Israel’s far-left Haaretz daily ran an article on Saturday describing Iran’s Ali Larijani, believed to be responsible for ordering the killings of thousands of protesters earlier this year, as a “brilliant philosopher.”
The almost 5,000-word profile written by Haaretz‘s Gid’on Lev said Larijani’s writings, including on the Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, “reveal an elusive and multifaceted figure.”
Lev describes the top Iranian official as a “cool-headed politician” and a “brilliant thinker,” calling his arguments “genuinely thought-provoking.”
Larijani has long been a senior figure in Tehran’s power structure and currently serves as secretary of its Supreme National Security Council, which has the final say over security policies, including the nuclear program.
The Trump administration sanctioned Larijani on Jan. 15, accusing him of coordinating the Islamic Republic’s response to protests and calling for its security forces to use force against peaceful demonstrators.
Arsen Ostrovsky, an Israeli-Australian human rights lawyer who heads the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council’s Sydney branch, accused Haaretz in an X post of becoming “more pro-Iran than the IRGC.”
When Haaretz has become more pro-Iran than the IRGC. pic.twitter.com/DH7JENKXvY
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) March 14, 2026
In 2024, the Israeli government declared its intention to “sever all advertising ties” with Haaretz and called on all “branches, ministries, bodies, and likewise, all government corporations or entities funded by it, not to engage with the Haaretz newspaper in any way whatsoever.”
The impetus for the Nov. 24, 2024, Cabinet decision were statements made around a month earlier by Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken.
On Oct. 27, 2024, at a London conference organized by the newspaper, Schocken referred to Palestinian terrorists as “freedom fighters,” called for sanctions against Israel, accused Jerusalem of imposing apartheid rule on Arabs and claimed the IDF was carrying out ethnic cleansing.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit severed ties with Haaretz in late 2025.
Earlier this year, Haaretz cut ties with a columnist after he was allegedly found to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars that were traced back to a Qatari government lobbyist.
The allegations about Alon Pinkas, a political analyst and former consul general of Israel in New York, marked the third time within months that one of Haaretz‘s writers had been linked to Israel’s “Qatargate” scandal.
