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X suspends Khamenei’s new Hebrew-language account

The suspension followed a tweet in which the Iranian leader claimed that “the Zionist regime made a mistake.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers an address on Oct. 19, 2022. Source: Channel 1 (Iran) via MEMRI.

Social media platform X on Sunday suspended an official account of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, one day after it was created.

The suspension of the @Khamenei_Heb account came shortly after it featured the tweet: “The Zionist regime made a mistake. It erred in its calculations on Iran. We will cause it to understand what kind of strength, ability, initiative, and will the Iranian nation has.”

The tweet appeared to be a reference to Israel’s Oct. 26 retaliation for the Islamic Republic’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack.

X is owned by Elon Musk, who has expressed support of Israel. He has visited Israel in November and attended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in Congress in July. He is also on record as advocating free speech on X and in general.

X did not immediately say why it suspended Khamenei’s account. The notice about the suspension referred readers to a text on X’s website that explains that suspended accounts were “found to be in violation of our rules,” which prohibit “violent and hateful entities.”

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