Israeli Officials Peddle False Stories of Explosion in Iran
Did Israeli government officials aggressively promote an unsubstantiated story about an explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility?
According to Ali Gharib at The Daily Beast, yes. He writes that it is “an object lesson that shows just how far some press—and even Israeli government officials—have gone down the rabbit hole on Iran issues by propagating a story reported on a conspiracy website.”
Reports have been circulating for days claiming there was such an explosion at the Iranian enrichment facility at Fordow. It might have just disappeared, but Israeli officials started pushing the story in the press, without citing any evidence, of course.
Gharib explains:
The story first popped up three days ago on WND, written by an author going by the pseudonym Reza Kahlili who claims to be a former CIA spy in Iran. But Kahlili is unreliable, to say the least: among other outlandish claims peddled by Kahlili, he wrote that Iran already has nuclear weapons. But that didn’t stop all kinds of news media repeating Kahlili’s unsubstantiated claim. The website of the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronot ran a story on Saturday that began, “WND, an American news website affiliated with the Right, reported Friday that a mysterious explosion has destroyed a significant portion of Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility.” (If I was on the right, I’d be angry about the claim that my political beliefs are “affiliated” with WND.) On Sunday, the Jewish Press ran a story riddled with punctuation errors that cited WND and Yedioth, reprinting parts of the latter’s story in full. And another story today at the Jewish Press, under a credulous headline, admitted the story might not be right in its lede.
…What was surprising was that Israeli government officials would publicly comment on such a story. But that’s exactly what happened when a top national security adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to take the report at face value. Responding to an inquiry from the Times of Israel, Homefront Defense Minister Avi Dichter—the acting defense minister at the time—said, “Any explosion in Iran that doesn’t hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome.” That’s all fine and dandy, except that it propagates a potentially false story from an unsavory source. Rather more amazingly, Israeli intelligence sources confirmed to the Times of London that the story was real.
Not only did the Iranian government immediately deny the unsubstantiated reports, but now the US government has come out to deny them too. ”We have no information to confirm the allegations in the report and we do not believe the report is credible,” Carney said. “We don’t believe those are credible reports.”
This shows how eager some Israeli government officials are to peddle untruths they know to be false in their endless quest to legitimate a war of aggression on Iran for a nuclear weapons program it doesn’t even have.
MvGuy
January 28th, 2013 at 7:09 pm
SEEEEE…… They are NUTTY…… Too unstable to possess nuclear weapons……… Their Iatola runs the place and they are DANGEROUS…….. No NOT IRAN…….stupid…!!!
Israeli Officials Peddle False Stories of Explosion in Iran ~ Antiwar « Stop Making Sense
January 28th, 2013 at 9:06 pm
[...] SOURCE: ANTIWAR [...]
Zephyr Global Report, 1/29/2013 | Zephyr Global Report
January 28th, 2013 at 9:15 pm
[...] Israeli Officials Peddle False Stories of Explosion in Iran [...]
rybo1
January 28th, 2013 at 9:23 pm
What else is new concerning Israeli propaganda and the planting of false and misleading stories? They've been doing it for decades.
trish
January 28th, 2013 at 9:55 pm
WORLD POPULATION MUST NOT BELIEVE PHONY CLOSET ZIONIST "reporters" like Silverstein.
Richard Silverstein a closet zionist who pose as "progressive", in fact is spreading Israelis' lies on this issue. His garbage used to be published at this site then he was kicked out. He writes:
{An explosion is believed to have damaged Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, which is being used to enrich uranium, Israeli intelligence officials have told The Times. Sources in Tel Aviv said yesterday that they thought the explosion happened last week.}
He feeds the public with lies coming from Mossad. Don't trust him.
fatima
January 29th, 2013 at 12:16 am
iam not surprised at all .
Andrewp111
January 29th, 2013 at 12:35 am
So, did the explosion happen or didn't it? That is the bottom line. I don't trust the word of the press, the Israelis, the Iranians, or the US on something like this. Any of them might have valid reasons for propagating false stories or false denials. The only way to know is to look at seismology data. Any blast that large would show up in monitors quite a distance away.
Silvana Tejada
January 29th, 2013 at 1:48 am
Did Israeli government officials aggressively promote an unsubstantiated story about an explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility?
Augustbrhm
January 29th, 2013 at 2:14 am
The zionist have always lied even since its inception as a people and they have the gringos lying for them that is the nature of the beast.
JohnDowser
January 29th, 2013 at 5:58 am
But what is exactly gained from making up such an easy to debunk story? It seems such a marginal deception to waste time and effort on. Although it's hard to calculate.
What looks way more likely is that there was an actual explosion at the facility. Some accident or actual light explosives smuggled in (as they certainly would try). The damage might be light (since explosives will be small) but regulations will shut down elevators and roads as standard procedure.
Since the explosion might have done only little damage, the media is invoked to maximize the effect while Iran has good reason to deny the whole thing. Why give Israël any further advantage from this most likely failed attempt?
Just an alternative version.
John V. Walsh
January 29th, 2013 at 6:03 am
I wish there were a link in this story to the Iranian denial.
I cannot find a statement on the print version of the Iranian English news outlet, Press TV.
Frank Brodhead
January 29th, 2013 at 6:14 am
Iran denies that there was any explosion at Fordo. http://www.ibtimes.com/iran-denies-blast-nuclear-…
backblow
January 29th, 2013 at 6:40 am
Perhaps Israeli government officials are such arrogant jerks that they believe that western media will believe anything they are told by those officials. To be honest, they are not so very wrong.
peter vojta
January 29th, 2013 at 6:52 am
Israel – One bomb country? I truly believe self destruction of this Evil Entity in ME is near…..
World, whole world will rejoice….and rebuild the Earth Peter czech
omop
January 29th, 2013 at 9:57 am
No false story this…….
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, whose Hatnuah party suffered a defeat in the polls, revealed that some of its challengers in the legislative elections of 22 January 2013 have been subsidized by Qatar.
Outgoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pocketed $ 3 million, while Yisrael Beiteinu, the party headed by Avigdor Liberman, another ex-Foreign Minister, cashed in $ 1.5 million.
In exchange, the right-wing coalition undertook to promote the creation of a Jordanian-Palestinian federation governed by Hamas.
ToivoS
January 29th, 2013 at 12:31 pm
Silverstein has admitted he erred and the story is a hox: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/01/28/was-…
David
January 29th, 2013 at 1:32 pm
This is a report denying the lies of US/Israel. Down with Obama the baby killer:
The stooges in washington tspread lies and keep killing Iranian people with illegal sanctions. THE WORLD HATES YOUR DARK POLICIES. WE NEVER FORGET OR FORGIVE. WE bring you down especialy the phony progressives like juan cole, Michael Moore, acting as the propagandists for the first black "president" to keep people DUMB to go along with the war criminal Obama.
{Iran Monday denied Western reports that an explosion damaged the Fordow uranium enrichment installation last week, calling them "sheer lies."}
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/01/28…
charles caruso
January 29th, 2013 at 2:03 pm
The story was a hoax – like Israel (the Zionist state) . But like the Z state, it got wide coverage.
byrd_bahls22
January 29th, 2013 at 4:12 pm
Did Iran shoot a monkey into space ? Netanyahoo should take its place.
Sami
January 29th, 2013 at 8:05 pm
That was Netanyahoo looking for settlement since he cannot find more land in Palestine to steal for the zionists who came from Europe!!
bahook
January 30th, 2013 at 7:01 am
Worldnetdaily is total counter intelligence. Check out this article: http://landdestroyer.blogspot.ca/2012/10/joseph-farah-neo-con-cognitive.html.
Oddly, sites like infowars include the content of the above article on their site all the time, then turn around and tell us to listen to a spook like joseph farrah. Maybe not so odd when you start to look in to how disinformation campaigns work.
Now That Israeli Elections Are Over, Officials in Tel Aviv Say Iran Won’t Be Able To Build a Nuke Until 2015 | Traces of Reality by Guillermo Jimenez – making sense of news, media, politics & social issues
January 31st, 2013 at 5:07 pm
[...] attacked, in fact, and had visited the site just prior. Further, Israeli government officials may be to blame for the story’s dissemination. [...]
Who supports who in Syria? and is there yet war in Iran? | Eslkevin's Blog
February 3rd, 2013 at 11:56 pm
[...] Israeli officials started pushing the story in the press, without citing any evidence, of course. http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/01/28/israeli-officials-peddle-false-stories-of-explosion-in-iran/ Also useful/interesting – Jason Ditz, “IAEA: No Sign of Explosion at Iran Enrichment [...]
Iran War Weekly – February 3, 2013 | Iran Pledge of Resistance
February 4th, 2013 at 8:28 am
[...] Israeli officials started pushing the story in the press, without citing any evidence, of course. http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/01/28/israeli-officials-peddle-false-stories-of-explosion-in-iran/ Also useful/interesting – Jason Ditz, “IAEA: No Sign of Explosion at Iran Enrichment [...]
Android Games
February 23rd, 2013 at 2:16 am
What was surprising was that Israeli government officials would publicly comment on such a story. But that’s exactly what happened when a top national security adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to take the report at face value. Responding to an inquiry from the Times of Israel, Homefront Defense Minister Avi Dichter—the acting defense minister at the time—said, “Any explosion in Iran that doesn’t hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome.”
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April 29th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
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April 29th, 2013 at 7:56 pm
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