We Believe in Israel, a UK pro-Israel advocacy organization, has named French journalist and analyst Catherine Perez-Shakdam as its new leader. Perez-Shakdam, a former United Nations Security Council consultant on Yemen, is distinguished for her expertise on Islamic terrorism, radicalisation, and antisemitism.
We Believe in Israel has been leading initiatives to proscribe the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and has campaigned to remove extreme anti-Israel content from Spotify.
Perez-Shakdam, who was raised in a secular Jewish family in France, converted to Islam when she married a Muslim Yemeni man she met at the University of London. After divorcing him in 2014, she now identifies as a Zionist Jew.
In 2017, while working as a journalist for state-controlled Russian television station RT, she met with senior Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Khamenei, former Quds Force Commander Soleimani, and late President Ebrahim Raisi. These meetings gave her a deep awareness of the threat posed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
* The Jewish Chronicle has contributed to this report