Scenes of a faux kidnapping of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into Iran circulated on pro-regime networks last week.
This is the Iranian regime. In the middle of negotiations, they post a video threatening to kidnap Prime Minister @netanyahu. They can’t help themselves. It’s the nature of the regime. https://t.co/nHpMMqXS9S
— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) April 25, 2025
The scenes were taken from a short movie named “Unofficial Guest.” The movie starts with news of a mysterious accident involving Netanyahu, with his sudden disappearance, as no one knows where he is. Meanwhile, in Tehran, one Hebrew language interpreter named Haidar is invited to interrogate a guest, whom he soon finds out to be Netanyahu himself.
Despite the film being released over five months ago, it suddenly made a comeback on Iranian networks, in striking tandem with the US-Iran nuclear negotiations.
The producers of the film are the Ghodra studios, accused by oppositionist outlet Radio Farda of being a straw company which belongs to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, operating to disperse the regime’s propaganda. Ghodra’s listed CEO is Morteza Esfahani, a.k.a. Morteza Ghoobbe, who, according to Radio Farda, has also served as an official at the Ministry of Intelligence.
Furthermore, the film is available on a website named “Ammar Yar”, owned by the Cultural Front of the Islamic Revolution. This is an official body that was launched in accordance with a decree issued by Khamenei over a decade ago and distributes works authorized by the regime that are consistent with the Islamic Republic’s values.
In other words, the film showing the kidnapping of the Israeli Prime Minister was produced by actors affiliated with the Iranian government and was made available on platforms affiliated with the Islamic Republic.
Previous threats of kidnapping Netanyahu
This is not the first time Iranian officials have threatened to kidnap Netanyahu. In November 2022, Iranian-regime-controlled Bahar News reported that Mojtaba Fada, a commander at the IRGC in Esfahan, called to kidnap Netanyahu and ‘bring him to the Islamic Republic as a slave.’ Fada said: “the prime minister of the Zionist regime hoped that the protests in Iran would lead him to travel to Tehran [in a post-protest, Mullah-free Iran], but God willing, the Islamic Republic will prevail and will frog march that prime minister to Iran wearing a leash and a slave collar.”
Likewise, in September 2024, the Israeli Shin Bet arrested an Israeli citizen who met with Iranian intelligence representatives and was even allegedly smuggled to Iran as part of a plot to assassinate Netanyahu or other officials in Israel.
Sources at the Israeli Prime Minister’s office chose not to respond to the Jerusalem Post’s comment request.
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