How a Jewish woman managed to infiltrate Iranian regime
How did a Jewish woman manage to get an audience with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameinei and an interview with President Ibrahim Raisi? The Jewish Chronicle’s David Rose tells the extraordinary story of Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a Jewish woman estranged from her Yemeni Muslim husband, who infiltrated the Iranian regime in 2017. Among other things, she learned of a chilling Iranian plan to take revenge on diaspora Jewish leaders and organisations in case of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Despite the huge risks, not to mention the potential threat to the wellbeing of her then school-age children, she felt compelled to take the chance to rub shoulders with some of the West’s worst enemies.
A failed marriage to a Yemeni Muslim in 2000 – during which she had experienced vicious antisemitism from her husband’s relatives – had left her with opportunities to forge pro-Iranian connections.
She had written blog posts and Middle East analysis that had caught the eye of the Ayatollahs and led to an invitation to Tehran.
That was how she found herself about to meet Ayatollah Khamenei. “We pulled into a courtyard with trees,” she recalls. “I was ushered into a sitting room. There was a carpet, and rugs on the carpet, with photos of Khomeini and Khamenei.
“I’d expected something presidential, but this was humble. There were Arab-style sofas and cushions on the floor. I was given sweet tea in a glass with a stirring stick covered in saffron sugar crystals and walnuts to nibble.
“There was a commotion around the doorway and Khamenei came in. He told me through an interpreter to sit on the floor. He sat in a chair. I’d been warned not to make eye contact, and not to speak unless he asked me a question.
“Khamenei spent a few minutes on chit-chat,” she said. “Then he began talking about the End of Days, how he would be the one who would usher in the return of the Mahdi [the mythical leader who will herald the apocalypse].
“His voice was quiet, high-pitched. He talked about this great war that would take place, and how al-Aqsa had to be liberated for the Mahdi to return to save humanity. He talked about the wars Iran was fighting in Yemen and Syria and how he had a divine mission.
“He was basically trying to justify crimes against humanity, saying you had to harm the enemies of God, who shouldn’t be seen as human beings.
“He said killing the innocent was OK, because they weren’t really innocents.
“A mistake we make is to assume he cares about his country. He doesn’t. He will literally see it burn if it means Islam will triumph.”
She said Khamenei seemed scared of only one thing — an Israeli attack. “He believes Netanyahu’s threats and he knows that, for now, Israel is militarily superior. And he feels that the Iranian regime can’t sustain a defeat.”
After half-an-hour, she said, the Iranian leader abruptly got up and left. “Afterwards, I felt as if I’d had an out-of-body experience. I was back in the car and thinking to myself: What the f*** just happened?”
The encounter left her with an abiding sense of the Iranian threat. The ideology expressed by Khamenei, Soleimani and Raisi was, she said, just as terrifying as Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
“If we are serious about combating terrorism and Islamic radicalism, and stand by the rule of law, we have to proscribe the IRGC,” she said. “We know now that Churchill was right and taking on the Nazis much earlier would have saved many lives.”
Returning from one of her trips she said she was taken aside at the airport and questioned by a Home Office official and later contacted them again.
“I wanted the insight I’d gained to be used,” she said. “It wasn’t that I had any specific intelligence that would change the game. But I understood the ideology and how they groomed people they thought they could use.”
Harif interview with Catherine Perez-Shakdam
How a Sephardi Jew got an audience with Ayatollah Khamenei (Jonny Gould)
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