A Year of Meming Dangerously: Iranian Influence Operations Targeting Israel Since October 7

Ari Ben Am

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An Israeli florist delivered a funeral bouquet in April 2024 to the parents of Liri Albag, a 19-year-old hostage in Gaza. Albag was very much alive, but the note with the bouquet said, “May her memory be a blessing, we all know that the country is more important.” The customer who purchased the bouquet placed his order online and was never identified. The Israeli Security Agency (ISA), Israel’s domestic intelligence arm, said it suspected the order was an Iranian ruse intended to cause anguish to the Albag family and sow division among the Israeli public.1

The incident illustrates how the regime in Tehran, despite its setbacks on the battlefield, has escalated its efforts to influence Israelis by exploiting the internet in different ways. Sometimes, initiatives that begin online spill offline, often intentionally, such as the delivery of a funeral bouquet to the Albags. This cruel example exemplifies how the Islamic Republic of Iran, limited in its military options for harming Israel and its population, employs influence operations of all kinds in an attempt to shape Israeli perception. A deeper understanding of how Iran conducts these operations points toward multiple lessons for the United States and its own ability to succeed in nontraditional domains of conflict.

Despite the massacre of October 7 — an overwhelming success from the perspective of Tehran and its proxies, including Hamas — the clerical regime’s so-called “axis of resistance” has suffered pivotal setbacks in the war it started. With American assistance, Israel has destroyed much of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. A combination of covert operations and airstrikes eliminated Hezbollah’s leadership and left it paralyzed. In the absence of support from Hezbollah, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen endured both U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. Hamas suffered terrible manpower losses in Gaza, although it continues to fight. What began as a catastrophe for the Jewish state increasingly seems like a strategic defeat for its adversaries.