标签： Asia

In a wide-ranging interview with prominent podcaster Joe Rogan this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance made explosive claims linking disgraced convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to the highest echelons of both American and Israeli intelligence circles, while also accusing hardline elements within the Israeli government of funding a covert influence campaign to derail the recent Iran negotiation agreement he spearheaded.

Vance, who identified himself as an “original Epstein conspiracy theorist,” doubled down on long-circulated unconfirmed speculation about the late financier’s intelligence connections. When Rogan noted that a widespread popular narrative frames Epstein as an asset for Israel’s Mossad external intelligence agency, Vance said the connections could extend to either the Central Intelligence Agency, deep state actors in the U.S., Israeli intelligence, or a combination of multiple groups. He specifically pointed to ties between Epstein and left-leaning figures in Israel’s deep political establishment, naming former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak as a key example, noting that Epstein’s connections did not extend to Israel’s center-right political bloc.

For decades, unsubstantiated theories have circulated about whether Epstein operated on behalf of a foreign or domestic intelligence service. The disgraced financier, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting new sex trafficking charges, built a sprawling network of relationships with rich and powerful global figures, from former U.S. President Bill Clinton to pro-Israel billionaire retail magnate Les Wexner, senior British politician Peter Mandelson, and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s second son. Over his decades in elite social circles, Epstein was widely reported to have collected extensive compromising information on his high-profile contacts, a common intelligence tradecraft tactic for leverage.

While no conclusive public evidence has ever emerged to confirm Epstein worked as an active intelligence asset for any nation, multiple official and unofficial records have hinted at potential connections. Earlier this year, a senior adviser to the Indian government publicly stated “100 percent” that Epstein was a Mossad asset when asked directly. The publicly released Epstein court documents confirm that the financier made donations to prominent Israeli causes, including Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and the Jewish National Fund, a group that supports Israeli West Bank settlements, and document his repeated personal connections to current and former members of Mossad. A 2020 FBI memo from the bureau’s Los Angeles field office also noted that an anonymous source had claimed Epstein was a “co-opted Mossad agent” who received formal spy training from the Israeli service.

Beyond his claims about Epstein, Vance used the Rogan interview to level serious accusations about Israeli interference in American domestic and foreign policy, specifically targeting the Iran nuclear negotiation framework he spent months negotiating. The preliminary memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, signed just last month, has already collapsed, and the two nations have resumed direct cross-border military strikes in recent weeks.

According to Vance, a well-funded, covert campaign is actively working to scuttle the Iran deal to perpetuate ongoing military conflict. He specifically confirmed that some of the funding for this campaign originates from Israeli government-linked actors, referencing a recent Time magazine exposé detailing an organized Israeli influence operation targeting the Make America Great Again (MAGA) conservative base that Vance is courting as he positions himself as a potential 2028 Republican presidential candidate and a political heir to former President Donald Trump. The Time report alleges that Brad Parscale, who served as digital campaign strategist for Trump’s 2020 presidential run, receives $1.5 million per month to run the influence operation. Vance said the operation pays multiple American influencers to attack his Iran negotiation efforts, and that these critics have launched vicious personal attacks against him in an effort to keep the U.S. tied to indefinite military escalation against Iran.

“I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who are trying to, like, actually shift us away from that policy [the Iran negotiations] because they want to continue the military campaign,” Vance told Rogan.

The vice president pushed back against hardline hawks in the U.S. political system who have opposed the Iran deal, challenging them to present a viable alternative to negotiations. He framed himself as a “reasonable moderate” in the deeply polarized American debate over Israel policy, noting that he has faced widespread baseless accusations of antisemitism for his push for negotiations with Iran, which he called “insane.”

When asked whether the U.S. would have entered its most recent open war with Iran if not for Israeli influence efforts, Vance replied, “Yes, yes I do.” He clarified that he shares the Biden administration’s core position that Iran must not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon, a stance he said the president holds independent of external pressure.

Vance also rejected the theory that Israel is able to coerce former President Trump using the Epstein files or other compromising material, calling that claim “crazy.”

As Israel prepares for its 27 October parliamentary election, a newly released public opinion survey from broadcaster Channel 13 has delivered a potentially game-changing projection: a coalition of opposition parties united by the goal of ousting long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would win the slimmest possible governing majority, securing 61 out of the 120 seats in the Knesset. This marks the first major poll released in over a month that shows the anti-Netanyahu bloc capable of forming a majority government without relying on support from Palestinian-majority political parties.

Breaking down the projected seat shares, the poll forecasts that former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party will capture 21 seats, falling just one seat short of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, which is projected to take 22 seats. Following the two leading blocs are former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s Together alliance at 15 seats, Yair Golan’s Democrats at 11 seats, and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu at 10 seats. The final four seats required to push the opposition bloc across the 61-seat threshold would go to a new alliance led by Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper.

By contrast, the current coalition of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties aligned with Netanyahu falls well short of a majority in the projection. United Torah Judaism is forecast to win 8 seats, while Shas and Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power take 7 seats apiece, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party is projected to win 6 seats. For Palestinian-majority parties, the poll projects Hadash-Ta’al will win 5 seats and Ra’am will take 4, while the Balad party and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Blue and White both fail to cross the minimum electoral threshold required to gain parliamentary representation. Notably, Channel 13 has not released public details of the poll’s sample size or margin of error, leaving its methodological transparency unconfirmed.

While Eisenkot has positioned himself as a leading figure in the movement to oust Netanyahu, his past policy stances suggest little substantive shift in Israeli policy toward the Gaza Strip if he enters government. As a member of Netanyahu’s wartime war cabinet in 2024 during the ongoing conflict in Gaza, Eisenkot privately discussed plans to restrict humanitarian access that would exacerbate widespread starvation among Palestinian civilians, a policy that Netanyahu ultimately implemented to push Gaza into a state of famine.

The release of the poll comes amid growing controversy over efforts by Netanyahu’s allies to restrict ballot access ahead of the vote, moves widely interpreted as an attempt to suppress turnout among voters likely to oppose the prime minister. Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently reported that senior officials in Transportation Minister Miri Regev’s office held discussions about imposing strict restrictions on incoming international flights immediately before election day, including limits on charter travel. Officials involved in those talks acknowledged the policy was motivated by fears that tens of thousands of Israeli citizens living overseas would return home to cast votes against Netanyahu.

In a separate restrictive move, a Knesset committee has advanced legislation that would eliminate dedicated polling stations at retirement and assisted-living facilities across the country. The change is projected to impact approximately 37,000 eligible voters, a population demographic that overwhelmingly opposes Netanyahu, and that number roughly equals the total number of votes required to secure one full Knesset seat.

While consecutive recent polls have consistently shown Netanyahu’s incumbent coalition at risk of defeat, Israel’s deeply fragmented political landscape still creates significant uncertainty for the opposition’s path to power. Even if the anti-Netanyahu bloc secures a narrow majority, negotiating a stable governing agreement across its multiple competing factions could prove a major challenge.

Against a tense backdrop of post-June 2025 military exchanges between Iran, the United States and Israel, a broad cross-section of current and former Iranian political leaders have converged on one key assessment: a full-blown, prolonged military conflict between Tehran and Washington is highly unlikely, though low-intensity confrontation and pressure will persist. This consensus emerged from a Tuesday interview conducted by Khabar Online with five political figures spanning Iran’s ideological spectrum, who found common ground despite divergent views on the long-term trajectory of bilateral relations.

Ali Motahari, a former moderate Iranian lawmaker, framed the current escalation as unlikely to spiral into broader war, noting that neither side has a strategic interest in open, large-scale conflict. “I don’t think the current exchanges will lead to a full-scale war because neither side wants one,” Motahari stated. His assessment was echoed by Mohsen Kouhkan, a conservative Iranian politician, who argued that Washington has no preparedness for a drawn-out military engagement. Kouhkan emphasized that recent U.S. threats are primarily a tool to ramp up political and economic pressure, not a precursor to launching a wider war.

Even as political leaders rule out all-out conflict, Tehran’s municipal government is moving forward with sweeping civil defense preparations to protect the capital’s population amid ongoing tensions. The Tehran City Council is drafting a new mandate that would require mandatory bomb shelters in all new construction projects, and retroactively repurpose existing public infrastructure — including metro stations and public underground parking garages — as emergency shelters for civilian populations during attacks. The policy shift comes after widespread criticism from residents, civil society activists and urban planning experts, who highlighted the critical lack of civilian protection infrastructure following two consecutive military campaigns launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran starting in June 2025.

According to reporting from Shargh Daily, the proposal would task Tehran Municipality with both constructing new dedicated public shelters and retrofitting existing underground public spaces to serve emergency functions. For all new development projects, the mandate would require developers to include military-attack-rated shelter space in their blueprints; completion permits for new buildings will be denied to projects that fail to meet this safety requirement.

Amid internal debate over how to respond to ongoing tensions, Masih Mohajeri — a cleric and reformist-aligned politician — has publicly called out Iranian pro-war factions, urging decision-makers to reject pressure to escalate conflict. In an op-ed published in Abrar Daily, Mohajeri criticized hard-line groups that refuse to de-escalate military confrontation with the U.S., instead demanding immediate revenge for the killing of former Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mohajeri argued that extending open conflict would actually undermine the goal of holding those responsible for Khamenei’s killing accountable, noting that prolonged war plays directly into the strategic aims of Washington and Jerusalem.

Mohajeri described the U.S. and Israeli governments as “fascist and racist,” arguing that limited military action alone cannot address the long-term threat they pose. “To save contemporary humanity from the crimes of these two criminal regimes, we must think strategically. If we speak of revenge, it must be revenge against the structure [of their ideology] so that the roots of the conspiracies and crimes are eradicated,” he wrote. “Continuing the war is what Israel and hard-line groups in the United States want and said it would ultimately harm Iran. Decision-makers must act wisely and make careful decisions, not allowing the country to fall into the trap of war. Iran must, with patience and perseverance over the long term, build itself in such a way that it can burn out the roots of these two criminal regimes.”

The reporting also sheds light on internal Iranian power dynamics, following extensive international coverage of recent comments by Mohsen Rezaei, an adviser to Iran’s current supreme leader and former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Rezaei’s remarks describing the Strait of Hormuz as “more important than dozens of atomic bombs” garnered prominent headlines outside Iran, but received almost no coverage within the country. A prominent Iranian domestic political analyst, Ahmad Zeidabadi — a former political prisoner who has been jailed multiple times for his public commentary — pushed back on the international framing of Rezaei’s comments, arguing that the former IRGC commander holds little to no actual sway over Iran’s national and regional policy decisions.

Writing on his Telegram channel, Zeidabadi questioned why the Times of Israel, which first picked up the comments from Iran’s ISNA news agency, elevated Rezaei’s remarks to front-page news. “Is Mr Rezaei’s role in the Islamic Republic’s decision-making system important enough for his comments to become the front-page story of a major Israeli newspaper? It is not,” he wrote, adding that “The Israeli press is making major stories out of events in Iran that are not really major.” While Rezaei holds the official title of adviser to the supreme leader, Zeidabadi’s analysis aligns with the structure of Iranian politics: many advisory positions for former senior officials are largely ceremonial, designed to preserve the standing of past leaders while all core decision-making authority remains concentrated in the country’s central leadership.

This report is compiled as part of an Iranian press review, and has not been independently verified for accuracy by Middle East Eye.

Five months after Iran’s long-serving supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a US-Israeli airstrike in February, the 86-year-old leader who steered Iran’s politics for more than three decades was laid to rest on July 9, following a week of multi-city funeral processions that stretched across Iran and southern Iraq. His son, 56-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, has since taken over the role of supreme leader. State media reports estimate millions of Iranians turned out for official mourning events, but beyond the public displays of grief, the week-long ceremonies laid bare underreported tensions, internal power negotiations and carefully coded political messaging that observers have since dissected to understand Iran’s shifting post-Khamenei political landscape. Middle East Eye’s on-the-ground analysis highlights the most telling of these underreported moments.

On the opening day of the procession, as foreign diplomatic delegations filed past Khamenei’s open casket, Quranic verses were recited at each stage of the ceremony — but the verse selected for the Saudi Arabian delegation sparked immediate debate among political observers. Organizers chose Verse 13 of Surah Al Imran, a passage that references the Battle of Badr, the first major military clash between the Prophet Muhammad’s outnumbered followers and the Meccan Quraysh, in which Muslim forces secured an unlikely victory against overwhelming odds. The verse reads: “Indeed, there was a sign for you in the two groups that met in battle: one group fighting in the cause of Allah and the other disbelieving. They saw them with their own eyes as twice their number. And Allah supports with His victory whom He wills. Surely in this is a lesson for those who have insight.”

A senior anonymous political source told Middle East Eye that sitting Iranian government officials criticized what they called the “deliberate, unapproved selection” of the verse, noting the choice was orchestrated by the hard-line Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organisation. The incident also drew backlash on Iranian domestic social media, with one reformist politician telling MEE that directing a thinly veiled political warning at invited foreign diplomatic guests was inappropriate, and that hospitality and respect should have taken priority over implicit political messaging.

Another notable incident unfolded involving Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who had long been named as a potential candidate for the supreme leadership before Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment. Khomeini joined other members of his family for the opening funeral service to pay tribute to the late leader, but left the ceremony early just as Verse 95 of Surah An-Nisa was recited. The passage contrasts believers who avoid fighting for religious causes without just cause with those who strive in Allah’s name, granting the latter higher spiritual status and greater reward. An anonymous source close to Khomeini confirmed he was deeply uncomfortable with the targeted recitation, which was widely interpreted as a rebuke of his rumoured leadership ambitions, though Khomeini and his brothers later joined the funeral ceremonies in the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom.

Since Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment to the supreme leadership in early March, persistent rumours have circulated that he was seriously wounded in the same February airstrike that killed his father, fueling questions about his fitness to rule. To counter these claims, Khamenei’s three other sons — Mostafa, Masoud and Meysam — made high-profile public appearances at nearly all major funeral events, all appearing in full health with no visible injuries or scars. The intentional display was widely read as a calculated signal to both the Iranian public and the international community that Mojtaba was alive, healthy and fit to govern. A senior Iranian source confirmed to MEE that while Mojtaba did sustain minor injuries to his feet and minor facial scarring in the strike, his injuries are healing well and the reports of his poor condition have been wildly exaggerated.

Mostafa Khamenei, the eldest son of the late leader, took on an unusually high public profile during the ceremonies, even leading the funeral prayer ahead of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s burial at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad and joining events in Iraq. During the Iraqi processions, he held a high-profile meeting with the sons of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric, a moment that has fueled new speculation that Mostafa may take on a greater political role in the coming years. A senior Iranian cleric told MEE that Mostafa is a highly trained scholar who studied for decades at Qom’s prestigious seminaries, but chose to stay out of public politics during his father’s lifetime, as he held little personal interest in holding public office.

Grand Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli, one of Iran’s most senior and respected clerical figures, also drew widespread attention for his unusual remarks during the Qom funeral prayer. Rather than sticking to the customary, restrained language reserved for deceased supreme leaders, Javadi Amoli used far more elevated spiritual language to describe Khamenei. A cleric familiar with the remarks told MEE that the framing was intentional: Javadi Amoli was not only stating he had only seen good in Khamenei’s leadership, but was publicly declaring the late leader a martyr who had attained a higher spiritual status in the eyes of God after dying in the strike.

The public appearance of Ali Asghar Hejazi, widely considered the second-most powerful figure in the late supreme leader’s office, also drew significant attention, after prior reports claimed he had been killed or seriously wounded in the same February airstrike. Hejazi appeared in full good health, a choice that observers say was designed to counter rampant speculation of deep internal divisions following the leadership succession. After Mojtaba’s appointment, rumours circulated that Hejazi had backed other candidates for supreme leader and did not have a close working relationship with the new leader. Mohammad Reza Bahonar, a member of Iran’s Expediency Council, told local media that shortly after the late leader’s death, Hejazi addressed the Assembly of Experts to clarify Khamenei’s stance on succession, stating: “The late Imam never held any negative view toward Mr Mojtaba, but he emphasized that, according to both law and Islamic jurisprudence, the supreme leader does not choose his own successor. This is the religious and legal responsibility of the Assembly of Experts.” A source told MEE that while Mojtaba has offered Hejazi a new senior role in his administration, Hejazi has declined the position, saying he plans to step back after decades of public service.

Finally, the funeral events exposed open hostility toward Iran’s moderate political leadership from hard-line principlist supporters. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian were all confronted by angry crowds who chanted slogans condemning the officials for their past negotiations with the United States. In one widely reported incident, Araghchi was shouted down, called a “scumbag” and had stones thrown at him by protestors during the procession.

Middle East Eye is an independent media outlet providing original, unfiltered coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.