s an exercise in shaping public opinion, the swift rise and fall of the story that Israeli air attacks were pushing Iran out of Syria was a puny effort.
Israelis woke up a few days ago to headlines from major outlets reading “Defense officials: Iran pulling out of Syria as Israel pummels its forces there”. Before long the dramatic news of the success of Israel’s long shadow war was in international media from the London Times to China’s Xinhua.
But in a conference call yesterday with the head of the Institute of National Security Studies Amos Yadlin, hosted by MediaCentral, the former IDF intelligence chief told reporters he “didn’t buy it” and that Iranian forces “may be changing their positions, but they’re not leaving.”
Asked point-blank how he could contradict the IDF, Yadlin responded that “senior defense officials” weren’t the army, and that it was a legacy-crafting effort by outgoing defense-minister Naftali Bennett’s PR team.
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