The Iranian regime is terrified of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a French-born Jewish woman who years ago met senior Iranian officials.
Shakdam told the ILTV Podcast that the Iranian leadership sees Netanyahu as the “carrier of Israel’s military tradition” and believes he will not allow Israel to fail.
The interview was recorded on a Tuesday afternoon, at a time when Iran was under threat of a United States attack and Israel was bracing for a potential Iranian retaliation. In that context, Shakdam said Israelis should not be afraid. She explained that when U.S. President Donald Trump declared that his country was “locked and loaded” and that “help is on the way,” the Iranians panicked.
“A statement was issued by the Iranian parliament and it was picked up by legacy media, but no one commented on it or understood what it meant,” Shakdam explained. “The parliament warned that should a hair be misplaced or displaced on [Ayatollah] Khamenei’s head, they would declare jihad on Arab countries.”
Shakdam emphasized that Israel was not mentioned in the statement.
“The regime in Iran is very predictable in that they would never try to confront you, not directly, if they know they don't have a guaranteed victory,” Shakdam stressed.
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She noted that when Iran attacked Israel in April and October 2024, it did so only after warning Israel “a gazillion times” in advance and with the knowledge that nothing would get through.
“They were hoping that maybe something theatrical would happen, but they were also very worried about the response,” Shakdam said. “Something that people need to understand and take into this equation when it comes to the [Iranian] regime is that they are terrified.”
Shakdam said that after the 12-day war with Iran that took place over the summer, the country is beaten down and weak. Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon, she said, and while it could launch a dirty bomb or carry out a small-scale retaliation attack, Israelis should not worry. At the same time, she urged the United States and Israel to take action now, warning that waiting only allows Iran to grow stronger.
“The more we wait, the more costly it will be, because you're allowing a monster to grow its tentacles, and at some point somebody is going to have to kill it,” she said.
Asked whether she believes the protesters in the streets of Iran will ultimately win, Shakdam answered “yes,” saying that justice will prevail.
“They are committing crimes against humanity,” Shakdam said of the Iranian regime. “The horrors that they are exacting on Iranians, I have no words. The courage that Iranians are showing is mind-blowing. Again, I have no words, and I honor those people. They're doing this with nothing. And that is true courage.”
Shakdam said that a revolution can only succeed when “the seals of power have been broken,” and she believes that “the genie is out of the bottle, and they have spoken freedom and that it will be manifested into existence.”
“They will ultimately win,” she added. “The real question is what will it cost.”
She also delivered a message to Muslims around the world, calling on them not to allow “lunatics and bloodthirsty tyrants” to sully the name of their faith, Islam.
Shakdam's early years
Shakdam grew up in a secular Jewish family in France and later became deeply embedded in the Muslim world through marriage and study. She met her now ex-husband, a Yemenite Muslim, while studying in London. The couple lived together in Yemen, where through her children’s elite classmates at a local French school, she became entrenched in the country’s elite military and political circles. That access eventually connected her to the Iranian elite as well, including time spent in close proximity to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
She described her life in Yemen as “it was brutal. It was violent, psychologically draining.” Shakdam said she was forced to outwardly pretend she had converted to Islam and that inside her home she was beaten by her ex-husband for refusing to convert.
She said that while she had never considered herself a Zionist before marrying her ex-husband, living in Yemen and being forced to hide her Jewish identity “they ignited the flame of Zionism in me.”
“I do believe that our DNA speaks really loudly in terms of crisis,” Shakdam told ILTV. “They tried to claim my identity, to slap another one on me, and I refused at great risk.”
Shakdam also described her meeting with Khamenei, during which she sat on the floor while he sat on a chair.
“I was thinking, I'm very Jewish, sitting in front of a man who wants me dead, but he didn't know that,” she said. The two barely exchanged words, and she did not look him in the eyes. She recalled that he “dispensed his wisdom upon me in a very patronizing way.”
That meeting took place in 2017. In 2018, she decided to escape.
“It was becoming too dangerous; people were starting to ask questions,” Shakdam said. “I think that the mask was slipping.”
Watch the full interview: