s funeral.
Of course, the government told many lies during that time – including the deceitful claim that Soleimani’s funeral had 7 million attendees in Tehran. At best, there were hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were bussed into the capital by the authorities to mourn Soleimani, whom they believed saved them from ISIS.
Today, the social conditions surrounding the killing of Mohammad Reza Zahedi, who was Soleimani's military equal, are completely different from those in 2020.
During the Mahsa Jina Amini movement from 2022 to 2023, the Iranian nation lost over 500 souls through the bullets of the IRGC and special forces.
Iranian society, which turned the regime’s fraudulent 2024 elections into a disgrace for the Islamic Republic with a historically low voter turnout, is certainly not ready for a massive funeral for Zahedi and his companions. Similar to the funeral of the IRGC’s Razi Mousavi in 2023, burial ceremonies with a huge bused crowd are unlikely—particularly given the regime’s plethora of challenges it needs to militarily contend with.
In the six months following October 7, the regime has been unable to organize a demonstration of even tens of thousands dedicated to Hamas. Instead, it has utilized the few thousand participants of Friday prayers in major cities to march. The distribution of sweets by the IRGC paramilitary Basij members after the Hamas attack, also received a very cold response from the Iranian people.
With a significant portion of society displaying complete neutrality towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an increase in “Israelophilia” – the anti-Israel rhetoric the government has historically capitalized on has reached its lowest level since 1979.
The 2021 survey conducted by the Gamaan Institute reveals that 35% of participants hold a positive opinion of Israel. Additionally, 65% expressed opposition to the slogan "Death to Israel," while 64% agreed with the slogan "Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I sacrifice my life for Iran."
On the celebrity front, figures like Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who traveled to Israel and directed films there, have shattered numerous taboos. The visit of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to Israel in April 2023, welcomed by the majority of Iranians living abroad and criticized by only a few individuals (mostly Islamists and Marxists), marked another significant step in the normalization of relations between the people of Iran and Israel.
In recent years, Iranians have praised Israel for its democracy, tolerance towards Israeli Arabs and the LGBT community, water resource management, information technologies, and wealth accumulation. Many Iranians residing in Western countries also collaborate with Israeli companies.
Israeli fiction series like "Tehran" (which aired in two seasons in 2020 and 2022) have been downloaded, watched, and well-received by millions of Iranians. Despite the series featuring a security storyline where Mossad security agents defeat Iranian security agents in their activities, it has garnered significant popularity among Iranian audiences.
Some Islamists and Iranian leftists may attribute this change of attitude to enmity towards the regime or adopt the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach, or even link it to the change in people’s slogans during the Green Movement.
But, they miss the main point.
Iranians have been seeking an ally for their future nation-state, given the lack of permanent friendship among their Arab neighbors or the Turks.
Today, they find themselves more aligned with the ideals and visions of the nation-state of Israel. The history of friendship between non-Jewish Iranians and Jews has played a significant role in this shift.