Conspiracy theory: The "pro-monarchy" sentiments online is backed by the Israeli government.

A few points:

  1. I don't view support from foreign governments, including Israel, for anti-regime movements a fundamentally bad thing.
  2. I totally acknowledge that many Iranians are supportive of RP, or a future monarchy in Iran. However, this post is not about sentiments shared by those authentic supporters of RP and a monarchy.
  3. I've heard this mostly (almost entirely) from far-left activists who are against the regime, but also are anti-Israel, so it's entirely possible (and I'm leaning more towards the view) that this conspiracy theory is rooted in their anti-Israeli bias that leads them to inadvertently or willingly want to use this against Israel and the monarchists, both of which they ideologically oppose. They usually refer to RP's visit to Israel in 2023 and RP's participation in AIPAC in 2024 as evidence.
  4. There's little doubt in my mind that the heavy "pro-monarchy" propaganda online is not entirely organic. You can tell this by observing factors such as: the unusually high engagement rates and impression of many such contents (sometimes more than 2% like per view on X, which is really, really high), or the consistency of such content over time, and the stark difference in views expressed in such online circles with the views of average Iranians in real world, like in the recent attacks and smear campaign against Toomaj Salehi, sentiments which no Iranian except for Arzeshi and Basijis share in the real world. The level of sophistication and coordination of these attacks indicates that they really can't be entirely organic, and there must be a higher force, such as a government, behind them. I still believe these are propped by the regime's cyber army, as not only there is actual evidence and leaked documents supporting it (I'll post in the comments), but also who would logically benefit from fragmentation and division among Iranians and anti-regime groups? Definitely the Islamic regime. Also, the heads of many pro-Israeli organizations such as FDD, UANI, or UN WATCH, usually offer similar support to both pro-monarchy and pro-republic Iranian opposition. Even though I'm not sure whether these orgs have direct ties to the Israeli government or not,
  5. With that said, I've also seen some instances where some of the accounts directly related to the Israeli government have taken the side of one group against another among anti-regime Iranians. An example I remember well for this is when Masih Alinejad voiced her support for Israel after October 7, the Farsi language account of the Israeli government quoted her tweet and thanked her, but then took down the post after a few hours. I've also seen some other accounts related to the Israeli government posting content praising RP occasionally. I still don't have a clear explanation for this.
  6. As I said, even if Israel were actually supporting Iranian opposition forces, I would be OK with that as this is an uphill battle for Iranian opposition against a tyrannical regime with the vast financial resources it has to fund its own propaganda. However, taking the side of one group of anti-regime Iranians by a foreign government is definitely not a good look for any foreign government and can create distrust and backlash, something I posted about here on this sub last year when the incident with Masih Alinejad's tweet happened (I'll post the link in comments)

What are your thoughts?