18 April 2007
Israel's security service Shin Bet claims that it has broken an Iranian plot to recruit Israelis of Iranian origin as spies, part of what it says was a wider Iranian intelligence operation against Israel. Officials told reporters that Shin Bet agents had detained an Israeli returning from a visit to relatives among Iran's 25,000-member Jewish community. He told interrogators that he had been given money by Iranian intelligence operatives and asked to help them spy on Israel. Shin Bet briefing documents obtained by the “Associated Press” did not mention when the man was picked up, if he carried out the request or if he was released after questioning, but Israeli media reports said no charges had been brought. According to the documents, it was just one of several such cases.
"Over the past year Iranian intelligence has increased its activity against Israel," AP quoted from the papers, adding: "the Shin Bet has recently uncovered a number of attempts by Iranian intelligence to recruit Jews, Israeli citizens of Iranian descent, who went on family visits to Iran." Israel’s army radio cited an unidentified Shin Bet officer as saying the agency had uncovered 10 recruitment attempts in the past two years. There was no comment from the Iranian government.
According to Israeli government figures, about 135,000 Israeli Jews trace their roots to Iran, which had good relations with Israel before the 1979 Islamic revolution. Army radio said that about a hundred Israelis had visited family members in Iran over the past two years.