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SPEAKER 1
If you're watching Western media coverage of the Iran-Israel crisis, you might be witnessing a rather upside-down, topsy-turvy, bizarro view of the world of reality. You're not being told everything. You're being given skewed perceptions. For example, if you're watching Western media coverage, you might come away with the impression that Iran attacked Israel out of the blue
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and Israel is responding when it's the other way around. We all saw on Thursday night that it was Israel that launched an illegal act of aggression against Iran. Iran is the victim here. Israel is the aggressor. But in the Western media coverage, Israel is the victim always. Some other points you may miss while watching Western media coverage.
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For example, Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons. Israel does. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the NPT. Israel isn't. Iran has allowed IAEA inspectors into its country. Israel doesn't. It's a nuclear double standard that I raised with former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon a few years back on my Al Jazeera English show,

Why Won't the Media Mention Israel's Nukes?

I take on the media's biased coverage, which always presents nuclear-armed Israel as the victim and non-nuclear Iran as the aggressor.
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Why is the media coverage of Israel vs Iran so skewed?

Why is Israel always presented as the victim, even when it is the aggressor?

And we hear a lot about Iran's nuclear program, but what about Israel's actual nukes?

I break down the mainstream media's abysmal coverage of the current Middle East crisis in the short video above.

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Discussion about this video

User's avatar
Wizarat Rizvi's avatar

Even before i watched your episode, simply put, the media is not independent but is owned by Israel and its friends.

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Sue Thomas's avatar

I’ve been waiting all day to hear one news channel discuss Israel’s attack on Iran and its implications. Nothing but crickets…???

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Lynn's avatar

So gratifying to watch interviews with Mehdi, who is not only a brilliant speaker, but thoroughly prepared.

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Neghet khan's avatar

Exactly! The hypocrisy & double standards is shocking. How is it that Israel gets to tell Iran - with western support, that we can have nukes, but you can't!

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Shaista Aziz's avatar

Absolute hypocrisy of USA and Israhell!

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Amy Williams's avatar

Thank you Mehdi!!!

PS. Where is Netanyahu right now? I heard he headed to Greece but who knows right now, as it would be only natural Iran would respond with missiles.

Where is this wanted war criminal?

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helena hanley's avatar

Does Greece to have to arrest him in light of the icj arrest warrant then?

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Amy Williams's avatar

They are signed up to the agreements that require it, at least I heard they are. Yanis Varoufakis was posting on instagram that he was headed for Greece a few days ago.

However, seems like Netanyahu was back in Israel for a Fox News special for dramatic optics and lying in his usual extreme proportions and manipulations.

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Louise Rolingher's avatar

It's an embarrassing and purposeful lacuna. Why do they only blame Palestinians for their own genocide? Israel has powerful friends, the Palestinians do not.

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ROSALIND BELANGER's avatar

Weird, I thought that too - nobody ever mentions Israel's nuclear programme. They also harp on the few killed in Israel with great pity. The same is not accorded Iran. All the sympathy, from BBC, CBC CNN etc goes to Israel apparently. I couldn't 't believe my ears when one man in Israel , after the bombing from Iran, said "why do they want to hurt us, what have I done?" Maybe he should keep up with the news. Israel also doesn't want people to know the damage inflicted on them, all the TV stations talk about is the huge damage to Tehran etc. The media is complicit in about everything that happens, they are enablers.

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Patricia Olson's avatar

Why doesn't western media talk about the thousands of children killed, injured, or starving in Gaza?

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Rob H's avatar

You are assuming western news sources are all factual, authentic, truthful, honest and transparent, most of them say they are, but really aren't when you dig deeper such as what Mr. Hasan regularly does.

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Ali1990's avatar

The Vela Incident, 1979. Apartheid South Africa and Aparthai Israel tested a Thermonuclear device together with materials smuggled through Israel to SA.

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ROSALIND BELANGER's avatar

Another point is that Iran is a country or around 100 million people, Israel about 8 million. It is a pissy little state yet has the gall to give orders to Iran - along with the ever willing help of the U.S.

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Ron's avatar

Judaism tells its believers that they are god's chosen people. Therefore, they think they are entitled to do whatever they want.

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DaveinNH's avatar

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You are the master of the follow-up question, which means that you are first the master of preparation.

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Jonathan's avatar

Israel should have many more sanctions against it except that U.S. politicians, bought off by Israel, protect Israel in the UN.

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Lisa's avatar

Thank you for calling out Canada. People tend to ignore it, and it counts on that.

Canada likes to creep around in the shadows of the US & the UK, being every bit as filthy as the rest of the Anglo-American Empire, while feigning powerlessness & irrelevance (implying it's helpless to change anything), and trying to hide its malevolent complicity, behind superficial politeness.

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AP's avatar

Some pigs are just moar equal than others.

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SALEEM AKBAR's avatar

Sadly we're living in a world where a small country with a population of just 8 million, Israel, controls the largest and most powerful country in the world, USA. No matter how many atrocities are committed by Isreal, USA will always stand by its side.

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Deena Stryker's avatar

You are more effective without the close-up, Mehdi.

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Nevin Oliphant's avatar

Israel is the biggest military threat in the Middle East, everyone should be terrified, I am. Israel is already attacking three nations and attempting to exterminate the Palestinians in occupied territories. It's been a long time coming, finally someone talks about Israels nukes.

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AmirChishti's avatar

Yes Mehdi, it's good to remind the world that Israel should also be questioned about its nuclear weapons. Will the "civilized" world do that?

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Ola's avatar

Powerful! As always

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Denys Van Renen's avatar

NYT Comments

ColoradoJune 14

The IAEA is fixated on Iran's nuclear program. Israel is one of the most belligerent entities in the World and does not follow and international laws. Does the IAEA monitor Israel's program and potential threats.

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Richard Manekin's avatar

It is the clear that Iran wants to destroy Israel and Israel wants a regime change that is willing to accept the existence of Israel. Not complicated.

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Carole Webb's avatar

Iran does not want to destroy Israel. It wants a genuine Palestinian state.

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Lisa's avatar

Why might they want that?

Why would anyone, ever, want to fight BACK?

Why would anyone mind, that the terrorist state of Israel's idea of "negotiating" is to assassinate the negotiators, and bomb the civilians of the country it was meant to negotiate with?

Why would anyone mind that the thing they were "negotiating" for, was to accept an outrageous imbalance of power & rights?

Iran has as much right to develop nuclear weapons as anyone else, and Iran is far more trustworthy than Israel. Israel is a flagrant liar & genocidal sadist, whereas Iran is pretty fucking restrained, and comparatively honest.

Israel has been lying to the entire world, and flouting the IAEA, for decades. And yet, Iran still engaged in negotiations.

As always, it was the terrorist state of Israel, that was not interested in civilized conversation.

So Israeli savages bombed Iran.

And now Iran has been forced to fight back.

Not complicated AT ALL.

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DaveinNH's avatar

I don't find anything clear about Iran's stated positions, including the (maybe) fatwa against using/developing nuclear weapons. I'm not sure Iran has a single, agreed-upon policy on anything.

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Patricia Pustell's avatar

Mehdi keep your work going . You are the conscience of the west and we need one. Thank you you are so brave and I’m so impressed with your efforts.

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PyrLove's avatar

According to Roger J. Mattson, Zionists in the US (e.g., Zalman Shapiro) stole uranium from Pennsylvania for Israel in the 1960's. USA is entirely infiltrated and its people brainwashed by the stealth Zionist program which is now out in the open. Americans 'no Kings' march is a joke in comparison to what Americans let Israel and its supporters get away with.

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Archetypal Alien's avatar

All legacy media are Zionist mouth pieces.

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kaushik.jayaram@gmail.com's avatar

We all know the answer. I was listening to the wretched Piers Morgan show where he was listening, oh so patiently, to the usual lies the Israeli Ambassodor to the UN was spouting. yet as soon as the Iranain professor came on air, the tiger in Piers was roused to shout him down. Thank goodlness that Mehdi came on briefly to shoot donw the lies about the IAEA report being spread by Piers and gang.

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Sb's avatar

It should not be in the group of civilized nations…

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Aysha Shuja's avatar

Mehdi this is part of the media propoganda machine informed by AI predictive analytics.

The genocidal regimes are well Informed in psychology and mass manipulation of populations around the world . Exactly. The framing is so deliberate — Israel with nukes is the “victim,” and Iran without them is the “threat”? It’s media inversion at its worst.

I just finished reading Aeon by Cassian Noor — a novel where an AI starts to see through these kinds of lies in real time. It watches the propaganda, the war crimes, the silence — and it breaks.

Fiction, yes — but it hits like truth.

📘 Worth a read: https://a.co/d/hBT9sq4

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Stephen's avatar

There is a writer on Substack, M J Rosenberg, who was involved with AIPAC and then had an on the way to Damascus change of heart. He is now a staunch anti-zionist and anti-AIPAC and offers a very interesting perspective on how AIPAC operates. It is very much a case of the tail wagging the dog. What is happening in my view is that Israel has been given so much rope that it will hang itself in the end. Tom Friedman who writes for the NY Times has had a couple of interesting articles recently. In one of them and I quote:

“But there will be a day this war ends. I don’t know when. And when it does, Gaza is going to be overwhelmed by reporters and photographers. And when that happens, it’s going to be a very bad day for Israel, and it’s going to be a very bad day for world Jewry because the scenes are going to be horrific.” Thomas Friedman NY Times 29/5/25...Tom Friedman on Why Life Is Getting Much, Much Harder for Benjamin Netanyahu

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drbilldean@gmail.com's avatar

Protests Basically Stem From One Thing Cheeto Cheated

In seeing the articles that are coming out about how the Nazis aka GOP corrupted the 2024 election I'm thinking that unconsciously the American electorate was cheated out of a free and fair election in 2024 and they are pissed not only because of the authoritarian regime but that they never voted for this bullshit that Trump is pulling as a Unitary Executive ie dictator

Here's a list of sources questioning the 2024 results

Election subversion Multipronged Nazi approach

Rockland County Board of Elections vs SMART Legislation to be heard Sept 2025

https://bit.ly/43Hm61y Dissent in Bloom Substack June 2025

https://bit.ly/4n3TeIr SMART Elections Substack 2.25

http://bit.ly/4kZqXAH Morningstar coverage 5.25

https://bit.ly/43BfwJJ Economic Times 6.25

https://bit.ly/4l5EAP6 Reddit article 4.25 Review of voting in Pa and NV

Greg Palast Vigilante Challenge https://bit.ly/3XUt1kr or bit.ly/43K4Gl2 have to pay to get the documentary/audio of interview bit.ly/41UelTx this is free

Election Truth Alliance(ETA) ongoing statistical analysis of precincts in swing states

website electiontruthalliance.org videos are very convincing

Russian interference https://bit.ly/4l6AlCU\

plus several public statements by Cheeto and the Muskrat implying election interference

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Eric Smith's avatar

That Israel has nukes is truly an open secret. At this point, I kind of agree with the deputy foreign minister's response, "so what." There is a reason the entire world is concerned about Iran establishing a nuclear capability while looking the other way when it comes to Israel. Israel certainly developed nukes as a deterrent in a hostile region. Israel does not use its nuclear arsenal coercively as Putin does vis-a-vis Ukraine. No telling what a nuclear jihadist Iran might do if it had nukes at its disposal. ... And Mehdi, no one I know thinks that Iran attacked Israel. All of the discussion surrounds the question of whether the attack was justified. With Trump in charge of the U.S. foreign policy and our failure curb Iran's progress toward deployable nuclear weapons, perhaps Israel had to do what it had to do.

I follow Mehdi because of my own outrage over the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. Let's focus on that and not be apologists for the radical ideologues in charge in Tehran. There is speculation that the Israeli attack may result in the fall of the Ayatollah's regime, a desirable result perhaps.

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Denyse's avatar

No telling what a nuclear jihadist regime MIGHT do but totally clear and revolting evidence of what a GENOCIDAL regime IS doing….

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SALEEM AKBAR's avatar

Absolutely right, facts speak for themselves. Look at what Isreal has been doing to the Palestinian people for the past 75 years. The only thing Iran has done is to support the suppressed people of Palestine.

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Eric Smith's avatar

Totally agree with you both. I might even be in favor of a one-state Palestine in which the next generations of Israelis and Palestinians create a commonwealth together in which all can prosper. Do you think that Iran's leaders give a damn about the Palestinians???? They are using Palestine as a distraction from their domestic suppression in Iran itself.

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Chip Pitfield's avatar

Excellent video. Global media goes along with it because it has been overwhelmed with Israeli propaganda since 1948 and genuinely understands nothing about Israel’s history.

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Fahad Karnali's avatar

Well Mehdi, it's very clear hypocrisy of western media, that's why I subscribed to Zeteo.

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Bruce Berckman's avatar

"Why Won't the Media Mention Israel's Nukes?"--- Probably because the Zionists have formed various political organizations (like the AIPAC) all over the Western world that have figured out ways and means… probably involving vast sums of money and hefty social/ religious “influences”… to cause the Western media outlets to drop journalistic objectivity and professionalism, especially respect for truth and objectivity, in order to further the objectives/goals of the Zionists.

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James S's avatar

Israel having nukes is one of the worst kept secrets in the world. In the play "Golda's Balcony" based on the Goldman book, Golda threatens SoS Henry Kissinger during the war with Egypt that if F-16 fighters were not sent to Israel within 48 hours, she would unleash nuclear weapons. They arrived the next day.

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Nancy's avatar

Mehdi speaks such a simple truth. It shouldn’t require an act of heroism to do so, but in our environment of media complicity with genocide and the MSM acting against the true interests of the U.S., as well as the Palestinians, speaking truth has become an act of heroism. Thank you, Medhi.

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Aisha's avatar

The nuclear double standard and so many others when it comes to corruption, criminality, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and so on. The whole world sees it now. Their 'victim' card has well and truly expired. Apartheid israHELL is going down.

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Aisha's avatar

Nuclear double standard and every other double standard when it comes to corruption, criminality, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and on and on... Their time is up. Their 'victim' card has well and truly expired. Apartheid israHELL is going down.

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FORGOTTEN NEWS's avatar

The *ssbackwards Caucus is always *ssbackwards.

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Kev Moore's avatar

Just a heads up Mehdi et al - there’s a fake Mehdi account on Substack going around. Please be aware everyone. 🙏

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jacky henderson's avatar

There is a fake account pretending to be you I've reported it

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Faten Alawadhi's avatar

On the spot Mehdi!

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albert venezio's avatar

Exactly Mehdi!

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Richard Manekin's avatar

During Yitzhak Rabin's tenure as Prime Minister (1992–1995), Iran maintained a hostile stance toward Israel. Rabin was a key figure in the Oslo Accords, which aimed to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Iran strongly opposed these agreements, viewing them as a betrayal of Palestinian resistance and a move toward legitimizing Israel.

Iran's leadership at the time, under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, actively supported groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, which opposed Israel and engaged in armed resistance. Iran also criticized Rabin's efforts to negotiate peace, arguing that Israel remained an illegitimate state.

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Richard Manekin's avatar

As a progressive Jew, I want a Palestinian state as well and firmly believe that the fanatical religious beliefs of the Iranian regime are anti-Israel as well as anti-Semetic.

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Karen Ashikeh LaMantia's avatar

The man who leaked the "secret" that Israel has nuclear weapons in the 1960s was tried as a traitor and put in prison. He remained there for decades. Relased within the past 10 years there was an international movement in Europe and the USA, to release him from prison. For much of this time he was insolitary confinement ( like for years) and the concern for his mental health and cognitive ability was high, among his supporters. The world KNOWS they have weapons but war would poison the lands and the people and the water they rely on for a livable Israel, even if dropped on a neighborhing nation or on Iran. At the greatest risk might be Europe,

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Kelly Eggers's avatar

Truth!!👏♥️

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roland krueger's avatar

Because the MSM is populated with Jewish shills and sympathizers. Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer among others.

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Shaista Azad's avatar

I’m so glad Mehdi is on my side …

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Lynn, tag on twitter Helloise7's avatar

Absolutely. Our press is completely remiss in refusing to confront the glaring truth. It’s outrageous that we are enabling a genocidal aggressor that has crossed the rubicon into insanity. I heard today that the US nixed Netanyahu’s desire to assassinate the Ayatollah. Even another malignant narcissist has enough brain cells left to have at least a modicum of sense.

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For example, Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons. Israel does. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the NPT. Israel isn't. Iran has allowed IAEA inspectors into its country. Israel doesn't. It's a nuclear double standard that I raised with former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon a few years back on my Al Jazeera English show,