Iranian Newspaper Puts Literal Targets on Israeli Sites in Public Threat

An English-language Iranian newspaper has put a literal bull’s-eye on dozens of sites inside Israel that it says the Islamic Republic will target if Israel makes “just one wrong move.” The Tehran Times published the article that topped its website on Tuesday, featuring a large map of Israel with pins representing potential targets, including in the West Bank and on the borders with Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. The newspaper is angry, it seems at the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, which reported on Tuesday that Israel’s last airstrike on Syria is “a direct message” to Iran. The unsigned editorial said, “The Tehran Times doesn’t need to remind the illegitimate regime of Israel of Iran’s defense capabilities. Yet, they need to remember something. Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei responded to all Israeli threats in 2013, saying, ‘Sometimes the leaders of the Zionist regime even threaten us; they are threatening to strike militarily, but I think they know it, and if they do not know it, they must know that if they make a mistake, the Islamic Republic will destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa.’” The piece concluded, “Keep your hands off!” The Tehran Times calls itself the foreign-language voice of the Islamic Revolution (which brought an Islamic theocracy to Iran). The newspaper and internet site have readers in some 80 countries, it says, making the editorial a very public threat, which comes as Iran and the world powers continue to negotiate a return to the nuclear deal under which Iran would curb its nuclear production in exchange for sanctions rollback. There does not appear to have been any public pushback against the threat, from the world powers, Washington, or the United Nations.