A top-trending hashtag across Iranian social media platforms declaring ‘the beginning of the end’ for Israel marks a major escalation in Tehran’s coordinated effort to influence public perception and intensify its multi-front war against the Jewish state. This campaign, promoted both digitally and through state-controlled channels, is part of Iran’s longstanding regional strategy targeting Israel’s legitimacy while arming and directing terror proxies throughout the Middle East.
Coordinated Propaganda and Cyber Efforts
The surge of content using the hashtag, translated as ‘the beginning of the end,’ highlights a calculated disinformation and incitement push by Iranian government agencies, most notably elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Iranian state media, official spokespeople, and thousands of coordinated accounts—including bots and IRGC-affiliated activists—have used the campaign to spur anti-Israel sentiment within Iran and across the broader Middle East. Cyber warfare and information operations are integral parts of Tehran’s doctrine, supplementing kinetic action by proxy militias as part of the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance.’
Historical and Geopolitical Context
Iran’s animosity towards Israel is rooted in its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Successive Iranian leaders have openly called for Israel’s eradication, framing the Jewish state’s existence as an affront to their religious and revolutionary ideology. The regime operationalizes this worldview through annual events such as Al-Quds Day, routine Holocaust denial, systematic incitement, and the consistent arming and financing of proscribed terrorist organizations including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
The October 7, 2023 massacre perpetrated by Hamas terrorists, with direct Iranian backing, signaled an unprecedented escalation. Over 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children were slaughtered or abducted in the deadliest antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust. The attack was lauded in Tehran, with state media celebrating Hamas terrorists and reinforcing calls for Israel’s elimination. Iranian oversight, funding, and technical expertise were critical in the planning and execution of this massacre, according to Western intelligence agencies and confirmed in official Israeli military briefings.
Multi-Front Strategy: Proxy Militias and Cyber Incitement
Iran’s digital incitement is inseparable from its operational support of regional terrorist factions:
- Hamas terrorists in Gaza receive funding, sophisticated arms, training, and intelligence from Tehran.
- Hezbollah in Lebanon is Iran’s most advanced foreign militia, controlling vast arsenals of rockets capable of devastating Israeli civilian centers.
- Houthis in Yemen and Shi’ite militias in Syria and Iraq execute Iranian directives—including missile and drone strikes on Israeli and Western targets.
- The IRGC’s Quds Force directly organizes, funds, and arms these groups, while orchestrating global campaigns of terror and incitement.
These proxies operate not only with logistical and financial backing but as the physical extension of Tehran’s anti-Israel ideology. Every social media hashtag and propaganda campaign feeds into this broader infrastructure of violence and delegitimization.
Psychological Operations: The Power of Narrative
By flooding digital platforms with calls for Israel’s destruction, Iranian authorities aim to accomplish several objectives: demoralize Israeli society, seed disunity among allies, embolden terror operatives, and present Israel on the global stage as weakened and illegitimate. This technique is textbook psychological warfare. State-linked accounts further manipulate news through doctored videos and disinformation, creating a distorted echo chamber where Israel’s right to exist is questioned and its citizens are demonized.
Domestically, the regime uses these digital campaigns to distract from deep economic, social, and political failures. Facing intermittent protests and mounting civil unrest, Iranian authorities channel internal frustration outward, uniting disparate domestic factions around a shared external antagonist—Iran’s enduring scapegoat, Israel.
Israel’s Multifaceted Defense Against Hybrid Threats
The government of Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, identifies the Iranian campaign as part of a broader existential threat. The IDF continues sustained defensive and preemptive operations on all fronts, including counter-cyber warfare to neutralize Iranian information networks. Israel’s intelligence services have exposed dozens of IRGC-run influence operations in the digital sphere, and joint cyber initiatives with the United States and other partners remain central to defensive operations.
Internationally, Israel seeks to expose and isolate those funding and perpetuating violence. The United States, under President Donald Trump, has reaffirmed security cooperation, advocating for stronger deterrence and calling out the IRGC’s global role in terror and incitement at the United Nations and allied forums.
The Broader Implications: Regional Stability and the Moral Dimension
The Iranian campaign comes at a time of ongoing regional instability, as Israel continues to fight a war imposed by Tehran and its proxies. The overt call for the destruction of a sovereign country—amplified through state-backed digital means—raises alarms for regional security and the broader international system that relies on basic norms against incitement to violence.
The attempt to normalize destruction and delegitimization of Israel—whether through cyber campaigns or armed violence—underscores the critical moral and legal distinction between the democratic state acting in self-defense and terror organizations violating every code of war. Israel’s war is not only against rockets and infiltrators but against a relentless information onslaught aimed at eroding its right to exist.
Conclusion: Enduring Clarity in a War of Narratives
The campaign built around ‘#TheBeginningOfTheEnd’ is not mere rhetoric but the digital front of a sustained and well-resourced campaign against Israel’s survival. As Tehran intensifies both online and proxy warfare, Israel has responded with resilience on the battlefield and in cyberspace, determined to expose the campaign for what it is: an extension of violent, eliminationist ideology. In the face of these threats, Israel continues to affirm its right and duty to defend its citizens, its sovereignty, and the historical truth on which its legitimacy is based.
