Propaganda narrative targeting Gen. Qassem Soleimani debunked
An enemy narrative pretending to have suddenly "leaked" a long-time existing video attempts to stain the reputation of a Resistance symbol.
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More failed propaganda narratives target Martyr Qassem Soleimani
A video clip that was claimed to be a “leaked" proof of Iran’s relation to “Israel” depicts the former commander of the Quds Force, martyr Qasem Soleimani, during a meeting with a group of people. With no proof, the publishers used propaganda to write a storyline that these men at the table with Soleimeni are Israeli intelligence officers and the context is “a secret meeting.”
Agence France-Presse reported that the video, in fact, was previously published in several Iranian news agencies, and shows Soleimani's meeting with Iranian film director Nader Talebzadeh in 2018. Thus, the video is not “leaked” nor does it appear to be linked to elements of a secret meeting since it has been previously published by Iranian platforms.
In the video, a man with a white beard appears to be walking toward a table where a number of people are sitting, including the former commander of the Quds Force, and they greet each other. The propaganda narrative has taken to Twitter where an individual has captioned the video: "After Israel declassified Iran... Soleimani's meeting with the intelligence of the Zionist entity in a leaked video."
💢 بعد ان رفعت إسرائيل 🇮🇱 السرية عن إيران .. لقاء سليماني مع مخابرات الكيان الصهيوني فيديو مسرب‼️
— عبد الحميد العاني 🇮🇶 (@hamid_alani) June 27, 2022
و عاشت المئاومة pic.twitter.com/Z78aKlYe5K
The video received thousands of interactions on social media, especially on Twitter, despite the French agency’s insistence that they are skeptical regarding both the location of the video and the narrative in which it has been spotlighted. AFP confirmed that the video was published on the websites of several Iranian agencies, which removes the suspicion of "leakage" altogether.
Read more: IRGC: Abandoning revenge for Soleimani is 'pure fantasy'
Furthermore, several elements, according to AFP, raised the suspicion that the video was not actually a "leak", as the hall in which it was filmed appears equipped for an occasion, and a number of people appear to be sitting at separate tables in a show of counter productiveness to a “secret meeting”.
In a more logical explanation, the individuals, or some of them, have been identified. For example, at the beginning of the clip, director Talebzadeh is shown greeting Iranian director Ibrahim Hatami Kia.
Who is Talebzadeh?
Nader Talebzadeh was known for his distinctive sharpness in cinema and film writing, directing many award-winning documentaries and movies. In 2007, he produced a feature-length movie, "The Messiah", which received many accolades.
He lived and documented the Iran-Iraq war, as well as documented the Balkan wars in the 90s.
In 2019, the US State Department sanctioned Talebzadeh and his wife, Zeinab Mehanna, for establishing the New Horizons Conferences, a yearly cultural event that binds non-Muslim and non-Iranian thinkers at the annual event that sheds light on US and Israeli hegemonic policies and war crimes. The director passed away on April 29 of this year, leaving behind a rich cultural and artistic heritage.
More on the deconstructed narrative
Moreover, the Iranian writer and researcher Hamid Daoud Abadi had previously written about this meeting. He explained that at the time, the two men met, as shown in the video, at "the wedding of the daughter of Ehsan Muhammad Hassani, head of Oj Media Art."
Abadi recounts how Hassani seated him at the table of martyr Soleimani, adding that the "Director Ibrahim Hatami Kia, writer Gulali Babai, head of the Office of Resistance Literature and Arts Mortada Sarhangi, and head of the artistic department Mohsen Momeni" were also seated at the same at the table where the martyr was seated.
As such, the deconstruction of the Israeli narrative seeking to create sow doubt where none exists has been completed. The video is real, the narrative is a fabrication of a fictitious mind that has lost the battle psychologically and has no doubt any military battle will come at a very high price.
On January 3rd, 2020 the commander of the Quds Force, General Qasem Soleimani, and the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Authority, Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, were martyred by a US missile strike near Baghdad International Airport in what was a cowardly assassination.
Read more: General Soleimani, the revolutionary, the martyr, the legend
