“I’m From the Mossad, and I’m Here to Help”
The Mossad has made an unprecedented move to start communicating to Iranians through public social media, attempting to recruit agents inside Iran from the disaffected and financially desperate.
On June 25, a Farsi-language account, claiming to be a spokesman for the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, began posting on social media. Such accounts claiming to be Mossad or using Mossad iconography on these platforms are not uncommon (one such popular account known as “Mossad Commentary” has amassed 830,000 followers on X and is often mistaken by users for an actual Mossad account). While neither the Mossad nor the Israeli government have publicly claimed the new account, @MossadSpokesman, as belonging to the Mossad, its status as an official channel has been confirmed by the Israeli media and by the Israeli government’s former Farsi spokesman.
But even without that confirmation, it was clear from its first post that this account was operating with roots deep in the Israeli system: it The account’s inaugural post was a video by a figure well-known to the Iranian-Israeli populace ever since the Iranian Revolution: Menashe Amir.
Amir, after immigrating to Israel from Pahlavi-era Iran in the 1950s, led the Farsi-language division of Israel’s public radio broadcaster, the Voice of Israel, for decades and was the host of a once-prominent Israeli radio show aimed at Iranian listeners. At one point, Amir’s program, complimenting American state-run opposition radio services like Voice of America Farsi and Radio Farda, was claimed by the American Jewish newspaper The Forward to have at one time millions of listeners inside Iran (Amir regularly received callers from Iran and was a known figure but such numbers are unverifiable). Now, he was speaking not only on behalf of the Voice of Israel, but on behalf of the Mossad itself. “I live in Israel, but my heart is in Iran”, the 85-year-old says in the video, “We, the Mossad, will provide any assistance we can to the good people of Iran. We are at your service.”
Much of what the “Mossad Farsi” account posts is obvious political agitation, meant to be shared amongst its followers as evidence of the vastness of the Mossad’s intelligence-gathering capabilities. Posts from the spokesman claim, without evidence, that the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, and Iran’s foreign minister all follow the account loyally but from secondary phones and through VPNs. Another post advocates for Iranians to stay away from IRGC members if they take a phone call, evoking memories of the pager attacks and implying Israel is preparing one against the Iranian military.
The account even claims to know exactly who will succeed Ali Khamenei upon his death, that being his son Mojtaba, playing on a popular internet rumor in opposition circles. The Mossad even gave itself an out that its prediction could be wrong by saying, “Now that we have revealed this decision to you, loyal viewers, perhaps the sick leader [Khamenei] will change his mind.”
Amir appears in further videos to claim that Iran’s fight against Israel is futile, claiming that the Iranian financial system is so fragile that the sick are selling their own prescription medicines, “sacrificing their life so that they can at least eat a piece of bread,” and that “the good people of Iran” know how “disgraceful the defeat of the Iranian regime has been.” “We are so sorry,” Amir says at the end of one video in a hushed tone, expressing sympathy for Iran’s economic circumstances, caused in large part by Western sanctions that Israel has long supported.
Israel is no stranger to spreading fabulist rumors in its English-language communications, but Arabs are much more familiar with a tone of sarcastic condescension and open mockery. The Israel Defense Force’s Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee is infamous in the Arab world for his social media presence, where he variously makes fun of southern Lebanese refugees and attempts to instigate sectarian strife against Hamas by calling them “officially” Shia. What differentiates the Mossad’s Farsi-language account from Israel’s previous social media ventures is the open invitation for Iranian followers to not only change their opinion about Israel, the IDF, and the Mossad, but to communicate with, give information to, and even be paid by the Mossad directly.
During the war, the IDF’s Farsi account published a statement that even the Times of Israel’s military correspondent Mannie Fabian described as “unusual”, telling worried Iranians to stop contacting their account on X and instead directing them to the Mossad’s website, saying it was “the least they can do” and that “maybe there you will find a new way to improve your situation.” Since the ceasefire, the Mossad has continued to initiate new incentives for Iranians to contact the Mossad and, however unspoken, become its agents.
One of its first initiatives, portraying itself as humanitarian, has been to set up a “medical center” for Iranians, where Iranians, by contacting an Israeli phone number (as well as Czech or Danish) through an encrypted service like WhatsApp or Signal, can be connected with specialists like cardiologists, oncologists, psychiatrists, even support for first aid injuries caused by the conflict. Iranian hospitals are under the strain that many national healthcare systems are under in the Global South, with skilled doctors leaving the country and even low-cost public healthcare being out of reach for the working poor. Iranian hospitals and ambulances were also directly attacked by the Israeli military numerous times during the war, targeted by drone strikes that have damaged facilities and killed patients.
Israel is also likely playing on additional fears, ones intertwined with its appeal to Iranians disaffected with the government. The Mossad’s own claims that the “regime is focused on its senior figures, not on caring for its citizens” may compliment the unfounded charges levied by opposition organizations that the IRGC was placing military armaments at hospitals that were later bombed by the IDF, in addition to already-existing distrust in the healthcare system stirred by accusations during the Mahsa Amini protests that Iranian police were using ambulances to detain and beat protesters, leading to ambulances being surrounded, attacked, and set on fire by in the course of the demonstrations.
The Mossad’s Farsi account has also been attempting to encircle random Iranian users who interact with it, at one point publicly naming that they would reward an Iranian journalist-in-exile, Behnam Gholipour, who has previously written for Radio Farda and IranWire. Gholipour had correctly guessed the secret name of the new head of Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the Iranian military’s unified command, in a reply to a Mossad Farsi post on X, and the Mossad then publicly posted that Gholipour should privately contact them in order to “claim [his] prize.” Gholipour, for his part, rejected this offer, stating on X that “on the path to the freedom of the Iranian people, I take no money or prizes from any individual, institution, or organization.” Gholipour did not respond to request for comment.
Casting as wide a net as possible, the Mossad has focused most of its efforts on desperate Iranians. In addition to setting up a medical center for those most injured by the war Israel itself started, Israel’s intelligence services are attempting to ensnare financially desperate Iranians, largely drawn to cryptocurrency as a safe investment in a severely sanctions-addled economy. Its volatility inside Iran has been a topic of discussion for years, most recently worsened by a cyberattack on the Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex wiped out $90 million, claimed by an anti-Iranian government hacker group that is widely believed to have links to Israel.
One series of posts published on the spokesman’s Telegram account July 1 unfolds like a typical cryptocurrency scam post, with sentences like “Every day brings new opportunities - new plans, new trends and new ways to grow your wealth,” and a compressed, over-shared image of a text conversation shows someone saying “I have earned enough money now that I can finally pay off my debts.” Another post about Bitcoin contains an almost threatening tone, telling any prospective investors that “if you miss this opportunity, you must prepare for a future that may no longer be available to you.”
Instead of directing the viewer to a separate cryptocurrency scam channel, as many would often do, the channel instead directs the viewer to send a message to the Mossad spokesman itself, claiming that they can help with “investing or setting up a cryptocurrency account”, and that people operating the account will “personally guide you every step of the way, from the beginning to the smooth completion of your investment.”
While Amir has claimed that hundreds of Iranians have reached out to inquire about the veracity of the Mossad’s initiative, and the Mossad itself claims hundreds of Iranian military personnel have contacted them, actual numbers are unavailable, and moreover, such claims are likely highly overstated. “Despite widespread discontent with the government, most Iranians remain deeply skeptical of foreign intelligence services,” Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy says, “The idea of large numbers of Iranians reaching out voluntarily remains far-fetched.”
From the beginning of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attempted to instigate a pro-Israel rebellion that would threaten the Islamic Republic’s system of government, invoking slogans like “Women, Life, and Freedom” and claiming on the Saudi-funded opposition channel Iran International that he wants to “clear the path” for the Iranian people’s freedom. The Washington Post revealed that on June 13, in an attempt to stoke these flames, Mossad operatives contacted an Iranian military official, apparently one of 20 others, telling him to leave Iran within the next 12 hours, and to say in a recorded statement that he is walking away from the Islamic Republic and “the people who destroyed our country for 46 years”, or else the Mossad would kill him, his wife, and his child.
“We will hit you, your family, your children, everyone, with the dirt,” The Mossad operative says through a voice modulator, “Do you also want to destroy your wife and child?” No such rebellion materialized, and no Iranian officials threatened by the Mossad gave in to their demands.
Israel is now attempting a slightly different strategy, attempting to expand its network of intelligence agents inside Iran to the anguished and the afraid, and portraying itself as the only force capable of ensuring the Islamic Republic’s dismantling. A Jerusalem Post interview with a former Mossad officer published on July 6 claims that Iranian agents recruited by Israeli intelligence will be well-rewarded, remarking “When someone works for us, we take care not only of them but also of their family.”
By placing itself so prominently in the Iranian opposition’s corner, appealing to the financially destitute and the medically desperate, Israel is attempting to create its own equation to perhaps one day ensure a future Iranian opposition force’s complete compliance: it is either Israel or “the dirt.”
Amir, You left Iran on one of those free charter flights to Israel seventy years ago and were not among those who did not like what they saw and returned to Iran. Sure, your "heart is still in Iran." Whatever you say, man.