Israeli Intelligence Minister Lobbies UK To Designate IRGC

Iran International Newsroom
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, October 17, 2022
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, October 17, 2022

The Israeli Minister of Intelligence visiting London has spoken of the need for the world to unite against the Iranian regime and its terror force, the IRGC.

One of a number of high-profile guests in a House of Lords event in honor of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, Gila Gamliel said: "The world must understand that Iran is not only Israel's problem. Other attendees included Lord Stuart Polak.

“The Ayatollah regime is extending its arms throughout the world. Therefore, the modern world must stand together like a wall," she told Iran International.

Lord Polak also told Iran International's reporter that this meeting was meant to hear the voices of the Iranian people and their demands.During her trip to London this week, Gamliel said that based on her conversations with many Iranians in the diaspora, she feels there is a true movement of change happening in Iran.

A source in her office told Iran International that Gamliel has emphasized that Israel, due to the role Iran played in saving Jews 2,500 years ago, considers itself committed to doing whatever it can to save Iranians.

Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom Baron Stuart Polak
Member of the House of Lords of the United Kingdom Baron Stuart Polak

Referencing the Jewish expression, 'see you next year in Jerusalem', the heart of the Jewish people, she gave a message to the Iranian people, "I hope that next year we will see each other in Tehran. I wholeheartedly believe that we can fulfill this promise together."

Gamliel also met with a group of Iranian opposition activists and reporters in London on Wednesday.

The Israeli minister also considered the goal of her trip to be "changing Western leaders' perception of the Iranian regime and imposing stricter sanctions on this government and listing the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group."

The United States government sanctioned Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019, but European states have hesitated to take the step, although they have imposed many sanctions on IRGC officials and entities.

The UK’s security minister and home secretary have both recently said Iran now poses one of the biggest threats to the country. Earlier this year, Iran International was forced to relocate its London office to Washington amidst threats to reporters’ lives which UK spy agency MI5 said it could no longer counter.

While speaking to Iran International, the Israeli minister said she wishes to send “support messages to the Iranian people and that the West should be with the Iranians and not make it easy for the regime.”

Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel (leeft) and Iranian exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi in Tel Aviv, Israel
Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel (leeft) and Iranian exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi in Tel Aviv, Israel

Gamliel hosted Iran’s exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi in Israel earlier this year during an unprecedented visit in April when he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Writing in the Israeli Maariv newspaper on International Women's Day in March, she said, "The citizens of Iran are not Israel's enemies. Peaceful relations, respect and appreciation prevailed between the peoples for many years" before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.