Starlink: Netanyahu’s Gift to Iran
WANA (Sep 25) – Yesterday, during his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a Starlink device and urged the Iranian people to use it to bypass internet restrictions.
A few minutes later, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, carried the same device toward the Iranian delegation’s desk and offered it to Nasser Asadi, a member of Iran’s UN mission. Asadi did not respond and declined to accept the device.
Following the scene, Danon made Israel’s position even more explicit, saying that Israel “loves the Iranian people” and that he prays for “regime change in Iran.”
The scene was striking, particularly in a hall where dozens of diplomatic delegations had walked out just minutes earlier in protest at Netanyahu’s remarks.
Taken out of context, the scene could perhaps be viewed simply as a striking display of new technology. But amid the war between Iran and Israel, and following military strikes, acts of sabotage, cyber operations and information warfare, Starlink carries a different meaning.
Starlink is essentially a satellite internet service that uses satellites in low Earth orbit to provide internet access without direct reliance on terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure. That feature can become particularly significant in a country where internet access may be disrupted or cut off during a crisis.
Netanyahu displayed the device precisely as he was discussing Iran’s political future. He said that change in Iran was “only a matter of time” and spoke of the “power of the people” against Iran’s rulers. He then presented Starlink as a means of bypassing internet restrictions.
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Iran and Israel have been engaged in a form of shadow warfare for years, ranging from cyberattacks and sabotage targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities to the assassination of scientists and covert operations that have, in various cases, been attributed to Israel. Stuxnet remains one of the best-known examples of this conflict: a cyberattack targeting Iran’s nuclear program, with further details about US-Israeli cooperation in its development emerging years later.
In recent years, that shadow war has no longer remained in the shadows. Direct Israeli strikes on Iran, Iranian missile responses and the subsequent entry of the United States into the conflict pushed the confrontation from covert operations into open warfare.
Under such circumstances, the internet cannot be entirely separated from the arena of conflict either.
The issue of using Starlink in Iran did not begin at the United Nations. In 2022, following protests in Iran, Elon Musk said he would seek to activate Starlink in the country. But the challenge was not simply whether the service could be activated. Physical terminals were required to receive the signal, making widespread access considerably more difficult.
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Four years later, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that Israel had at one point attempted to move tens of thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran so that protesters could maintain communications in the event of an internet shutdown. Those remarks, in themselves, indicate that within Israeli policy, at least at one point, the issue had moved beyond a purely technical discussion.
Therefore, when Netanyahu held up a Starlink device at the UN in 2026, the gesture cannot be viewed separately from that history. The broader record also provides grounds for viewing Starlink terminals inside Iran as potentially connected to Israeli efforts.
Tehran is being offered a communications tool by a party with which it has been engaged in both covert and open warfare for years. In that context, it is natural that such an offer would not be viewed simply as a technical proposition—just as an offer of weapons or military equipment from one side of a war would not be interpreted independently of the history of that conflict.
Nasser Asadi, a member of Iran’s UN mission in New York, responded to Netanyahu’s remarks by accusing him of using the UN platform to promote war. He said the organization was created to protect future generations from war and to establish peace and justice. Asadi also stressed that resistance was part of Iran’s national identity and said Iran would prevail against its aggressors.
The most important aspect of the Starlink episode is the message embedded alongside Netanyahu’s remarks about Iran’s political future. In an international forum, he spoke directly about regime change in Iran, addressed the Iranian people, and immediately brought a communications tool into the same narrative.
At the United Nations, Netanyahu said that change in Iran was “only a matter of time.” By displaying Starlink, Israel also signaled that it views communications technology as part of this arena. Iran’s response, however, was not another speech within the same frame, but the rejection of the very device being offered.
