“Not many people could have imagined how a violent change of government would turn her into Israel’s greatest enemy, but luckily for us – E. had already prepared.”
By The IDF Club
The creation of the IDF Military Intelligence unit monitoring Iran was due to the foresight of one anonymous Iranian immigrant to Israel who for 15 years gathered information that would prove indispensable to Israel once the Shah was overthrown in 1979, according to a new report on the IDF website published this week.
E. was 12 years old when he was attacked in Tehran for being Jewish. To this day, he still has a deep scar on his nose after being attacked by Muslim thugs. “This scar is the reason I decided to immigrate to Israel,” the IDF report cited E as saying.
He immigrated to Israel, enlisted in Unit 8200 and developed a fascination for the country he had fled years ago. He gathered information, documents and secret codes – which were kept in his desk drawer for years. Today, E’s identity is not even known by 8200.
When the 1979 Islamic revolution broke out, E.’s gut feelings turned out to be correct, and changed the rules of the game, leading to the establishment of the military intelligence unit against Israel’s greatest enemy.
During the time E. collected the intel, Iran was still considered a progressive country, a “friend” of Israel – with which it even maintained various intelligence cooperation.
“Not many people could have imagined how a violent change of government would turn her into the greatest enemy of the State of Israel, but luckily for us – E. had already prepared,” the IDF report said.
According to the article, E said: “Many times, I ask myself ‘why?” Why did I feel like this country would become a threat? Maybe it’s because of the beatings I suffered and the hatred I experienced. I knew the Iranian people – I had to keep my Jewishness a secret. I knew that as soon as the Shah left, something would change – there was always latent antisemitism.”
In his elite intelligence unit, then called Patrol 8200, E, who was also fluent in Arabic, was tasked with monitoring communication from Arab countries. But he found himself listening in on Farsi broadcasts.
“I took out a notebook and started documenting,” he said, “even though Israel is on good terms with Iran, and even though it’s not my field – as a side occupation I decided to try to understand who is coming into contact and characterize them. I identified senior Iranian forces… and I said to myself: ‘One day this will surely help in some way.”
Over the course of 15 years, E’s “hobby” would see him fill thousands of binders. He also created a military Farsi-Hebrew dictionary based on what he had learned. It was the basis for the digital Persian dictionary that exists today in Unit 8200.”
E’s intelligence gathering meant that he was the first person to realize that the Shah had fled the country and that a revolution had begun.
His hobby quickly became his fulltime job, leading to the establishment of the unit. He recruited Iranian immigrants, putting them through intensive training.
“The department was made up of top-level radio operators – talented and acutely sharp people who as early as that time understood the Iranian threat with full clarity. Stars were born there. The people who started there, became the leaders of the intelligence division and the security establishment today,” he said.
