American-Israeli man charged with spying for Iran on Ben Gvir, ex-IDF chief

A dual American-Israeli citizen was charged on Friday with spying on ex-IDF chief Herzi Halevi and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the State Attorney’s Office announced.

The defendant, 49-year-old Yaakov Perl, is a member of the Satmar Hasidic sect and apparently harbored a deep antipathy toward Zionism, which drove him to reach out to Iranian operatives online.

His arrest, carried out on September 4, was initially announced Thursday by the police and Shin Bet.

Perl had been living in Morocco for the past several years, where he posted anti-Israel polemics online and partook in protests against Zionism. In 2017, he sought asylum in Iran for himself and his family, but received no response from Tehran, prosecutors said.

Perl appeared to have garnered attention in the Arab world shortly after October 7 during an anti-Israel protest in Morocco’s capital Rabat, where he declared to an interviewer that “the real Judaism and the real Jews are against Zionism” and “the whole land should be for Palestine.”

After publishing a piece lauding slain Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in the wake of his funeral after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike, Perl was allegedly recruited by an Iranian intelligence agent over Telegram.

At the agent’s behest, Perl renewed his Israeli passport and relocated to the country in July this year, settling down in Beit Shemesh.

He soon began collecting intelligence on public figures, filming Halevi’s home and gathering intelligence on the security arrangements around Ben Gvir’s residence, which he passed on to his Iranian handlers, prosecutors said.

The defendant went so far as to consider renting an apartment near the homes of both Halevi and Ben Gvir in order to spy on them for an extended period of time.

He also collected information on an organization that campaigns for Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount, of which Ben Gvir and his wife are supposedly members.

Perl declined to go up to the Temple Mount when asked to do so by his operator, citing the commonly held belief among Haredim that Jews are prohibited from ascending to the holy site.

Like most other Israeli agents recruited by Iranian operators, Perl was compensated in cryptocurrency and made at least $15,000 from the missions he carried out on Tehran’s behalf, which continued for six weeks after he returned to Israel in July.

Police claimed Perl was driven by “his ideological belief that action must be taken against the State of Israel and Zionism.”

The Satmar movement, one of the largest Hasidic groups in the world, is staunchly anti-Zionist and does not recognize the State of Israel, maintaining that a Jewish state should not exist until the Messiah appears.

Perl is one of dozens of Israeli citizens who have been arrested and charged with spying for the Islamic Republic.

Last week, the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday convicted Elimelech Stern, a 22-year-old ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student from Beit Shemesh, of spying for Iran.

Dozens of cases have come to light over the past two years in which Iranian agents have successfully recruited Israelis into espionage schemes via social media, specifically the Telegram messaging app. Most of the accused spies start out with innocuous tasks that gradually grow into more serious offenses, like intelligence gathering and assassination plots.

The growing number of Iranian agents has even prompted Israel to open up a new wing for them in Haifa’s Damon prison.

The unlikely operatives, from diverse walks of life, are usually ordinary civilians contacted by Iranian intelligence officers online. The effort appears to be part of a mass recruitment scheme by Tehran to gather intelligence on Israel’s alleged nuclear and military sites, as well as key Israeli figures such as defense officials and top scientists.