Iran Reveals Hundreds of Missile Targets in Israel, Fails to Shake Israelis

A bombastic headline and unimpressive Google map didn’t frighten anyone.

By Pesach Benson, United With Israel

With nuclear talks in Vienna stalled and Israel raising the threat of military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Islamic Republic threatened back with a front-page article and a too-big-to-miss map of Israeli targets in the Tehran Times on Wednesday.

‘Just one wrong move!’ declared the editorial’s headline. That was followed up by a subhead asserting, “An intensification of the Israeli military threats against Iran seems to suggest that the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere.”

The editorial denounced Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s visit to Washington, where he is discussing joint military readiness and possible drills for action against Iran. It also featured a stern warning from the head of Iran’s military and a de rigueur quote from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“At the strategic level, we do not intend to strike anyone, but at the operational and tactical level we are ready for a decisive response and a quick and tough offensive against the enemy,” Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the Chief of General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, declared.

“Bagheri said the missile strike on the U.S. air base in western Iraq and the downing of the U.S. strategic drone with indigenous systems have been noticed by everyone, and these moves are especially instructive for ‘the adventurous enemies.'”

The editorial concluded by quoting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

“Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei responded to all Israeli threats in 2013, saying, ‘Sometimes the leaders of the Zionist regime even threaten us; they are threatening to strike militarily, but I think they know it, and if they do not know it, they must know that if they make a mistake, the Islamic Republic will destroy Tel Aviv and Haifa.’”

The editorial didn’t acknowledge Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s historic visit to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday, but it did note the prime minister’s phone call with new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in which the two discussed the faltering Vienna talks.

Scattershot Map

The editorial also featured an unusually large vertical map of Israel full of red pins depicting rocket alerts.

The map had the appearance and style of a Google map. Pins indiscriminately covered much of Israel and Palestinian cities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

Locations in southern Lebanon as far north as the Hezbollah stronghold of Nabatiyeh were inexplicably pinned as targets too.

The heaviest concentration of red pins centered on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Online, the map appeared to take up more space than the text of the 621-word article.

Iranian media is tightly controlled by the state. The Tehran Times is owned by the The Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization, a religious and cultural organization personally overseen by Khamenei. The paper is regarded as a mouthpiece of Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

The IIDO also owns Iran’s Tasnim and Mehr News Agencies.

Israelis on Twitter noted the indiscriminate and all-encompassing nature of Iran’s targets.

Yair Zivan, an advisor to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, tweeted, “Front page of the Iranian regime newspaper, Tehran Times, is a direct threat to indiscriminately attack Israeli civilians. Now just imagine what would happen if this fundamentalist regime was allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.”

Business blogger Naftali Hirschl, who goes by the Twitter name VonNaftali, tweeted, “Iran wants to anninihalte the Jewish people and by the way all towns which are of importance for Christians. There is no base of dialogue anymore if someone want to terminate you.”