Since 2016, Americans have been aware of Russia’s use of social media, and its own press and television outlets, to create discord in American politics and undermine trust in institutions. More recently, the Islamic Republic has adopted a similar set of tactics, in which promoting hatred of Jews plays a key part. Brian Bennett writes:

Social-media accounts tracked to troll farms run by the Iranian government have ramped up disinformation after several major events this year, including President Biden’s effort to return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal, the April 14 announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin on April 20, and the eleven-day war between Israel and Hamas that started on May 10.

But within days of the conflict beginning last month in Israel and Gaza Twitter accounts linked to Iran were amplifying anti-Semitic messages in English, including the phrases “Hitler was right” and “kill all Jews” at a rate of 175 times per minute, according to analysis by Network Contagion Research Institute, which studies disinformation and is affiliated with Rutgers University and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Last year, Iran was behind efforts to intimidate Democratic voters in the weeks before the election by sending threatening email messages from accounts posing as the violent pro-Trump group the Proud Boys, U.S. intelligence officials have found. The same network of Iranian operatives created and distributed a video with fake allegations of voter fraud.

Iran’s online disruption efforts also aren’t limited to the U.S. They are also focused on Arabic-speaking Shiite populations in Iraq, French-speaking populations in North Africa, and Latin America through Iran’s state-sponsored broadcast network HispanTV.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.