Iran's 'soft war': How Tehran turned antisemitism into a weapon against the West

Antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric across the Western political spectrum are being amplified by a decades-long Iranian campaign designed to erode trust in American institutions and forge alliances across ideological divides, according to a report published on Wednesday by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC).The report, titled “The War on Western Minds: Iran's 30-Year Campaign to Divide the West,” said that the Islamic Republic has weaponized antisemitism in its ideological “soft war” against the West, exploiting nationalism, religious narratives, and anti-imperialism to spread anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric.Unable to match US military power, particularly under decades of sanctions, Iran has instead focused on undermining Western social cohesion and trust in democratic institutions, the report said.Antisemitism predates the Islamic Revolution, but the SWC said that it provides Iran with a narrative that crosses ideological boundaries. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has exploited this by presenting the regime as an ally against the “Antichrist,” an anti-imperialist force resisting Western hegemony, or a nationalist partner opposing alleged Jewish and Israeli manipulation.Iran brought conspiratorial claims to the mainstreamThe report said Iran has helped accusations of Jewish control over American foreign policy become mainstream, allowing such narratives to spread without continued Iranian involvement. It compared this strategy to methods first developed in the Soviet Union.Using narrative intelligence (NARINT) to track Iranian influence campaigns, the SWC found that the objective was not simply to spread false information but also to shape how audiences interpret events, assign blame, and identify enemies. Once established, narratives of Zionist conspiracy, Jewish financial control, or Israeli manipulation of US foreign policy can become resistant to conventional fact-checking, the report said.Iran tailors these narratives to different audiences.Among religious Christians, it uses apocalyptic language and biblical prophecy to frame geopolitical conflicts as battles against the Antichrist, hoping to manufacture Christian-Muslim religious convergence, weakening the perceived Judeo-Christian affinity that underpins American support for Israel.The report cited Russian political philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who consulted Athonite monks before Russia's 2012 intervention in Syria. According to the report, the monks encouraged Moscow's participation in the civil war as part of a “final battle” against the Antichrist. Dugin later credited Russia and Iran with saving Syria from destruction allegedly sought by the West and Dajjal, an Islamic term associated with the Antichrist.Iran has also sought to exploit grievances in other communities.The report highlighted the January 1996 World Friendship Tour by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a prominent antisemite who visited countries hostile to the United States. The SWC said Iran recognized an opportunity to capitalize on Pan-African grievances while presenting itself as a defender of the mustad'afin, or oppressed and dispossessed.In February 2001, Tehran hosted a regional preparatory meeting for the United Nations World Conference against Racism, culminating in the Tehran Declaration. The declaration accused Israel of committing “a new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity, a form of genocide and a serious threat to international peace and security.”The report said that these forums enabled Iran to combine anti-imperialism, left-wing anti-Americanism, Black internationalist organizing, and antisemitism under the banner of international legitimacy.Iranian-linked media apparatus amplified 9/11 conspiraciesIran also used its media apparatus to amplify conspiracy theories. In the weeks following the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese television network al-Manar promoted the false claim that 4,000 Jewish employees had been warned to stay away from the World Trade Center that day.Although initially confined to fringe circles, such claims helped attract conspiracy theorists and anti-establishment figures who could carry Iranian narratives into Western media, the report said.It cited former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and political writer Michael Collins Piper as examples of Western voices aligned with Tehran's messaging.In 2007, Iran launched Press TV to reach Western audiences directly. The report highlighted programming such as Zero Degree Turn, which portrayed Iranians as saviors of Jewish victims of Nazism while comparing Zionism to Nazism and delegitimizing Israel's founding.Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh helped develop programming designed to influence international audiences through polished, emotionally engaging storytelling, the report said.The SWC also identified MintPress News as an example of an American-facing outlet that presents itself as an independent progressive watchdog but allegedly relays Iranian and Russian narratives.The outlet's mix of left- and right-wing contributors, the report said, helps it mimic progressive investigative journalism while promoting positions aligned with Iranian foreign policy. The United Kingdom-based Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought was cited as another platform promoting Iranian narratives while presenting itself as an intellectual hub for the global Islamic movement.The report said that this media ecosystem can have real-world consequences. It pointed to the manifesto of Payton Gendron, the perpetrator of the May 2022 Buffalo supermarket massacre, which referenced a 2016 MintPress News article titled “Thousands of Israelis Take to the Streets Calling For Palestinian Genocide.”By 2026, Iran's influence operations had expanded to include fake news websites mimicking American media, fabricated online personas posing as American activists, and campaigns designed to simulate grassroots support.The report said these operations use wire-service material and plagiarized articles to appear credible and embed Iranian narratives within broader coverage. Additionally, they manipulate Wikipedia, which, by extension, manipulates the majority of AI algorithms and allows the network to exploit social media algorithms.IRGC used cyberattacks to target US institutionsIran has also conducted hacking operations targeting American institutions. During the 2024 US presidential campaign, an IRGC-linked group sent spear-phishing emails to a senior campaign official using a compromised former adviser's account, attempting to infiltrate county-level government accounts in swing states, according to Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center.OVER THE past year, the SWC identified over 340 influencers, media outlets, organizations, and affiliated entities that it said formed an interconnected influence network with shared amplification channels and consistent information flows.The report named Dugin, Jackson Hinkle, Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, and the account GodivaGoddess97 among central figures. It also identified CODEPINK, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.The SWC outlined a six-stage cycle through which these narratives spread.First, humanitarian organizations publish legitimate reports with appropriate caveats.Second, academics and credentialed figures provide intellectual frameworks that, according to the report, delegitimize rather than merely criticize Israel.Third, alternative media outlets such as The Grayzone and MintPress remove caveats, add inflammatory framing, and cite the original organizations as authorities.Fourth, commentators, such as Andrew Napolitano, Candace Owens, Jackson Hinkle, and Jimmy Dore, repackage the content for left- and right-wing audiences.Fifth, activist organizations translate online rhetoric into campus organizing and direct action, creating environments hostile to Jewish students.Finally, conspiracy theorists cite The Grayzone and MintPress as evidence of alleged Jewish conspiracies.Jewish-affiliated voices and organizations, including JVP and Norman Finkelstein, are also invoked to deflect accusations of antisemitism, the report said.Several recommendations were offered to combat this threat: mandatory coordinated-threat disclosure for platforms; mandatory AI-generated-content labeling; a congressional review of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to remove immunity for content that can be attributed to designated foreign adversaries or their proxies.“For more than 30 years, Iran has been building an infrastructure designed to exploit the divisions within American society,” said Jim Berk, CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “What makes this campaign so dangerous is that Iran doesn't need Americans to support its regime to succeed. It only needs Americans to lose trust in their institutions and in one another. Antisemitism has been central to that strategy, giving a hostile foreign government a way to turn existing grievances into deeper divisions. This is a threat not only to Jewish communities, but to the foundations of American democracy itself.”“This is not about the Jews. It has never been only about the Jews,” said Jim Berk, CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “Antisemitism is the tool. The real target is Western civilization itself: the Judeo-Christian values, democratic institutions, and shared sense of citizenship that hold free societies together. Jewish communities are simply where the attack shows up first. That is why we called our report The War for Western Minds. Iran's goal is to break the West's confidence in its own foundations, and every American, whatever their faith, has a stake in stopping it.”The full Simon Wiesenthal Center report can be found here: https://wiesenthal.org/iran-report