The dramatic quote that was never said, and the evolution of a fake: "Again someone is conducting an illegal influence operation, and this time also in the USA"
Exposure: It started with a dubious Indian account, received a stamp of approval on Channel 14 and a retweet from Yair Netanyahu, and reached the Prime Minister's speech on Mount Herzl. The fabricated words of Ahmad Vahidi, according to which "as long as Israel and the USA possess nuclear weapons, Iran will continue to work on it," landed from there on Fox News and in the account of the US Ambassador to the UN, and then returned to India — this time with a certificate of authenticity from the "Israeli media." Thus, things that were never said became "truth," along a path that, according to sources in the security establishment, resembles the "Bild" and "Jewish Chronicle" affairs.
There are news stories that develop slowly. A reporter hears something, tries to check, calls a second source, looks for a document, asks for a response, and debates whether there is enough to publish. And there are news stories of a different kind. They do not need all this old-fashioned trouble, because they arrive in the world already equipped with almost everything needed: a narrative, an enemy, a conclusion, a television channel, a son of a prime minister, a prime minister, an American ambassador, and even Fox News. Only one thing was missing from this news: that it would be true.
On August 5, Wednesday of this week, a very dramatic news story made a wonderful journey. Within about 15 and a half hours, it left a dubious Indian X account, passed through an account that proudly bears the word Mossad in its name even though it is not the Mossad, received a certificate of authenticity from Channel 14, won the embrace of Yair Netanyahu, climbed onto a state stage in the words of the Prime Minister, landed with the US Ambassador to the UN and on Fox News, and then returned with honors to India, where it was already reported as news originating from the "Israeli media." A full circle around the globe. At every station, the fake received a new passport.
The bottom line was truly sensational: Ahmad Vahidi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, allegedly admitted that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Not a hint, not a "threshold capability," not one of those convoluted Iranian formulations. After 4 decades of firm denials and endless Iranian lies — finally an admission. And if it were true, it would indeed have been a global headline. However, an extensive search does not reveal an Iranian source for the words. No speech, no video, no transcript, no Iranian news agency, and no independent report by Reuters, AP, or AFP. Only one chain, which does something fascinating: it quotes itself again and again, until it is almost impossible to see where it started.
And the ground, it must be said, was well prepared. Channel 14 did not suddenly meet Ahmad Vahidi on August 5. For months, it built him up as a super-figure of the regime: "the strongest man in Iran," "the whisperer to Khamenei," the man who "dictates the line against Israel in Iran." In July, it was even claimed on the channel that messages attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei were actually written by Vahidi and the top brass of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Thus, when a dramatic, world-changing quote from him appears in the future, the audience already knows that they are not hearing just another Iranian general, but almost Iran itself.
Welcome to India, and then comes "Ritika." This is a nationalist-Hindu and very pro-Israel account, which in the weeks before the event gradually built a campaign around Vahidi and the Iranian nuclear program. According to a check by "Bodkim," an organization specializing in fact-checking and fighting fake news, this is an account with a history of spreading fake news, and at least one of the profile pictures is taken from Pinterest. On July 28, the account already tried a first version: another quote attributed to Vahidi, according to which nuclear weapons turned from a "wish" into a "necessity." The post did not really take off.
Eight days later, an improved version arrived. On Wednesday at 09:14, "Ritika" publishes in Hindi that Vahidi said that as long as the United States and Israel possess nuclear weapons, Iran will continue to work on it. This time there is not even a pretense of a source. No video, no reference, no Iranian media outlet. The quote simply exists because someone typed it. At 13:49, four hours and thirty-five minutes later, the upgrade arrives. The account Mossad Commentary publishes an English, orderly, and polished version of the same story. The account is not the Israeli Mossad, and the Mossad denied any connection to it. But the name does its job. Borrowed credibility is one of the cheapest and most effective raw materials on the web, and the account has amassed over a million followers.
Only thirty-three minutes pass. At 14:22, Channel 14 in English, a remote corner of the Hebrew source that mostly uses materials translated from the channel, turns the claim into news, despite the fact that until then Channel 14 in Hebrew had not published it at all. And not only publishes it: it adds the jewel in the crown — this, it is written, is "the first time that a senior Iranian official directly admits to developing a nuclear bomb." Something that did not even have a source five hours earlier is now a historical event.
And then comes Yair Netanyahu. At 14:49 he retweets Mossad Commentary. At 14:52, three minutes later, he also retweets Channel 14 in English. Later he will also echo Israel War Room. Do these three minutes prove coordination? No. Algorithms exist, people follow the same accounts, and there are also coincidences. But in the overall sequence, this is definitely a question worth asking: how do two independent and seemingly disconnected publications, which do not refer to each other, which do not give credit to any source, which stand alone in the world, meet almost immediately at the same powerful amplifier?
From a distribution chain to a washing machine, and then the fake moves to a new stage. It stops being a post and becomes policy. Even before 17:02, in a state speech on Mount Herzl, the Prime Minister of Israel says: "We heard today the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Vahidi, explicitly declare Iran's intention to continue developing nuclear weapons. 'Continue,' that's what he said." Here is the second moment of birth of the news: until now the fake had a dubious source, from now on it has a Prime Minister.
At 17:35, the US Ambassador to the UN, who until recently served as National Security Advisor to President Trump, Mike Waltz, shares the post of Channel 14 in English and writes: "Finally admitting what has been clear for years." This is a strange event. Waltz is a person who has all the resources of the American intelligence community at his disposal. How is it possible that he did not check whether such a dramatic statement was actually made? Later this post was deleted, without explanations given as to why the US Ambassador to the UN writes something and then deletes it.
From here the echo is already almost automatic. Mark Levin, one of the prominent spokesmen for the Republicans supporting Trump in the US, shares the same quote. Channel 14 in Hebrew reports on Netanyahu's words. At 19:10, in the channel's live broadcast, Yaakov Bardugo presents the things as a fact: "Vahidi, the Iranian general, who said today... if the United States and Israel do not disarm from nuclear weapons, we are continuing with the nuclear event." At 19:44, a segment of Netanyahu's speech itself is broadcast. This is the truly beautiful part. At noon, Channel 14 helped spread the quote. In the afternoon, the Prime Minister quoted it. In the evening, Channel 14 broadcast the Prime Minister quoting the same quote. The news, like a particularly talented media snake, eats its own tail and receives confirmation from it.
At 20:56, something happens that almost deserves to be included in textbooks on disinformation: Mossad Commentary, from which the story rolled to Channel 14, now refers to Channel 14 as a source. Immediately after that, Avishai Ben-Haim already produces the political conclusion: the citizen who prefers that someone else manage the relations with Trump and the campaign against Iran in the coming years is, according to him, "an irresponsible person." Within a few hours, we went from an anonymous Indian account to the question of who is worthy of being the Prime Minister of Israel. An impressive shortcut.
At 20:38, the official account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Persian also distributes Netanyahu's words to the Iranian audience. At 20:56, something happens that almost deserves to be included in textbooks on disinformation: Mossad Commentary, from which the story rolled to Channel 14, now refers to Channel 14 as a source. This is no longer a distribution chain, this is a washing machine.
At 22:01, Fox News enters. On the site, it is written as a fact that "Iran's senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander stated that Tehran will continue to work on nuclear weapons," meaning that it is developing it. The next day, in the television broadcast, the headline on the screen clarifies in Vahidi's name that Iran will continue to work on developing the doomsday weapon as long as Israel and the United States have nuclear weapons. In other words — not only is Vahidi making a U-turn in the Iranian policy of firm denial on the subject since the days of Khomeini, through the Khamenei era, and up to and including the last half year since the attack that killed him, but he is also saying that Iran will not stop as long as Israel and the United States have weapons — meaning that it will not stop.
Back in Israel, Bill Hemmer says this is "the closest thing to an admission" he has heard. The American viewer has no way of knowing that he is looking at a product that was born a day earlier in an Indian account without a primary source. Fox News presents the quote as a fact, in the television broadcast a headline appeared stating that the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will continue with the nuclear program as long as the US does so.
At 00:45, the Indian news agency ANI is already bringing the story home and attributing it to the "Israeli media." The irony is almost perfect: a week earlier, the same ANI covered an unusual statement by the Iranian embassy in India that protested against "fabricated fake news" about Iran and its leadership. Now it itself has closed the circle. India invented, Israel confirmed, America echoed, and India reported that Israel said.
Does all this prove that someone sat in one room and gave instructions? No. We do not have a WhatsApp group, an operational document, or testimony that connects all the links. Anyone who claims that it has already been proven who activated "Ritika," who fed Mossad Commentary, or who coordinated every retweet will go further than the evidence. "Again someone is conducting an illegal influence operation on the blue, only this time it is also on the red — that is, on the USA. And here too, the seams are not invisible." But the opposite is also not serious. This is not just a "tweet that everyone fell for." The check by "Bodkim" points to a series of familiar signs of spreading disinformation: source laundering, circular reporting, planting in prepared ground, borrowed credibility, mixing truth and lies, political timing, rapid flooding between platforms, and blurring tracks.
Even before the central tweet, a gradual campaign was built in the same account on the same subject, Vahidi was prepared in advance in the consciousness as a figure who actually speaks on behalf of the regime. Within five hours, the anonymous post became a "historical admission," and within less than eight hours it was already said by the Prime Minister. Memory is not old, and if this path sounds familiar to anyone, then they are not imagining it. In September 2024, stories were published in the "Jewish Chronicle" and "Bild" that fit almost wonderfully with the messages that Netanyahu wanted to promote in exactly those same hours and days around the hostage deal and the Philadelphi Corridor. These are not the same cases, and it has not been proven that it is the same mechanism or the same people. But the cognitive structure is similar in a way that is hard to ignore: information goes abroad, gets a suit of "publication in the foreign media" there, and returns to Israel as external, supposedly independent evidence for a political claim that is already circulating here.
In the case of the "Jewish Chronicle," it was particularly blatant. The newspaper published a false claim about documents of Sinwar that were supposedly captured by the IDF, according to which there is a plan to smuggle hostages through the Philadelphi Corridor to Iran — a story that validated exactly the same statement of Netanyahu in a public speech, and the general claim that one must not withdraw from the corridor even for a short time. Parents of hostages heard the claim from Sara Netanyahu who quoted the Chronicle and became anxious. A senior official in the captives and missing persons system defined its basis as "zero facts and one hundred percent lies and poison." Later it turned out that the character of the writer, who presented himself under the pseudonym Elon Perry, was also largely built from false stories about his past. The "Jewish Chronicle" apologized for false publications, fired him, and deleted all his articles from the newspaper's website. Later we exposed here, Yuval Rubovitch and I, that a senior official in the Prime Minister's office was behind the operation of this fake system.
Two years ago, sources in the security establishment called that affair of leaks and distortions an "illegal influence operation on the blue," that is, on the Israeli side, against which state officials are forbidden to conduct propaganda and disinformation operations. One of them then added the more accurate definition: "a 'shmatte' (rag) influence operation" — coarse seams, mistakes, and forgeries that are not hard to expose. This morning, the same person said: "Again someone is conducting an illegal influence operation on the blue, only this time it is also on the red, that is, on the United States, and here too the seams are not invisible. You just need to look at them before the fake manages to get a Prime Minister, an ambassador, and an American television channel." Because that is the whole trick: the fake does not need to be credible when it is born. It only needs to survive long enough to reach someone more credible. Then the more credible person becomes its source. And when the truth finally arrives, it discovers that the fake has already spoken on Mount Herzl, appeared on Fox News, received an echo from an ambassador to the UN — and returned home to India with an Israeli stamp of authenticity. Not bad for something that was never said.
From the Prime Minister's office, it was responded: "The State of Israel stands completely behind the Prime Minister's statement that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps regime in Iran aspires to develop nuclear weapons."
