On social media, people today tended to ridicule the arrest of four Israeli citizens, on suspicion of passing information to Iranian intelligence.
"The Grandmothers' Underground" was the most common nickname attached to the affair, along with a demonstrable disregard for the information transmitted and the potential damage of the affair.
Indeed, at first glance this sounds like an excerpt from a not particularly successful sketch.
The information that the arrested women were asked to provide was also not unusual or sensitive: from a photo of the American embassy, through a photo of the Ministry of the Interior and Social Security in Holon, to the transfer of information about security arrangements in the mall.
Most of this information can be obtained without any special investment in the Internet;
Its balance is almost not worth the effort involved in running an agent.
But the attempt to make all of these the main point to ridicule the affair misses exactly the main point, in almost every possible sense.
First, because the bottom line is that the Iranians have succeeded in recruiting Israeli citizens, for the purposes of transmitting information.
Recruiting agents is a complex task, certainly when contacts are taking place between two hostile countries.
While the networking world opens up quite a few options for recruiting agents remotely - often with deception and deception - and yet, the minority of agents shows the difficulty involved in recruiting and operating them over the years.
Second, because negligible tasks are the elementary introductory chapter in any agent's manual.
It is designed to build them, test their reliability and test their willingness to take risks.
The operator also builds along the way the trust required between him and the agent;
Money is used for him as an element in seduction, but often not a major element.
A good operator knows how to play on the personal qualities of his agents, and make them act against their will and against all their values - for example, to try to get them to lead their son to recruit for an intelligence unit, in order to extract future information.
Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, Photo: AFP
Third, because every intelligence organization in the world builds "intelligence files" on a variety of topics. An intelligence file on the structure and manner of security of the U.S. Embassy could be used in the future to transfer information to a terrorist organization for terrorist purposes; Close ties with a Knesset member - even if she is sitting in the back seats - can help understand the Knesset's or government's course of action, and try to build mechanisms that will affect them (and Iran has already done so, through a network of bots it has recently launched and exposed).
Fourth, because it is very worthwhile not to underestimate the Iranians. Although they lag far behind Israel in recruiting agents, and certainly in operational products - from assassinations and explosions and cyber attacks in Iran, to harming Iranians and their interests in Syria - they are a large and serious nation, working diligently to close the gaps with Israel on all fronts. Whoever weighs a head in a seemingly negligible affair, may be harmed by a much more serious affair in the future; This is also the reason why the systems (especially the GSS), show excessive rigidity in such cases: the fear-and-see component in them is dramatic, in order to prevent others from being tempted again to similar acts.
But the current affair deserves to be examined in an even broader prism.
It is part of the overall, borderless war between Israel and Iran.
The Israeli public tends to examine this war only through the nuclear issue - yes / no Iran will have a bomb - but this is a grave mistake: Iran is a regional power, with clear imperialist aspirations that it does not hide.
She invests a lot of effort and money to advance her goals, and sometimes even has spotty successes.
In this matter, the Bennett government deserves a point of credit.
In recent months, it has been conducting in-depth discussions on how to block Iran - not just at the core, but across the field.
This is a complex task, which requires synchronization between a variety of systems (intelligence, operational, economic, diplomatic and propaganda) in Israel and around the world, and requires an understanding that this is a marathon that will last for many years.
This insight deserves to be instilled in the public as well;
If only there were no more Israelis who would ignore such clear suspicions, and would also be tempted to help Iran in the future.
Were we wrong?
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