Arab nations, Israel urge Trump to hold off on military strikes in Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined the chorus of voices from the Arab world on Wednesday urging U.S. President Trump to hold off on U.S. military action in Iran, according to new reporting.

Mr. Netanyahu cautioned against striking Iran in a conversation with the president, who later on Wednesday announced that he had received confirmation from inside Iran that the regime had halted the scheduled execution of an arrested protester and had stopped killing demonstrators.  

The New York Times was the first to report on the two leaders’ conversation, citing an unnamed U.S. official. The Washington Times has reached out to the White House for comment.

In addition to Mr. Netanyahu, the White House has also heard from diplomats from Arab nations — Egypt, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia — advising against another U.S. attack on Iran.

Mr. Trump had repeatedly warned that he would order U.S. intervention in Iran if the country’s theocratic rulers continued with a brutal crackdown on anti-regime protesters. 

Despite the president’s threats, reports from Tehran earlier this week indicated that the regime was preparing to execute a protester arrested just days prior.

However, the Iranian Judiciary announced Thursday that it had not issued a death warrant for Erfan Soltani, a protester arrested in his home near Tehran Jan. 8. He was originally slated to be executed on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump said it was good news on Thursday, adding that “hopefully, it will continue!”

Earlier Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced new sanctions targeting the top official in Iran’s Supreme Council for National Security.

Despite Iran seemingly meeting Mr. Trump’s demands to dial back the use of violence against protesters on Wednesday, military force isn’t off the table.

“We’re going to watch and see what the process is, but we were given a very good statement by people that are aware of what’s going on,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday without clarifying where he received his information.

Iran has been under a total internet blackout since Jan. 3, with authorities determined to control the spread of information coming in and going out of the country. Independent human rights organizations have estimated that more than 2,500 people have been killed and over 10,000 people have been arrested since the protests began late last year.

As part of the attempt to control what the outside world knows about the scope of the crackdown on protesters, the Iranian government has begun a campaign of GPS spoofing attacks on SpaceX’s Starlink internet terminals.

Starlink terminals, which use GPS signaling to connect to the internet via satellite relay, were seen as a way to circumvent the blackout.

But data from gpsjam.org shows increased GPS interference around large cities in Iran after the internet blackout took effect, suggesting Iranian authorities were aware of the Starlink workaround.

Active interference from the Iranian government has created significant internet instability for users, with reports indicating packet loss, in which data fails to be transported completely, reaching as high as 80%.

This interference is believed to involve flooding the Starlink satellites’ transmission with digital noise or spoofed GPS signals, producing unstable connections on the ground.

Starlink users in Iran also risk being arrested and having their property confiscated. It has been illegal to own a Starlink terminal in Iran since June.

The electronic warfare tactics are mostly, if not entirely, targeting Starlink’s consumer products on the ground in Iran, not Starlink’s proprietary satellites.