Tim Anderson
Source: Al Mayadeen English
Tim Anderson examines how the case of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Israeli spy who was active in Iran, was instrumentalised in Western media and politics to manufacture hostility toward Iran and help condition public opinion for a future war.
Kylie’s treatment by the Australian officials and mass media helps illustrate the escalating dangers of misleading campaigns to build hatred against the enemies of "Israel". In Kylie’s case Australian officials and media: (1) misled the public about the depth of her involvement with the Israelis, (2) falsely claimed that "no evidence" was made public about Iran’s case against her, and (3) continued to falsely claim that Western spies arrested in Iran are simply "hostages" taken by Tehran for some sort of "extortion" by way of prisoner exchange.
Further, since her release from prison, Kylie has become a ferocious anti-Iran propagandist, building on claims that her conviction for espionage was unjust. Since being anti-Iran has become the elite Western consensus, her platforms are many.
What was Kylie Moore Gilbert’s mission in Iran and Bahrain? Iran says she was a spy for "Israel" and convicted her as such. She claims to have been an innocent abroad, not involved in the politics of the region and with minimal links to "Israel".
Wikipedia, basically a summary of the Western media, tells us that in 2018 Dr. Kylie Moore Gilbert, a young British-Australian academic, was charged, convicted and imprisoned [in Iran] "on charges of espionage. She denied the charges, and no evidence for them was ever made public. The Australian government rejected the charges as "baseless and politically motivated."
That "no evidence" summary draws on statements of various Australian officials and journalists, who variously claimed that "No evidence was ever presented" that Kylie was a spy (The Guardian), "I don’t believe there is any evidence of her having any links to Israel," (former Defence Minister Christopher Pyne), saying "no evidence [was] produced against her" (The Jewish Independent), and from Kylie herself "There’s no evidence of me being a spy for any country (CNN). The then Foreign Minister Marise Payne said, "The Australian Government has consistently rejected the grounds on which the Iranian Government arrested, detained and convicted Dr Moore-Gilbert".
The assertions of "no evidence" were misleading, hiding the realities as well as the dangers of Western journalists, NGO workers, and academics being used as tools in today’s hybrid wars.
In unravelling the disinformation, we should bear in mind the Mossad motto (adapted from Proverbs 24:6) "by way of deception thou shalt make war". Reliance on Israeli sources for information against the enemies of the Zionist colony can be dangerous self-delusion. Iran remains an enemy of "Israel", as Tehran arms those attacked by "Israel", especially Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups, so they can defend themselves. The Israeli regime constantly lies about Iran.
Similarly, when the Australian chorus repeats "no evidence" of Kylie being a spy or having "any links with Israel", they are hiding some rather obvious sources of information, in particular reports in both the Israeli and the Iranian media. They may not like, or may not agree with, that evidence, but to assert that "no evidence" was made public on the charges against her is demonstrably false.
The levels of official and media denial in Kylie’s case are reminiscent of those concerning Steve Pratt, a former Australian soldier who worked for the NGO group CARE Australia during the Balkan wars in the late 1990s. In 1999, with two colleagues, Pratt was arrested by Yugoslav-Serb authorities on charges of spying for NATO. He at first denied the charges and was backed by every Australian politician and media outlet. Too much official protest should be a warning sign.
Yet the official pressure may have helped secure his release. The Australian state and corporate media claimed his video confession to reporting on NATO troops movements was coerced, yet it soon emerged that CARE Canada had an agreement with the Canadian Government (a NATO member) to report on troop movements and the impact of NATO bombing. Head of CAR Australia and former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser denounced the agreement, but convinced SBS not to make it public until after the men were released. SBS reporter Graham Davis said the men were compromised by their own NGO when it did "a deal that had nothing to do with humanitarian work and everything to do with intelligence". After confirmation of Pratt’s spying broke, Australian corporate media ran sympathetic stories like "Pratt helped peace monitors".
Kylie’s story was similarly covered up. What is not denied is that she was convicted in Iran of spying and sentenced to 10 years in jail, but then released in a November 2020 prisoner exchange after serving just two years. She then proclaimed her innocence.
After her release, the Australian media reluctantly admitted that Kylie had converted to Judaism and in 2017, married a Russian-Israeli man, Ruslan Hodorov, as though this were an incidental detail. Kylie played it down, telling the ABC "My ex-husband did have an Israeli passport, but he was born in Russia, in the Soviet Union, and migrated to Australia … So the link to Israel was there. But it's fairly tenuous". Similarly, in her 2022 memoir The Uncaged Sky, Kylie says she told Iranian security that Ruslan had "spent a few years in Israel as a teenager, that’s all, they were refugees". Yet even these "tenuous" links were withheld from the public until she was released.
The Israeli media
Nevertheless, the Israeli media, proud of its new recruit, pointed out that Kylie’s links with "Israel" stretched back several years. They reveal Kylie’s deeper links with the Israelis.
A 2020 article by Josh Mitnick in The Jewish Independent (formerly "plus61j") wrote of Kylie in "exploring her Jewish identity" in 2011. Yet, according to a 2024 interview by Vic Alhadef, she places her conversion to Judaism at around 2014. Other accounts link conversion to her marriage in 2017. Yet she attended her first Israeli "leadership" training camp in 2011.
According to Mitnick, in 2011, she participated in a month long all expenses paid ‘Tikvah Fellows’ summer program at (an illegal) Israeli settlement and military camp in the occupied West Bank (the Ein Pratt military academy near Alon). There, she studied and listed to "lectures from prominent Israeli intellectuals and public figures, [while taking part in] field trips to historic sites, and interaction with Israeli peers". Tikvah Academic Fellowships aim at "nurturing the next generation of exceptional scholars engaged in teaching and research that bolsters Jewish and Western Civilization".
The Tikvah scholar application criteria say: "We welcome applicants from all parts of the Jewish community" and the program aims at cultivating "Jewish leaders", although it seems that non-Jews "with a strong interest in Jewish thought" might be able to apply. It seems that Kylie did have a strong interest before 2011, while she did her Honours studies at Cambridge. Yet the Tikvah program is also aimed at creating "Jewish leadership", so it is possible that her conversion to Judaism and her bond with "Israel" was formed well before 2014. She published an article, ‘Aliyah ["ascent" to Israeli citizenship] and Identity in Israeli-Russian Literature’ in a Flinders University publication in 2014. After her conversion, she would herself have been eligible for this ‘Aliyah’.
Iranian media released a compilation video of Kylie and her mission – an IRIB video which is still posted on Aparat.com, Iran’s version of YouTube, but only now discoverable in heavily redacted form in the Anglo media – showing her in the Israeli colony, at Jerusalem and including a photo of her in Israeli military uniform, with some other young women. The Iranian video says that photo is from a military training centre in Haifa in 2013. In the image, she is the fourth person from the right. That same year, she also said to have participated in some sort of research or training at a counter-terrorism centre in Herzliya (south of Haifa, on the coast). On her own account, she was studying Arabic and Hebrew in Cambridge, at that time.
Much of the Western media show (if they show it at all) a heavily edited version of that Iranian video. News Corp called it a "sick propaganda video" and then only showed a few select parts. Another News Corp story headlined "Iran target Aussie in propaganda war" did show the still of Kylie in military uniform. They sneered at this Iranian evidence but do not attempt any explanation as to why she might have been dressed in an Israeli military uniform.
It is not clear how much total time Kylie spent in "Israel". She says about 12 months back in 2011; then she converted to Judaism and got married in "Israel" in late 2017. Yet by the time of the Tikvah program in 2011 she was said by colleagues to have "some literacy in Hebrew" and to have been "familiar with Jewish thought and practice". Iranian media places her back in Haifa in 2013, while she was also studying Hebrew at Cambridge. Alan Rubenstein, the director of the Tikvah Fund’s university programs, said at the 2011 program she had "a compelling story about her Jewish growth from a secular upbringing in Australia to a deep attachment to her people and to the story of the Jewish state." There are many inconsistent stories about her first contacts with "Israel".
Ran Baratz, a faculty member at the Shalem College in al-Quds [Jerusalem] and a former advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the goal of the Tikvah program was quite political, to teach them about Judaism, "Israel" and Zionism from the standpoint of a "Jewish understanding" rather than the academic language of "liberal society". The program was one initiative of the Tikvah Fund, chaired by US Jewish financier Roger Hertog, "which seeks to support conservative libertarian intellectual thought both in the US and Israel". According to fellow student Elyssa Kanet, from the USA, Kylie was "dedicated on the program to learning about Israel and the history of Zionism ... She was really interested about Zionism." The Israeli media at least makes clear her links to the Jewish colony were substantial.
The Iranian media
Iranian reports on Kylie’s alleged offences appear generally in the IRIB video and in more detail in at least one report in Mashregh News. The latter gives accounts of her recruitment by Israeli intelligence and preparation of a mission to report on Iranian support for the (anti-Zionist) Bahrain democracy movement.
While the Israeli media showed her deeper connection to "Israel", the Iranian media gave almost chapter and verse on the IRGC charges. The fact that Australian politicians and media chanted "no evidence" of espionage "was ever made public" only shows that they did not bother to read the Iranian media. I suspect the main reason for this was the prevailing Anglo-American view was that the Iranian government did not exist, so there was no need to hear official Iranian voices.
Yet the Israeli media does read enemy sources. Mitnick, for example, observes that Iranian security alleged Kylie’s husband Ruslan Hodorov "worked for Israel’s domestic General Security Services and recruited Moore Gilbert".
Mashregh News, the Persian language outlet that gives greatest detail to the charges, develops this claim, comparing Kylie to earlier Anglo orientalist spies like Bernard Lewis and Edward Granville Brown. That is to say, posing as a researcher, they were said to be embedded in the political mission of their culture. Mashregh says in the propaganda war waged against Iran, "it is pretended that there is no such thing as "espionage" against … Iran, and that these people who fall into the trap of Iranian intelligence forces as "spies" are merely a handful of researchers, tourists, environmental activists, or simply interested in Iranian culture and attractions". She and they were innocents abroad, in a war zone, and people whom Kylie would later call (as with the Israeli POWs in Gaza campaign) "hostages".
Clearly, after briefings from Iranian security, the Iranian media viewed Israeli trained Kylie as "a spy with triple citizenship who was working for the Mossad" and was later "exchanged for three Iranian citizens imprisoned abroad". Just as Kylie maintains she was wrongly convicted, Iran says their citizens were falsely accused.
Mashregh says Kylie "studied Hebrew with an Israeli professor at the University of Haifa and took an 8-month Hebrew refresher course. During this period, she met an Israeli named Ruslan Hodorov and the two later married. Ruslan worked for an Israeli company whose managers were affiliated with the Israeli Internal Security Agency (Shin Bet). Kylie herself had attended an intensive military training course in Pargan Gadna [youth battalions] in the occupied territories."
Mashregh News continues "She also met and interviewed former Shin Bet chief Amy Ayalon to complete her thesis … [then] began working with a security institute called the International Counterterrorism Institute (ICT). ICT is affiliated with an institute called the Herzliya Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in the occupied territories. The Herzliya Institute’s mission is to provide the Israeli intelligence services with the data and content they need to cover scientific activities.
After an internship at ICT, Kylie was said to have been "recruited to work on 'the Iran Project'." In 2013, she and her husband travelled to the occupied territories for three months and were in contact with the Herzliya Centre four days a week. At the same time, she submitted a research proposal to ICT on the topic of "Iran and the Effort to Create a Shiite Bloc in West Asia with the Aim of Spreading Terrorism and Sectarianism," focusing on the presence of Iran and its allies in Syria."
The Mashregh report says Kylie’s initial doctoral studies aim was "to investigate the role of Iran’s allied forces in the Syrian conflict" in the context of the post-Arab Spring era, but that after this proposal was accepted at the University of Melbourne, she was persuaded to shift the focus of the project from Syria to Bahrain, at the request of the ICT Centre. Kylie’s ICT expert, Devorah Margolin, it is said, encouraged her to change the focus of her project because Aman was in dire need of identifying the revolutionaries in Bahrain and the relationship between them and the Islamic Republic, including militant communication networks.
Kylie took up the Bahraini focus with some enthusiasm. She published six academic articles on the Bahrain democracy movement (2016, 2018 (3) and 2019(2)), the latter two came out while she was in prison in Iran. Since her release, her focus turned to prisoners in Iran and to the so called "hostage diplomacy" – seen in two academic articles and a research theme.
Kylie met with Bahraini figures in Australia. According to Ghassan (Gus) Khamis, a Bahraini activist, he met Kylie in Melbourne in 2017. They both met Jassim Hussein, a former Bahraini MP from the Al-Wefaq Society. Hussein was dismissed from Al-Wefaq Society because he accepted an interview with an Israeli channel. Contacts with Israelis are banned in most Arab Resistance groups. Jassim Hussein told Gus he met Kylie in the course of his academic activities, as he had taught economics at the University of Bahrain before becoming an MP.
Mashregh says Jassim Hussein (after his expulsion from Al-Wefaq) became close to the Bahraini regime's intelligence apparatus. Taking advantage of Jassim Hussein’s contacts, Kylie travelled to Bahrain to update her research and regularly met with officers of the Al Khalifa regime’s intelligence service at a restaurant in Manama. Despite these compromises, through her Bahraini links, Kylie managed to gain the trust of anti-regime groups and to a network of activists opposed to the Bahraini regime. She is said to have interviewed key figures in the Bahraini opposition (more than 30 people), including Nabeel Rajab, with the support of both Jassim Hussein and the Bahraini government for successful completion of the first phase of her project.
A second phase of Kylie’s mission, according to Mashregh News, was "tracking and contacting Bahraini figures who were present inside Iranian territory". Kylie is said to have been instructed by "Israel’s" Aman service "on the principles of protecting travel to Iran", as security measures must be taken to avoid detection. She was then tasked with interviewing Bahraini students and scholars living in Iran and an important Bahraini figure called Elias in the religious city of Qom.
In this way, under the guise of academic activity, Kylie was set up "to attend a series of "Shiite studies" meetings at the University of Religions and Denominations in order to connect with a German researcher in this field who had close connections with Bahrainis living in Qom".
However, in September 2018, after some monitoring, Iranian security forces (the IRGC) intervened and arrested the young academic under an order from the judicial system. She was then sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Revolutionary Court on charges of spying for "Israel".
In sum, the 10-minute IRIB video and the lengthy Mashregh report gave substantial detail of the IRGC espionage case against Dr Kylie Moore Gilbert. Israeli media also confirmed her links with the Zionist colony had some depth, were linked to military training and went back some years. Together, they outlined the IRGC case.
Kylie’s post release political activities
While she visited Iran for her mission, Kylie downplayed her political views, even though the region and the themes of her studies were intensely political. It is difficult at the best of times to conceal political opinions, but especially if one has links to the Israelis. However, since her release, Kylie has become a ferocious anti-Iran propagandist, consistent with Israeli propaganda. Her initial focus was to build a campaign which drew on her personal experiences as a "wrongly convicted" prisoner of a "tyrannical" regime.
It was US-Iranian journalist Jason Rezaian, also convicted of and imprisoned for espionage in Iran, and the Australia-Israel Review (an AIJAC publication) in early 2020, who first called Kylie a "hostage", while she was still in prison. This mirrored the Israeli "hostage" campaign for those soldiers and settlers captured and held as POWs during and after the October 7, 2023 Palestinian insurrection in Gaza. The Western war media obediently ignored the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by the Israelis, placing them in some other category. Similarly, they adopted Kylie’s "hostage diplomacy" theory, ignoring the real Iranian concerns about wartime espionage.
Kylie initially drew attention to other prisoners held in Iran, suggesting they were also hostages held on false pretexts. Iranian media responded by pointed to the Western practice of "using young women for infiltration and espionage to "reduce the initial security sensitivities" and then, if exposed and arrested, "to create an emotional aura around femininity".
Yet the cover of one listed as a "hostage" was blown by Britain’s former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who pointed out that British-Iranian journalist Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe "had been training journalists" in Iran, for BBC Persian. This was a breach of her visa, as Zaghari-Ratcliffe entered on the pretext of "visiting family". She would have known well that Tehran regards BBC Persian as a foreign intel and propaganda agency. Accused of "betrayal" by the supporters of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Boris Johnson later apologised if his words were "so taken out of context" as "to cause any kind of anxiety".
Similarly, Swedish-Iranian Ahmadreza Djalali was convicted of passing information about two Iranian scientists to "Israel’s" Mossad, information that led to their assassination. Nevertheless, much of the Western media plus Amnesty International, joined in support of Djalali because well, how can Iran (the enemy of "Israel") have any legitimate concern about spies?
Kylie pursued her research theme of "hostage diplomacy" with a memorial lecture at the University of Sydney. Her argument was that "authoritarian states" such as China, Russia and Iran (but no Western states) pursue "hostage diplomacy" (illegitimate arrests and detentions) as they see "minimal risks" in taking hostages. They then extract political concessions in exchange for the release of these "hostages".
Her current activities against Iran – claiming the Iranian government is extremely unpopular, about to collapse and even accusing Iran of "instigating terrorism in Australia" – coincide with US and Israeli propaganda against Iran but contrast with her earlier claims (repeated in her 2022 book) to love Iran and its people. Now she openly backs "regime change" for Iran at a time of repeated attacks by the Israelis. She told Australian state media ABC that "the response from Australian authorities to stop Iranian regime operatives from infiltrating the country, both physically and via cyberspace, has been inadequate." If accepted uncritically, her advocacy adds a veneer of respectability to the Israeli driven climate for yet another war of aggression against Iran.
For the record, there are many partisan polls over Iran, but the UNDP 2018 Human Development Report (Table 14) listed "trust in national government" of Iran at 71%, compared to 39% in the USA and 45% in Australia. The Iranian "regime" is not so unpopular.
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Key References
Mashregh News (2020) ‘Details of how Kylie Gilbert was infiltrated and spied …’, 26 December, online: https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/1148587/جزئیات-نحوه-نفوذ-و-جاسوسی-کایلی-گیلبرت-نوه-ی-معنوی-برنارد
Mitnick, Josh (2020) ‘Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s journey of connection to Judaism and Israel’,
The Jewish Independent, 3 December, online: https://thejewishindependent.com.au/kylie-moore-gilberts-journey-connection-judaism-israel
Previously at: https://plus61j.net.au/featured/kylie-moore-gilberts-journey-connection-judaism-israel/
Vic Aldadeff (2024) Kylie Moore-Gilbert on diplomacy, trauma and being held hostage’, The Jewish Independent, 6 May, online: https://thejewishindependent.com.au/hostage-nightmare-and-iran-crisis-revive-traumatic-memories-for-kylie
Cadzow (2022) ‘Terror, loneliness, a lovesick guard: Kylie Moore-Gilbert’s 804 days in a Tehran jail’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March, online: https://www.smh.com.au/national/terror-loneliness-a-lovesick-guard-kylie-moore-gilbert-s-804-days-in-a-tehran-jail-20220218-p59xmn.html
IRIB (2020) ‘Who is Kylie Moore Gilbert, an Israeli spy, and why was she arrested in Iran?’, online: https://www.aparat.com/v/8gtT2
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