While the Iranian regime executes protesters and crushes dissent, many of the world’s loudest human rights voices have chosen to look elsewhere. At the same time, those same organizations have saturated social media with condemnations of Israel following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, applying language of atrocity while ignoring mass repression carried out by Tehran. This imbalance has now been documented with supporting data.
A new study published by Jewish Onliner addresses the disproportionate focus on Israel with numbers rather than slogans. Working with an independent third-party data analytics firm, Jewish Onliner analyzed 180,786 posts on X (formerly Twitter) published by twenty major activist groups, NGOs, media outlets, and United Nations bodies between October 7, 2023, and January 14, 2026. The findings show a stark disparity between how these organizations discuss Israel and how they address Iran during a period of intense internal repression in the Islamic Republic. Jewish Onliner reported that the overwhelming majority of posts focused on Israel and the Palestinians, while Iran’s crackdown on protesters received minimal attention or none at all.
The study examined official accounts from organizations including CODEPINK, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and several activist media outlets. In total, only three of the twenty organizations explicitly criticized or condemned Iranian government actions. Many did not mention Iran at all. Others framed Iran primarily as a victim of American or Israeli policy rather than as a regime executing its own citizens.
The contrast is sharp. CODEPINK published more than 49,000 posts during the examined period, with nearly one-fifth addressing Israel and the Palestinians. Only five percent mentioned Iran, almost entirely portraying it as a target of Western aggression. Oxfam, Save The Children, and the National Lawyers Guild posted extensively about Israel while offering no substantive commentary on Iranian repression. Even UN bodies showed limited engagement. The UN Human Rights Council devoted just two percent of its posts to Iran, mostly institutional statements, while focusing far more heavily on Israel. Jewish Onliner concluded that this pattern reveals selective advocacy rather than a consistent human rights standard.
This imbalance echoes long-standing criticism from media watchdog organizations. HonestReporting and CAMERA have documented repeated cases of disproportionate coverage of Israel compared to far deadlier conflicts and repressive regimes. In recent months, both groups highlighted allegations that BBC reporting relied on misleading or recycled images presented as evidence of famine in Gaza, without adequate verification or context. These incidents intensified scrutiny of how Israel-related stories are framed and amplified while other crises receive limited attention.
Additional concerns have emerged regarding newsroom staffing. Several mainstream media outlets have faced public scrutiny after journalists were found to have expressed support for Hamas or maintained ties to Hamas-affiliated networks, raising questions about editorial judgment and transparency. These revelations further complicate claims of neutral and universal human rights reporting.
Jewish Onliner’s data does not argue that Israel should be exempt from scrutiny. It demonstrates that scrutiny has been weaponized selectively. When organizations reserve their outrage almost exclusively for the Jewish state while muting or refraining from addressing mass executions in Iran, they abandon the very standards they claim to uphold.
This is not silence born of ignorance. It is silence produced by choice. The data clearly exposes the choice, and it demands confrontation. Justice that targets only Israel while excusing or ignoring tyrants is not justice. It is advocacy shaped by ideology, and the numbers prove it.