News broke last week that Gonen Segey, a former Knesset member and minister of energy and infrastructure, had been arrested in Israel on charges of spying for Iran. Segev, who had previously served a prison term for drug smuggling, fraud, and forgery, has been out of office since 1996. Eran Lerman tries to make sense of this turn of events:
If [Iranian intelligence] did, in fact, see Segev as an asset worth cultivating, it raises questions as to the value of the information he supplied and the priority given to the information Iranian intelligence was tasked with obtaining. We can already say with certainty that this was not information about plans by the Israeli government that would deter Iran. For some time now, Segev has not had access to that kind of information, and his conviction for drug dealing has kept him at a distance from power players. . . .
[T]he Iranians—seeking to destroy Israel—are mainly interested in identifying targets to attack, especially major ones. The former energy minister is an asset who can produce a lot in this area, as someone who was responsible for sensitive infrastructure systems.
It is hard to say how much damage has been done and it will be discovered only through a detailed investigation. But even if we are satisfied with what we already know, we can understand plenty about Iran and its goals and the limits of the Iranian intelligence community’s capabilities. If this is the best they could do, Israel’s proven intelligence superiority is in no danger.
Read more on Israel Hayom: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-target-infrastructure/