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Media Fawns Over Ayatollah Khamenei’s ‘Gardening’ Skills; Forgets the Executions
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Since the start of Israel’s war with Iran, the media have been preoccupied with a question on many people’s minds: who would take over if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed or deposed?
The result has been a trickle of “explainers” and backgrounders about the aging Supreme Leader — pieces that, predictably, can’t resist the urge to “humanize” one of the world’s most repressive autocrats.
Not content to describe Khamenei as the brutal theocrat he is, several outlets have instead presented a portrait of a soft-spoken, book-loving, poetry-reciting underdog who just happens to run the globe’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism.
We’ve seen this troubling trend before. After Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was eliminated last year, media profiles described him as “charismatic,” “revered,” and portrayed him as a kind of grandfatherly figure.
The media are calling Iran’s Supreme Leader a “gardener” and an “underdog.”
They forgot:
– Thousands executed
– Women jailed for showing their hair
– Protesters shot in the streets
– Terrorists armed across the regionStop romanticizing tyrants. Start telling the truth. pic.twitter.com/eIBe5QuPqq
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 22, 2025
The Economist led the way this time, with a piece published on June 21, just hours before the United States formally entered Israel’s war against Iran by striking the regime’s nuclear sites.
Titled “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Great Survivor,” the article describes him as “an underdog from the start,” one of eight children born to a “poor religious scholar from the north-east of Iran.” We’re told he studied the Koran, “listened to music, recited poetry and read novels such as Les Misérables and The Grapes of Wrath” — books that, The Economist implies, resonated with Khamenei because they “depict secular struggles against oppression.”
It’s all very literary. The Ayatollah, we’re to understand, is not just the man behind a brutal theocracy; he’s also a fan of Steinbeck, a name familiar to every American high schooler.
The profile continues with an overview of Khamenei’s political scheming and rise to power, along with a surprisingly admiring assessment of his “astute business mind.” The tone is often reverent, at times barely concealing its awe.
By contrast, Khamenei’s less impressive traits — his penchant for executing political opponents, crushing dissent, and sponsoring global terrorism — are buried deep in the article and softened when they finally appear. There is no mention of his role in turning Iran into the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror, funding groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Instead, we’re told that Iran’s transformation “from hybrid-democracy into dictatorship” merely “stirred dissent.” Women, we’re informed, have simply “resented” being forced into black manteaux and headscarves. And the regime’s violent suppression of protests? That’s summed up as “beating, shooting, jailing and kangaroo courts.” Polite euphemisms for what has, in fact, been mass repression and execution.
It’s worth noting that 2024 was reportedly a record year for executions in Iran, with at least 1,000 carried out across 86 prisons. Among the victims were 34 women, seven juvenile offenders, and four people publicly hanged.
The Economist closes with an ominous warning to Israel and the West: Khamenei: “should not be underestimated.” The tone borders on admiring, as if the anonymous writer is almost rooting for the Ayatollah to make a defiant comeback.
And The Economist wasn’t alone.
An essay in The Conversation titled “Who is Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?” manages to explore that very question without a single mention of Iranian terror proxies or the regime’s execution record. But it does find space to note Khamenei’s “rare” literary interests and “his interest in gardening.” Yes, gardening — a charming detail about a man whose government regularly hangs dissidents from cranes.
Meanwhile, an almost identically titled explainer in The New York Times breezes past Khamenei’s transformation of Iran into a regional menace.
We’re told that after Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989, Khamenei simply “set about consolidating control of the country’s political, military and security apparatus, and cracking down on dissent to shore up his position.” A tidy summary for what has, in reality, been decades of authoritarian rule and bloodshed.
To be fair, not all media outlets have followed suit.
Some have provided more balanced coverage, reminding readers of events that made global headlines just a few years ago — like the widespread protests sparked by the murder of Mahsa Amini, the young Kurdish woman beaten to death by Iran’s morality police for wearing her headscarf “improperly.” The regime’s response to those protests was swift and brutal: hundreds killed, thousands jailed, and countless lives destroyed.
These are the facts about Khamenei that readers deserve to be reminded of. Not his supposed sensitivity to Western novels, or his affection for flowers.
Because the truth is, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei doesn’t just oversee a regime that terrorizes its own people. He presides over one that seeks to export that terror to the rest of the world.
That’s who he really is.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Media Fawns Over Ayatollah Khamenei’s ‘Gardening’ Skills; Forgets the Executions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.