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The Israeli Jews who spied for Iran in biggest infiltration in decades
TEL
AVIV, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Israel's arrest of almost 30 mostly Jewish
citizens who allegedly spied for Iran in nine covert cells has caused
alarm in the country and points to Tehran's biggest effort in decades to
infiltrate its arch foe, four Israeli security sources said.
Among
the unfulfilled goals of the alleged cells was the assassination of an
Israeli nuclear scientist and former military officials, while one group
gathered information on military bases and air defences, security
service Shin Bet has said. Last week, the agency and Israel's police
said a father and son team had passed on details of Israeli force
movements including in the Golan Heights where they lived.
The
arrests follow repeated efforts by Iranian intelligence operatives over
the past two years to recruit ordinary Israelis to gather intelligence
and carry out attacks in exchange for money, the four serving and former
military and security officials said.
The sources asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
"There
is a large phenomenon here," said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former top Shin
Bet official, referring to what he called the surprising number of
Jewish citizens who knowingly agreed to work for Iran against the state
with intelligence gathering or planning sabotage and attacks.
Shin Bet and the police did not respond to requests for comment. Iran's foreign ministry did not respond to questions.
In
a statement sent to media after the wave of arrests, Iran’s U.N.
mission did not confirm or deny seeking to recruit Israelis and said
that "from a logical standpoint" any such efforts by Iranian
intelligence services would focus on non-Iranian and non-Muslim
individuals to lessen suspicion.
At least two suspects were from Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, police and the Shin Bet have said.
Unlike
Iranian espionage operations in previous decades that recruited a
high-profile businessman and a former cabinet minister, the new alleged
spies were largely people on the fringes of Israeli society, including
recent immigrants, an army deserter and a convicted sex offender,
conversations with the sources, court records and official statements
show.
Much
of their activity was limited to spraying anti-Netanyahu or
anti-government graffiti on walls and damaging cars, Shin Bet has said.
Nonetheless,
the scale of the arrests and involvement of so many Jewish Israelis, in
addition to Arab citizens, has caused concern in Israel at a time it
remains at war with Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza and that a ceasefire deal
with Hezbollah remains fragile.
Shin Bet on Oct. 21 said the espionage activities were "among the most severe the state of Israel has known."
The arrests also follow a wave of attempted hits and kidnappings linked to Tehran in Europe and the United States.
The
unusual decision to provide detailed public accounts of the alleged
plots was a move by Israel's security services to signal both to Iran
and potential saboteurs inside Israel that they would be caught, Ben
Hanan said.
"You
want to alert the public. And you also want to make an example of
people that may also have intentions or plans to co-operate with the
enemy," he said.
Israel
has achieved major intelligence successes over the past few years in a
shadow war with its regional foe, including allegedly killing a top nuclear scientist. With the recent arrests Israel has "so far" thwarted Tehran's efforts to respond, one active military official said.
Iran
has been weakened by Israel's attacks on its proxy Hezbollah in
Lebanon, and the related fall of Tehran's ally, former president Bashar
al-Assad in Syria.
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Iranian
intelligence agencies often find potential recruits on social media
platforms, Israeli police said in a video released in November warning
of ongoing infiltration attempts.
The
recruiting efforts are at times direct. One message sent to an Israeli
civilian and seen by Reuters promised $15,000 in exchange for
information, with an email and number to call.
Iran
has also approached expatriate networks of Jews from Caucasus countries
living in Canada and the United States, said one of the sources, a
former senior official who worked on Israel's counter espionage efforts
until 2007.
Israeli authorities have said publicly some of the Jewish suspects were originally from Caucasus countries.
Recruited
individuals are first assigned innocuous-seeming tasks in return for
money, before handlers gradually demand specific intelligence on
targets, including about individuals and sensitive military
infrastructure, backed by the threat of blackmail, said the former
official.
One
Israeli suspect, Vladislav Victorsson, 30, was arrested on Oct. 14
along with his 18-year-old girlfriend in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan
near Tel Aviv. He had been jailed in 2015 for sex with minors as young
as 14, according to a court indictment from that time.
An
acquaintance of Victorsson told Reuters he had told her he had spoken
to Iranians using the Telegram messaging app. She said that Victorsson
had lied to his handlers about his military experience. The acquaintance
declined to be named, citing safety fears.
Igal
Dotan, Victorsson's lawyer, told Reuters he was representing the
suspect, adding that the legal process would take time and that his
client was being held in tough conditions. Dotan said he could only
respond to the current case and had not defended Victorsson in earlier
trials.
Shin
Bet and police said Victorsson knew he was working for Iranian
intelligence, carrying out tasks including spraying graffiti, hiding
money, posting flyers and burning cars in the Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv
for which he received over $5,000.
According
to the investigation made public by the security services, he was found
to have subsequently agreed to carry out an assassination of an Israeli
personality, throw a grenade into a house and also look to obtain a
sniper rifle, pistols and fragmentation grenades.
He
recruited his girlfriend, who was tasked with recruiting homeless
people to photograph demonstrations, the security services said.
Reporting by Jonathan Saul, additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Dubai