Amid the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, media outlet Times Now put out a report claiming that Iranian members of Parliament chanted the slogans ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘Death to America’ inside the Parliament. The report, titled “Iran Parliament chants ‘Death to Israel and America’ amid Hamas attack I Video,” published on October 7, claimed that chants came even as Hamas attacked Tel Aviv. (Archive 1, 2)
Iran Parliament Chants ‘Death To Israel And America’ Amid Hamas Attack | Videohttps://t.co/3B38ynGkD5
— TIMES NOW (@TimesNow) October 7, 2023
Similar claims are also viral on social media. On X (formerly Twitter), verified user @bennyjohnson shared a similar video and wrote, “… Iran’s parliament is chanting “Death to Israel! Death to America!” as their terror cells massacre Israeli women and children…” (Archive)
RIGHT NOW: Iran’s parliament is chanting “Death to Israel! Death to America!” as their terror cells massacre Israeli women and children
This is the regime that JOE BIDEN just gave $6BILLION & a pathway to nuclear weapons too
Pure evil
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 7, 2023
The tweet was viewed over 7 million times and reposted close to 30,000 times.
Another X Blue user, @PKurzin, who lists geopolitics among his areas of interest in his bio, shared the above mentioned video on October 7 with the caption “A video of the Islamic Republic parliament where they’re chanting death to Israel and America. #IsraelPalestineWar”. (Archive)
Elon Musk replied to the tweet by saying, “Charming”. The tweet can be seen here.
Fact Check
We noticed that the Times Now report contained a tweet by a user named ‘ProudArmyBrat’. It showed a news clipping by CNN. At the bottom of the screen, one can see the news ticker: “Pompeo defends Trump’s tweet threatening Iran targetting cultural sites.” This suggested that the clipping might not be recent.
We performed a key word search on YouTube and found the same video report by CNN from January 5, 2020 posted with the caption “Lawmakers chant ‘death to America’ in Iranian parliament”
News agency USA TODAY also posted the video on the same day (January 5, 2020) with the caption “Iran: Parliament members chant ‘death to America'”
From this, it becomes clear that the video in circulation is not recent, but at least three-year old. The description section of the USA TODAY video says, “Iranian parliament members chant “death to America” after Qasem Soleimani death… Members of the 290-seat Iranian parliament raise a fist and chant “death to America” to protest the death of Qasem Soleimani.”
General Qassem Soleimani, according to a news report by Aljazeera, was the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC’s) Quds Force, and architect of its regional security apparatus. He was killed on January 3, 2020 by the US forces in a pre-dawn air raid at Baghdad airport.
A keyword search also revealed that it was not the first time the slogan ‘Death to America’ had been used in Iran. Other instances of the slogan being raised can be found here, here and here.
To sum up, the currently viral video of members of Iranian Parliament chanting ‘Death to America’ is not recent. It is from January 2020 after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani by the US forces. The report by Times Now that the slogan was raised in the Iranian Parliament amid the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict is false. Besides, there is no report anywhere of ‘Death to Israel’ being chanted in the Iranian Parliament.
Shreyatam Datta is an intern at Alt News.
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