Israel-related conspiracy theories - Wikipedia
Some Israel-related animal conspiracy theories invoke superstition, conspiracy theories, folk religious beliefs, and antisemitic tropes in the context of modern warfare by referencing magical creatures.
For example, an interviewer in a 2014 broadcast on IRIB asked Iranian cleric Valiollah Naghipourfar if Israel was using jinn to collect military intelligence. Naghipourfar answered in the affirmative, "The Jew is very practiced in sorcery. Indeed most sorcerers are Jews."[52]
In a March 2020 televised address, Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei claimed that Mossad was "using demons" and that "the Jews are experts at sorcery and at creating relationships with demons." He accused Israel and the United States of working with jinn to create the COVID-19 virus, and announced that he would not accept related international aid.[53][54][55]
In 2021, Mohammad Bagheri, a novelist affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, wrote that Israeli intelligence operations use "magic, talismans, genie devils, and Kabbalah teachings."[56]
In March 2023, Naghipourfar claimed that the intelligence services of Iran had repelled an attempted infiltration by Israel that had been "conducted via jinn."[57]
Masaf Institute director Ali Akbar Raeefipour has claimed that "Mossad has formal 'supernatural units' which operate to wage psychic warfare and read minds," remarking that they employed those forces to win the 2006 war in Lebanon. Iranian cleric Mojtaba Azizi confirmed in 2024 that both the Central Intelligence Agency and Israel employ jinn in their missions, adding that Iran had the ability to use friendly jinn to combat them.[58][56]
Iranian cleric Mostafa Karami told reporters in a televised interview that the Israel Defense Forces were able to kill Hassan Nasrallah and many other Hezbollah leaders in September 2024 by harnessing jinn. "[The Jews] have had access to genies and cosmic science since the time of David and Solomon. Historically, they have always used genies, their documents and traditions proved that. They have used genies and demons for warfare and intelligence operations throughout history."[59]
In July 2025, Abdullah Ganji, a senior Iranian official and former editor of a newspaper linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told 150,000 followers on X that after the Iran-Israel War, "a few sheets of paper were found on the streets of Tehran containing talismans with Jewish symbols." He added, "In the first year of the Gaza war, news had also leaked about [Benjamin] Netanyahu meeting with occult specialists. ... A few years ago, the Supreme Leader had stated that hostile countries and Western and Hebrew intelligence services use occult sciences and jinn entities for espionage." Ganji's claims were supported by Israeli entertainer and professed psychic Uri Geller. "The circumstances in Iran were so mysterious and so bizarre that the Iranian government realized that this cannot happen with mechanical means or cyberattacks," Geller told The Jerusalem Post. "They cannot happen with anything known to the human mind from a scientific point of view. They came to the conclusion that it was something supernatural, and they were basically right."[60][61]
Former Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh has criticized the claims of the use of jinn by the Israeli military as distractions from legitimate security threats. Author Ali Bozorgian commented sardonically upon the discussion of jinn warfare, "The situation is strange. You wake up and realize the Jinns of Karaj have been defeated by the Jinns of Tel Aviv."[62]
The official Farsi X account for Mossad responded to the 2025 allegations by Ganji by posting, "Using drugs and talking to the jinn are not desirable traits for someone leading a country."[63]
