Scenes of the faux kidnapping of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by 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
These scenes were taken from a short movie titled Unofficial Guest. The movie starts with news of a mysterious accident involving Netanyahu in which he suddenly disappears, his whereabouts unknown. Meanwhile, in Tehran, one Hebrew language interpreter named Haidar is invited to interrogate a guest, whom he soon finds out is 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 film was produced by Ghodra Studios, accused by oppositionist outlet Radio Farda of being a straw company that belongs to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, 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 Intelligence Ministry.
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 following a decree issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over a decade ago, and which distributes works authorized by the regime as 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 related to 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 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Isfahan, 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.”
In September 2024, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) 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 Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to The Jerusalem Post’s request for comment.