Iran’s Antisemitic Quds Day Observance Prompts Cyber Attack Warning From Israel

(New York, N.Y.) — Today, Iran observes Quds Day (“Jerusalem Day”), an annual anti-Zionist day of protest created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and continued annually by the present leadership of the Iranian regime against Israel. Quds Day is held on the last Friday of Ramadan. In 2021, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei used Quds Day to call Israel a “terrorist base” amid burning U.S. and Israeli flags and condemn “weak Arab governments” that have made peace and normalized relations with Israel. 

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)’s resource Iran’s Anti-Israel Ideology: Quds Days explains that while nominally about Jerusalem, Quds Day rallies serve as a forum for regime figures to call for hostilities against Israel and the liberation of Palestine, envisaging the inevitable elimination of the “Zionist regime.” “Death to Israel” is a common chant at the rallies, often accompanied by “Death to America. The rhetoric often slides into overt antisemitism including characterizations of Zionism as a cosmic evil and statements denying the Holocaust. Israel observed Yom HaShoah – its Holocaust Remembrance Day – earlier this week.

A key part of its ideological expansion, Iran has exported Quds Day internationally over the years to more than 80 countries. This year, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate released a warning of potential cyberattacks by anti-Israel hackers worldwide to mark the Iranian observance. Israel’s Airports Authority and various Israeli media outlets were the target of a pro-Iranian cyberattack last week. These attacks were preceded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) publishing images from security cameras at Israel’s largest ports. 

Iran has continually pushed the envelope in the offensive cyber realm, carrying out costly attacks against the U.S., Israel, and other European and Middle Eastern nations. Iran’s development of cyberwarfare capabilities makes for a potent addition to its toolkit that gives Iran an additional, low-cost means beyond its limited conventional capabilities to conduct espionage on and strike stronger adversaries in furtherance of its foreign policy and national security objectives. 

To read UANI’s resource Iran's Anti-Israel Ideology: Quds Day, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource The Iranian Cyber Threat, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource How Iran Exports its Ideology, please click here. 

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