Image | Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei posts AI image to depict Jews on his website

A day after he gave another speech threatening harsher blows to Israel and the US, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, posted an AI image on his social media handle depicting Jews and Israeli soldiers as rats. The image shows Jews and Israeli soldiers escaping Iranian missiles in an American boat.

The image alluded to the speech made on July 16, wherein he called Israel’s government “a cancer” and the country “America’s rabid dog”.

The Supreme Leader, who made his second appearance after hiding in a bunker for days, claimed that Israel turned to the US after it realised it couldn’t handle the Islamic Republic. “If (Israel) hadn’t bowed down, if it hadn’t collapsed to the ground, if it didn’t need help, if it were capable of defending itself, it wouldn’t have resorted to the United States like that,” he said.

Khamenei has posted several such images during the war, which included showing missiles raining down on a skull emblazoned with the Star of David, missiles knocking down a Trump-faced Statue of Liberty, and an Israeli-American ship being destroyed, etc.

Last week, Mehdi Mohammadi, a strategic adviser to Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, posted an image on Instagram, showing the map of Israel with two mushroom clouds positioned over its territory, symbolising atomic blasts. He later pulled down the image, offering an explanation.

The Iranian state has earlier too used controversial images to depict Jews and the state of Israel, the recent being how an art gallery in Tehran staged a new exhibition of cartoons and caricatures depicting the US and Israel, many of which contained antisemitic imagery and symbolism.

 

Middle East