When Israel’s enemies stop sending spies across borders and begin recruiting them in Tel Aviv living rooms, one man is tasked with holding the line.
Erez Harel, a decorated former commando turned Deputy Chief of Counterespionage at Shabak, is no stranger to shadows. His division doesn’t chase terrorists abroad—it hunts traitors at home. In the wake of the Israel–Iran conflict, Iran adapts. Instead of soldiers, it sends Telegram chats disguised as NGOs, Instagram messages wrapped in charity, and AI-synthesized voices of dead loved ones. Their goal: transform ordinary Israelis into unwitting assets.
From safehouses in Jaffa to dead drops in Tzfat, from synagogue charity boxes to encrypted ‘wellness’ retreats, Harel and his team confront a new breed of espionage: psychological infiltration at industrial scale. What begins as petty courier tasks escalates into a sprawling Iranian initiative—BABEL—designed not to steal secrets but to corrode Israel’s very identity, planting false memories, alternate histories, and synthetic faith.
Haunted by a failed operation from his past and racing against an enemy that uses algorithms as much as agents, Harel must outthink both foreign masterminds and domestic traitors. Each move uncovers a deeper conspiracy: Iran is not just recruiting spies—it is building a second Israel inside the real one.
Taut, chilling, and disturbingly plausible, The Rise and Fall of Iranian Spies in Israel blends cutting-edge espionage tradecraft with intimate human drama, asking: what happens when the war for a nation is fought not on borders, but inside its citizens’ minds?
Erez Harel, a decorated former commando turned Deputy Chief of Counterespionage at Shabak, is no stranger to shadows. His division doesn’t chase terrorists abroad—it hunts traitors at home. In the wake of the Israel–Iran conflict, Iran adapts. Instead of soldiers, it sends Telegram chats disguised as NGOs, Instagram messages wrapped in charity, and AI-synthesized voices of dead loved ones. Their goal: transform ordinary Israelis into unwitting assets.
From safehouses in Jaffa to dead drops in Tzfat, from synagogue charity boxes to encrypted ‘wellness’ retreats, Harel and his team confront a new breed of espionage: psychological infiltration at industrial scale. What begins as petty courier tasks escalates into a sprawling Iranian initiative—BABEL—designed not to steal secrets but to corrode Israel’s very identity, planting false memories, alternate histories, and synthetic faith.
Haunted by a failed operation from his past and racing against an enemy that uses algorithms as much as agents, Harel must outthink both foreign masterminds and domestic traitors. Each move uncovers a deeper conspiracy: Iran is not just recruiting spies—it is building a second Israel inside the real one.
Taut, chilling, and disturbingly plausible, The Rise and Fall of Iranian Spies in Israel blends cutting-edge espionage tradecraft with intimate human drama, asking: what happens when the war for a nation is fought not on borders, but inside its citizens’ minds?
Used availability for Haggai Carmon's The Rise and Fall of Iranian Spies in Israel