On Wednesday, Fox News and The Jerusalem Post ran stories based on a report from Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper claiming that the U.S. had revealed to Iranian authorities the identities of 10 Mossad agents in Iran who allegedly were involved in the July 31 assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Al-Jarida claimed its report was based on information provided by a member of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The alleged source told the Kuwaiti paper that U.S. officials had visited Iran secretly after the assassination with the goal of appeasing the regime. They told their Iranian counterparts that Israel had not informed them of its plans to kill Haniyeh and proceeded to provide them with the Mossad agents’ identities.
On Thursday, Fox News deleted the story and the Post updated its report. The updated article led with the news that the U.S. National Security Council denied the Kuwaiti story.
On Wednesday night, I shared the Post report on my X account. My post received well over one million views. Following the Post’s publication of its revision and Fox’s deletion of its initial report, I deleted my post and shared the Post’s revised story.
Given the severity of the charge, why were Fox News and the Post so quick to report the Al-Jarida story? Why was my initial inclination to lend credence the report? The answer, in short, is that the Biden-Harris administration, like the Obama-Biden administration before it, has a track record of leaking Israeli operations in Iran.
Consider just a few well-known and widely reported examples.
In May 2022, senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Sayyed Khodei was killed by gunmen outside his home. The gunmen escaped the scene on a motorcycle. According to Israeli officials, Khodei served as deputy commander of IRGC Unit 840 and was involved in planning cross-border plots against foreigners, including Israelis. At the time he was killed, Khodei was reportedly planning the assassination of French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.
To avoid the prospect of retaliation and escalation, Israel did not claim responsibility for the strike. But Biden officials told The New York Times that Israel had killed him. The operation was carried out during Naftali Bennett’s premiership and Bennett and his associates were reportedly angered by the administration’s move, which raised the prospect of increased Iranian violence against the Jewish state.
On April 12, 2021, Israel bombed the electricity line serving the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and so rendered the entire installation nonfunctional. The operation was considered the most substantial act of sabotage Israel had yet carried out against Iran’s nuclear sites. It took place a week and a half after the Biden administration had inaugurated its negotiations with the Iranians towards reinstating the 2015 nuclear deal.
Still led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the time, Israel opted to wait until two hours before the operation to inform the administration of its plans. Netanyahu’s decision reportedly owed to his fear that President Joe Biden or his advisers would leak the planned mission to the media to prevent it from taking place.
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