Is Israel Weaponizing Protests In Iran For Regime Change?

An Account Widely Believed To Be Linked To Mossad Claims The Agency Is On The Ground Steering Protests Towards Regime Change.

Over the past few days, Iranians have protested the worsening economic conditions in the country, including high inflation and the collapse of the national currency.

But an account widely seen as being associated with the Israeli Mossad has claimed that the agency has members on the ground attempting to turn the protests in a pro-regime change direction.

The account, “Mossad Farsi”, tweeted out , “Let’s come out to the streets together. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are with you in the field as well.”

The Israeli Mossad has never officially claimed the “Mossad Farsi” account that made the tweet, but it is widely seen in the Israeli media as being run by the Mossad.

Writing about the account, the Israeli outlet Ynet wrote , “Though Israel has not officially confirmed its ownership, the account is widely regarded as an official messaging channel of the Mossad targeting Iranian audiences”.

Whether the implication made by the account that the Mossad has agents on the ground is accurate or a psy-op is up for debate.

The Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post, writing about the account’s tweet, wrote, “It was unclear if the Mossad was revealing more of its hand because it truly believed that it could help the current protests topple the regime, or if the statements are part of a broader and longer-term psychological warfare.”

Some have speculated that the tweet was written in order to encourage pro-regime change elements of the protests, and other have even speculated , that is was written in an attempt to get Iran crack down most harshly on the protests.

Analyst Esfandyar Batmanghelidj argued that “It’s a message intended to provoke the most paranoid figures in Iran’s security forces to see the legitimate protests as a major threat. Mossad wants violence.”

On the other side, mainstream media has been focusing on a pro-regime change elements that seems to be attempting to take over the protests over the economic conditions.

The BBC wrote that, :

University students have also joined the protests, chanting anti-government slogans including “Death to the dictator” - a reference to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power in Iran.

Some protesters were also heard chanting slogans in support of the son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, including “Long live the Shah”.

The Times of London reported that, “Chants of ‘this is the final battle, Pahlavi will return’ — a reference to Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah — and ‘azadi’, the Persian word for freedom, have been heard in Tehran’s central bazaars, a cultural artery”.

Bolstering speculation that the Israeli Mossad may be pushing the economic protests into a pro-regime change direction is the fact that Israel has previously been caught using social media bots to try to push Iranian protests in a pro-regime change direction, with the intention of installing the aforementioned Reza Pahlavi as leader.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported earlier this year that, “In early 2023, Reza Pahlavi made his first official visit to Israel” where he said, “none of these movements could have succeeded without some element of international support”, “justifying his visit to Israel.”

Following the visit, Harretz reported that, “a large-scale digital influence campaign in Persian was underway, operated out of Israel and funded by a private entity that receives government support,” which “promotes Pahlavi’s public image and amplifies calls for restoring the monarchy.”

Haaretz noted that, “The campaign relies on ‘avatars,’ fake online personas posing as Iranian citizens on social media.”

Harretz noted, “While Pahlavi declares that he’s not running for any position, in recent years a social media campaign has been calling for the monarchy’s restoration, with Reza on the throne. According to the sources, part of this effort is based on a network of fake accounts originating in Israel,” adding “A social media researcher into the network … identified hundreds of suspected fake users on X promoting Pahlavi, sharing his messages and using hashtags like #KingRezaPahlavi.”

The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab also uncovered a network of Israeli-run bot accounts that was, “was created in 2023, almost all of its activity was conducted starting in January 2025, and continues to the present day” and which was tasked to “advance a narrative of regime change in Iran”.

During Israel’s June bombing of the Evin prison in Iran, the accounts, “started explicitly calling for the capital city’s population to reach Evin and free the prisoners” and during the Israeli bombing was, “sharing images and videos of alleged civil unrest and instability in Iran” and “published a series of posts highlighting the alleged economic upheaval in Iran after the first few rounds of bombings” while, it “told followers to head to ATMs to withdraw money, emphasized that the Islamic Republic was ‘stealing our money to escape with its officials,’ and urged followers to rise up against the regime.”

The Israeli bot accounts also “urged followers to get on their balconies at 8 p.m. each evening and shout ‘Death to Khamenei’” and “appeared to make another push to trigger unrest by questioning the ceasefire” after the end of the bombings and then “pivoted to content related to the country’s ongoing water and energy crisis.”

The report also noted that the fake Israeli accounts:

impersonated legitimate news sources. For example, we identified one screenshot and two videos impersonating BBC Persian. In the caption to a screenshot of an alleged article, the original poster KarNiloufar claimed that BBC Persian deleted it within five minutes of posting it. The headline of the article translates to “Officials flee the country; High-ranking officials leave Iran one after another”. We have verified with the BBC Persian that this article was never published by the broadcaster.

It also documented the accounts shared, “several instances of videos edited and shared to mislead viewers about protest activity occurring in Iran”

So far, there is not enough evidence to conclusively say that the Mossad is actually on the ground manipulating the protests as the Mossad Farsi account has claimed, but in would not come as a sunrise if one way or another, U.S. and Israeli intelligence will try to weaponize them towards their ultimate regime change goal.

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