Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] A spy scandal that seemed to have been hushed up in 2022 is flaring up again in Iran. French-Jewish journalist Catherine Perez-Shakdam is accused of working for Israeli intelligence for many years. With her masterly command of words and her gift of seduction, she allegedly managed to gain the trust of more than a hundred high-ranking Iranian officials and ultimately exposed them to an Israeli attack.
The spy obtained secret data and visited forbidden sites practically arm in arm with the military and clerics - almost the same as the legendary Mata Hari did a century ago.
True, unlike the spy-dancer, with whom Peres-Shakdam is actively compared today, the latter managed not only to escape Iranian counterintelligence in time, but also left behind many unsolved mysteries that Tehran is still struggling with to this day.
THE RISE OF THE GUEST
The journalist's path to the top was swift. Having converted to Islam after marriage and voluntarily converted to Shiism, Peres-Shakdam began visiting Iran regularly and by 2017 had already become quite a well-known figure there.
Among other things, she managed to secure an audience with Ibrahim Raisi (at that time, the retired Prosecutor General of Iran), who was among the first to recognize the potential of the ambitious journalist and introduced her to the editors of several major Persian-language media outlets.
Over the next year, Peres-Shakdam established contacts with all the more or less influential publications in the country, becoming their regular contributor. She made connections among the security forces and the diplomatic corps, and secured the support of the "heavyweights" of Iranian politics.
She was also favored by the attention of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who considered Peres-Shakdam "the voice of the Islamic revolution" in the West and his main information weapon. Including because of her origins - Peres-Shakdam's Jewish roots gave Iranian ideologists the opportunity to say that even their co-religionists in Europe were disappointed with Israel's current course.
At one point, he even allowed the journalist to post some of her works on his official website, an honor not bestowed upon all theologians from Khamenei’s “inner circle,” let alone ordinary journalists.
SELF-EXPOSURE
Peres-Shakdam lost her “favorite” status in February 2022, when bloggers close to Iranian ultra-conservative and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began to promote a story in the press about her working for Israeli intelligence.
According to the anonymous sources, the journalist gained the trust of Iranian officials and clerics, with their help penetrating classified facilities and obtaining confidential information first-hand. Afterwards, she passed on the information she received to Tel Aviv.
It is noteworthy that a couple of months before this, Peres-Shakdam herself had drawn suspicion from the conservative wing: in an article published on one of the Israeli resources, she stated that she had never shared the ideas of the Islamic revolution and used “Muslim cover” only to infiltrate Iran and other countries to look at the situation “from the inside.”
This alone would have been enough to accuse the journalist of espionage. However, her ill-wishers then preferred not to act rashly, but to gather more information about her possible ambiguous connections.
The effect of the scandal exceeded even the wildest expectations. Rumor has it that Peres-Shakdam participated in Israel's "secret operations," including, for example, the assassination of IRGC special forces commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Although the fatal strike on Soleimani's car was carried out by the Americans, the Pentagon was informed of the Iranian officer's route by Israeli operatives working in Iraq.
And given that shortly before the tragedy, Peres-Shakdam had communicated with Suleimani one-on-one, she was considered to be Tel Aviv’s liaison.
MIRACULOUS RESCUE
The February scandal became the point of no return. Peres-Shakdam was immediately "excommunicated from the court," and her articles disappeared from the websites of most Iranian media, where they had recently graced the front pages. However, this was the end of the repression against her, and she left the country without hindrance.
Business connections, of which Peres-Shakdam had quite a few by that time, played a role. Thus, according to one version, in March 2022 — when the spy scandal reached its peak — the future President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian (at that time one of the leaders of the opposition wing) took the disgraced journalist under his wing.
According to other sources, Peres-Shakdam was vouched for by former President Hassan Rouhani and the "architect of the nuclear deal," retired Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Even taking into account the public's decline in trust in the reformists, the authority of these politicians was allegedly enough to leave Peres-Shakdam alone for a while.
However, it is much more likely that the order not to prosecute the journalist was given personally by Khamenei. The Supreme Leader clearly did not want to give his opponents a reason to laugh at himself (and at his failed "information weapon"), and so the scandal was hushed up rather quickly.
But after this incident, Peres-Shakdam moved to Great Britain and never returned to Iran. And since August 2022 (about six months after the incident with Ahmadinejad), the largest Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post, has regularly published columns in which yesterday's "singer of the Islamic revolution" blasted Tehran's policies and praised Israel's successes in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria.
WOMEN'S CHARMS
The Peres-Shakdam affair was recalled only recently, after the 12-day Iran-Israel conflict. In Tehran, it was believed that Tel Aviv was too skillful in identifying and “knocking out” Iranian critical infrastructure facilities (including those that were not known to the general public), and also liquidated prominent scientists and officers of key departments of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
This gave reason to look at the activities of the disgraced journalist from a new angle. Especially since she had previously visited some of the objects that were in the crosshairs with her high-ranking patrons.
New details about the “super spy’s” work also emerged.
For example, former Iranian parliament member Mustafa Kavakebian claims that Peres-Shakdam actively used feminine charms to obtain the necessary information and, during her trips to Iran, entered into intimate relationships with more than a hundred Iranian elites.
In addition, the journalist actively communicated with the wives of high-ranking officials and scientists at social receptions and in "salons". Bored women happily shared their sore points with the educated interlocutor, and she, in turn, disposed of this information at her own discretion.
Of course, the facts mentioned by Kavakebian still need to be proven. Moreover, personal grievances against the state system, which cut off his candidacy in the early elections of 2024, may well speak here. In addition, almost three years have passed since the journalist left Iran, and Tel Aviv would hardly rely on outdated information when delivering the first blows.
On the other hand, Kavakebian is not alone in his judgments: calls to re-examine the Peres-Shakdam dossier are heard not only from reformists, but also from conservatives. And the country's authorities will have to listen to them sooner or later.
It is noteworthy that Peres-Shakdam herself does not consider herself a spy and denies working for Tel Aviv, although she regularly makes ambiguous hints about her “Iranian period of life” in order to stir up the audience’s interest in her articles.
It is highly likely that she does not have a spy past, and Tehran is trying to shift responsibility for the failures in organizing defense onto the ubiquitous Israeli agents.
This approach, although it relieves public tension, is fraught with another problem: chasing fictitious spies, one can easily miss the real ones. Of which, judging by the results of the Israeli Operation Lion Force, quite a few were sent to Iran.
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