Israel used ‘Jewish witchcraft’ during war: Iranian journalist

An Iranian state media veteran blamed Jewish mysticism and demons for the Islamic Republic’s military setbacks during the recent war with Israel.

By World Israel News Staff

A prominent Iranian journalist accused Israel of utilizing “Jewish witchcraft” and demonic forces during the recent war between the Jewish state and Islamic Republic.

Abdollah Ganji, the former editor of state-controlled newspaper Javan, took to social media to post about a “strange phenomenon.”

“After the recent war, a few sheets of paper were found on the streets of Tehran containing talismans with Jewish symbols,” Ganji wrote on the social media platform X.

According to Ganji, the papers prove that Israel had used witchcraft during the fighting.

“In the first year of the Gaza war, news had also leaked about Netanyahu meeting with occult specialists,” the journalist continued, without providing evidence for that claim.

“A few years ago, the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] had stated that hostile countries and Western and Hebrew intelligence services use occult sciences and jinn [demonic] forces for espionage.”

Some Iranian X users added context to Ganji’s tweets, urging readers outside of Iran to “not take this guy seriously.”

The Mossad intelligence agency’s Farsi-language X account responded sarcastically to Ganji’s post.

“Using drugs and talking to the jinn [demons] are not desirable traits for someone leading a country,” the account replied.

Ganji’s tweet is not the first incident of Iranian figures appearing to panic over Jewish symbols in public spaces.

In December 2021, journalist Fatima Karimi accused a shopping mall in Iran of “promoting” the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Karimi took offense to a seasonal decoration in the mall featuring a hanging canopy that included seasonal fruit.

The journalist charged that the hanging fruit overhead was borrowed from the traditional decoration practices for the Sukkot festival. She demanded a police investigation into the mall, claiming that the shopping center’s owners were engaging in a malicious conspiracy to secretly expose Iranians to Jewish symbolism.