Iran's 'soft war': How Tehran turned antisemitism into a weapon against the West
The report said Iran has helped bring claims of Jewish control over American foreign policy into the mainstream, allowing such narratives to spread without continued Iranian involvement.
A recent report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center has revealed Iran's decades-long strategy of weaponizing antisemitism to undermine Western institutions and forge alliances across ideological divides. Known as a "soft war," this influence campaign aims to erode trust in American institutions and sow discord within Western societies.
Focusing on antisemitism, Iran has exploited nationalist sentiments, religious narratives, and anti-imperialism to promote anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric. Unable to match American military power, Iran has instead sought to undermine Western social cohesion and trust in democratic institutions.
Historically, antisemitism predates the Islamic Revolution, but the Iranian government has weaponized this narrative to create a unifying story against perceived external enemies. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has played a key role in presenting Iran as an anti-imperialist force, using apocalyptic language and biblical prophecies to create a perceived Judeo-Christian convergence, weakening the Judeo-Christian affinity that underpins American support for Israel.
Iran has tailored its narratives to different audiences. Among religious Christians, it uses apocalyptic language and biblical prophecy to frame geopolitical conflicts as battles against the Antichrist. Iran has also exploited grievances in other communities, such as the Pan-African grievances of the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, presenting Iran as a defender of the oppressed and dispossessed.
Iran's media apparatus has played a significant role in amplifying conspiracy theories and spreading Iranian narratives. Following the 9/11 attacks, the Lebanese television network al-Manar promoted false claims linking Jewish employees to the World Trade Center attacks. In 2007, Iran launched Press TV to directly reach Western audiences with programming that portrayed Iranians as saviors of Jewish victims of Nazism and compared Zionism to Nazism.
The report also highlights the role of American-facing outlets like MintPress News and the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) in promoting Iranian narratives while presenting themselves as independent watchdogs or intellectual hubs for the global Islamic movement. These platforms utilize a mix of left- and right-wing contributors to mimic progressive investigative journalism while promoting positions aligned with Iranian foreign policy.
The consequences of these influence operations have been significant, with fake news websites, fabricated online personas, and campaigns designed to simulate grassroots support all contributing to the spread of Iranian narratives. The report argues that these efforts have real-world consequences, citing the manifesto of the Buffalo supermarket massacre perpetrator, Payton Gendron, which referenced a MintPress News article about Palestinian genocide as an example of the impact of these influence campaigns.
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