What are Iranians saying about Israel’s air strikes?

Ultra-hardliner loyalists of the establishment in Iran are demanding a quick response to Israeli air strikes Saturday, but many others are cautioning about further escalation and want an end to the conflict.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Saturday that the Islamic Republic is "entitled and obligated to defend against foreign aggressive actions, based on the inherent right of self-defense” and that “It highlights the individual and collective responsibility of all countries in the region to safeguard peace and stability.”

“Zionists must receive a response right now even if they managed to land one American missile in Iran, even in an insignificant location. Speediness of Iran's reaction is a component of our strength and will cause disruption to the possible continuation of the attacks,” Abdollah Ganji, the former editor of the IRGC-linked Javan newspaper tweeted after the third wave of attacks.

“Why are you so eager to involve Iran in war? War will bring nothing other than destruction to you”, one response said. “Israel will respond again and so will Iran. How long should the cycle of retaliatory attacks continue?” Another message to Ganji said, “Don’t talk nonsense, those above you made a deal behind the scenes before [the attack to not respond]”.

“Sustainable security depends on [show of] strength and strong response to the enemy’s smallest blunder,” ultra-hardliner lawmaker Amir-Hossein Sabeti tweeted. “Violation of Iran's red line and invasion of the country’s territory must be answered at a surprising level to them. The best time for responding is when they are busy in a war of attrition in Gaza and Beirut,” he contended.

Most of the comments to his post disapproved of his call to continue the conflict. “Direct conflict with Israel will only expedite the Islamic Republic’s downfall from within”, one of the comments said.

Unlike Ganji and Sabeti, some politicians appeared to be advising an end to the conflict.

“Politically analyzed, [the limited scope/impact of] the attack means Washington and Tel Aviv are seeking deterrence and the end of the revenge cycle of war,” a former head of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, tweeted. “Both war and diplomacy can be limited to Gaza and Lebanon now,” he added.

“The cycle [of revenge] will end when the child-killing Zionist regime is destroyed,” one of the comments to Falahatpisheh’s post read.

Many social media users contended in their posts that the Islamic Republic will downplay the impact of the Israeli air strikes even if important targets were destroyed while others warned against an Iranian response.

Esmail, a social media activist who describes himself as a barandaz (one who wants to overthrow the Islamic Republic), argued in his tweet that Iran is preparing the public opinion for not responding to Israel’s attack because all news channels of the state broadcaster are downplaying its impact.

“This means denial and preparation of [people’s] minds for not responding is on the agenda if … the level of [the impact] of the attack remains the same [as it appears now]. Israel is happy, the US is happy, the IRGC is happy [too]...,” he wrote.

“Netanyahu and his friends still have the upper hand. It is enough to publish images of the impact on the targets if they intend to [continue the] conflict but the Islamic Republic will declare victory with extensive propaganda if images are not released,” another post on X read.

Another netizen opined in a tweet that it will become clear if the Islamic Republic’s propaganda on the low impact/damage of the attack could work or not when more information becomes available. “Everything is ambiguous so far but apparently the dollar rate has gone down,” he wrote.

Iran's currency, the rial, regained some of its losses after the Israeli air strikes. The rial had fallen nearly 20% against the US dollar since August amid fears of a major military escalation with Israel.

It is bizarre and dangerous to downplay the attack on Iranian soil, Zeynab Karimian, a blogger, warned in a tweet. “Do admit that it is dangerous that [Israeli planes] easily reached the center of Tehran and left even if there were no casualties,” she added.