Israeli Intelligence Minister Meets Iranian Prince In Washington
A month after the official visit of Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi to Israel, the country’s intelligence minister met him once again in Washington.
A month after the official visit of Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi to Israel, the country’s intelligence minister met him once again in Washington.
Gila Gamliel, who hosted Reza Pahlavi and his wife during their five-day trip to Israel, tweeted on Wednesday that she had a "successful meeting" with the Iranian exiled prince, and two human rights activists as well as the president of the Israel Allies Foundation.
"The bloodthirsty policy of the Ayatollahs' regime, which hurts the people of Iran and the world, should mobilize the international community," she added.
She called Pahlavi's visit to her country "historic" and "the beginning of a new path towards the resumption of friendship between the nations of Israel and Iran," emphasizing that she will continue to meet and negotiate with the Iranian opposition leader in the future.
Activists Benjamin F. Chavis and Tish K. Basil, as well as President of the Israel Allies Foundation Josh Reinstein also attended the meeting between Pahlavi and Gamliel.
“Great to meet with a champion of freedom and the greatest hope for peace between Israel and Iran Reza Pahlavi,” wrote Reinstein in a tweet.
The Israel Allies Foundation was established 16 years ago in the United States and its headquarter is in Jerusalem.
Based on Christian beliefs and Judeo-Christian values it tries to support the existence and strengthening of Israel and to educate and empower legislators in countries around the world.
This foundation organizes tours to familiarize foreign politicians with the state of Israel. Israeli leftist groups criticize some of the actions of the foundation.
It seems that the Israeli government under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, has assigned Gamliel to continue contacts with Reza Pahlavi.
Municipality workers supported by riot police on motorbikes, masked security agents and Basij militia began demolishing the outdoor seating spaces of the cafes that have no inside seating at five in the morning on Sunday for what the district mayor, Ehsan Sharifi, said was “unlicensed use of the outside space”.
The neighborhood was an epicenter of protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who was fatally injured in September 2022 while in police custody following her arrest for not wearing her headscarf “properly.”
The Basij militia of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has four bases within the five square kilometer complex which has 15,500 apartments and a population of around 45,000. The neighborhood is very popular with professionals, artists and other educated groups with a sense of community unmatched elsewhere in the city.
“They ransacked everything outside the little cafes. Some of these cafes like Godar and Tehroun have been here for years. It was because of hijab but they claim the residents had complained about these businesses,” a young man from Ekbatan told Iran International.
“Do you think they were here to arrest the leader of a human trafficking band? Or that they had found a drug kitchen? Or to arrest an Interpol wanted criminal? Did they find bombs?” tweeted Shahrak Ekbatan, the neighborhood's popular twitter account after the incident.
“No! … They demolished the cafes for spreading ‘corruption and immorality”. Why? Because they are afraid of the people of Ekbatan and their solidarity,” the tweet said.
The admin of the account who wanted to be quoted by the name Aida told Iran International that demolition of the cafes has created a greater sense of solidarity among the residents. “People immediately came to help clean up the mess they left behind and are buying more takeaway at these places to support them.
Residents have dubbed their neighborhood as “The United States of Ekbatan” and “Autonomous States of Ekbatan”.
“This neighborhood does not obey the laws of the Islamic Republic. Enjoy your day!” a graffiti on the wall of one of the blocks, covered in anti-regime slogans, declared recently.
For over three decades Ekbatanis, as they like to call themselves, have hosted one of Tehran’s biggest Charshanbe Suri bonfire night festivals in late March. The police and the Basij militia, who consider the festival a pagan tradition, always cracked down on the merry-making boys and girls, who often flouted the hijab rules too, playing loud music and dancing in the leafy spaces between the buildings.
Ekbatan was also famous for its nightly anti-regime “window chanting” during last year’s protests. Residents have been chanting again from their windows since Monday after rumors emerged that three protesters were at imminent risk of execution in Isfahan.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Security Minister Tom Tugendhat are both said to back the move and bring Britain in line with policy in the US.
But Foreign Secretary James Cleverly is believed to be holding out against the change.
Critics say he is being badly advised by civil servants, claiming he is “too closely led by officials”.
The reports come after British-Iranian campaigner Vahid Beheshti ended his 73-day hunger strike outside the Foreign Office building in London last week. Now recovering in hospital, Beheshti has been calling for the British government to ban the IRGC. He has the support of more than a hundred members of the UK parliament.
The IRGC is designated as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the US, and has a long history of fomenting assassinations and attacks on civilians across the region and around the world. Earlier this year British counter-terrorism officers revealed that they had foiled 15 plots by Iran to either kidnap or kill British or UK-based individuals it considers “enemies of the regime”.
However, the Foreign Office is said to believe in valuing intelligence and maintaining dialogue over a “gesture”, as one source speaking to The Sun newspaper described the terror designation for the IRGC.
There is also said to be concern over how Tehran might retaliate, whether by targeting UK citizens in Iran – possibly adding to the number of foreigners who have been taken hostage – or by acting on British soil.
A Foreign Office source The Sun: “Nothing is ruled in or out. And anonymous personal comments about the Foreign Secretary will not distract from the ongoing business of the Government.”
However, Security Minister Tugendhat’s uncompromising approach over Iran was echoed by his counterpart in the Labour Party opposition, who are leading the governing Conservative Party in the polls and widely predicted to take over in government after a scheduled general election next year.
Speaking at a security conference in London, Shadow Security Minister Holly Lynch added her voice to calls for a ban on the IRGC.
She said a ban “wouldn’t simply be a symbolic measure – which would be powerful in its own right, but that is not what proscription powers should be used for.”
The shadow minister added: “Proscription would grant law enforcement the powers to take action against those supporting the IRGC and allow for a more effective dismantling of the support base necessary to facilitate such unacceptable conduct here within our borders.”
She voiced her outrage over the revelation of the 15 plots by Iran against targets in Britain, many of them in the media.
Ms Lynch said: “We have to ask ourselves what message does that send to the rest of the world, when journalists are not safe here in the UK.
“When we have authoritarian hostile states engaged in exporting tyranny into our country, pursuing those they perceive as enemies, and the heads of our security services are calling it out for the terrorism that it is, it calls for a significant and robust response from the UK.”
