Uprising Through Deceit: Inside the Israeli Mossad Plan to Foment Civil Unrest in Iran
In early May 2026, Ynet published a piece highlighting the Israeli government’s efforts to help facilitate a regime change in Iran both before and during the U.S. and Israel’s war on the country that was launched on February 28th, with the strategy being one of pushing for societal strife via covert operations.
Demonstrations broke out in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar in late December of last year as a result of a currency crisis, with the country facing soaring inflation driven in large part by U.S. sanctions. By January, the clashes between demonstrators and security forces greatly intensified, and the atmosphere became increasingly more violent. Trump himself commented on the unrest on social media and attempted to use it to justify U.S. action in the country, saying:
“If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protestors, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President Donald J. Trump!”
From the Israeli perspective, demonstrations in Iran have served as a potential vessel to push for a regime change of a long-standing geopolitical enemy in the Islamic Republic. One prime example is during the 12-day war in June 2025, as Israel was operating a Persian-language digital influence campaign promoting the son of exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi in an attempt to destabilize the Iranian regime. The campaign attempted to astroturf support for Pahlavi through fake social media accounts and AI-driven bots posing as Iranian citizens.
With regard to the demonstrations that formed in Iran before the 2026 war, the Ynet investigation says:
“The plan aimed for war in June 2026. By June the preparations will be completed and the conditions will be ripe. But then, in January of this year, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets, at their own timing. The enormous work that Israel invested was in the background of the demonstrations. The protest didn’t topple the Iranian regime, some say, still hasn’t, but it had a decisive effect far away, at Mar-a-Lago, at Trump’s estate in Florida.”
The signs of the Mossad embedding itself in the demonstrations had been made clear earlier, such as in late December of last year, when the social media account of the intelligence agency had posted a message in Farsi saying:
“Go out together in the streets. The time has come.”
“We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”
On January 13, 2026, Tamir Morag, an Israeli commentator, made a post on X saying:
“We reported tonight on Channel 14: foreign actors are arming the protestors in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel being killed.”
“Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.”
When Israeli PM Netanyahu and President Trump held a meeting in the White House situation room on February 11th, a key factor in Netanyahu’s war planning was the prospect of fomenting nationwide protests after the launch of the war, with the plan being to strike the Islamic Republic and then use the Mossad to help bolster an uprising. Administration officials expressed skepticism over the Israeli proposal for regime change, but the prospect of dismantling the Iranian military was feasible in the eyes of Trump. At the same meeting, the Israelis raised the possibility of Kurdish fighters crossing over from the Iraqi border to combat the Islamic Republic. Trump has since reportedly said that he sent “a lot of guns” that were intended to reach Iranians during the January protests but believes the Kurds, who were the recipients of the weapons, kept them. In May, Trump has since said, when referring to Iranian protestors and the prospect of an uprising:
“They want to go out on the streets. They have no weapons. They have no guns. We thought the Kurds were going to give [them] weapons, but the Kurds disappointed us. The Kurds take, take, take... I’m very disappointed in the Kurds.”
After the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran, reporting indicated that the CIA was working on a plan to arm Iranian Kurdish militias to generate an uprising that could counter the Islamic Republic. Trump himself reportedly held talks over the phone with Kurdish minority leaders in Iraq and Iran and offered them “extensive U.S. aircover.” Trump initially expressed support for propping up the Kurds but then walked this back, claiming that the conflict was already “complicated enough” and he didn’t want to see the Kurds “get hurt or killed.”
Israel was a major proponent behind the plan to support Kurdish militias for a potential invasion of Iran and had reportedly bombed areas of Western Iran with the intention to pave the way for an offensive. However, after the leaks to the media about the potential Kurdish invasion, the disapproval of it from regional allies stemming from fears of destabilization amidst ethnic partition in Iran, and tensions with the Kurds themselves, the plan was scrapped. According to the Times of Israel, Netanyahu, who pushed for a Kurdish offensive and for the Mossad to “galvanize the Iranian opposition” and facilitate chaos amidst the war, expressed frustration when it became clear at the end of March that the “promises to foment revolt in Iran had not materialized.”
Although a ceasefire is in place between Israel, the U.S., and Iran, Israel has still highlighted its commitment to not just weakening the Islamic Republic but orchestrating a full-on regime change. In mid-April, David Barnea, the head of Mossad, said:
“Our commitment will be fulfilled only when this extreme regime is replaced. A regime that seeks our destruction must cease to exist. We will not stand idly by in the face of another existential threat — guided by the command: never again.”
In the eyes of the Israeli foreign policy establishment, a victory in Iran won’t come until there is regime collapse, and fomenting civil unrest and continual war is how they will try and push for that outcome.