A Long History: Israeli Espionage Against the US
[This survey of Israeli spying on the US was compiled in 1997.]
The Washington Post reported in a front-page story on May 7th, 1997 that US intelligence had intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis had commented that they may get the letter from "Mega"-- apparently a codename for an Israeli agent within the US government.
This revelation has been treated by much of the press as something of an aberration, as Israeli officials have claimed that they do not spy on the US. Israel Foreign Minister David Levy told the Washington Post (5/8/97) that "Our diplomats all over the world, and of course specifically in the US, don't deal with such a thing." Prime Minister Netanyahu's office declared: "Israel does not use intelligence agents in the United States. Period."
Here is a sampling of the public record of Israeli espionage and covert actions against the US:
According to Time magazine (5/19/97), the US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, last year "complained privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents, who had been following American-embassy employees in Tel Aviv and searching the hotel rooms of visiting US officials."
***
Three relevant documents were made public in early 1996:
1) A General Accounting Office report "Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors" found that according to intelligence sources "Country A" (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally." The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, "Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country."
The report described "An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was "a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel's LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information."
The GAO report also noted that "Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes."
2) An Office of Naval Intelligence document, "Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare" reported that "US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology." Jane's Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that "until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China." The report noted that this "represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation." (Flight International, 3/13/96)
3) The Defense Investigative Service circulated a memo in late 1995 warning US military contractors that "Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology." The report stated that Israel obtains information using "ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties" of US citizens. (Washington Post, 1/30/96) (This report was criticized by several groups for allegedly implying that Americans Jews were particularly suspect.)
***
From New York Times December 22, 1985, by David K. Shipler:
Many American officials are convinced of Israel's ability, on a routine basis, to obtain sensitive information about this county's secret weapons, advanced technology and internal policy deliberations in Washington...
The F.B.I. knew of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal said. The Justice Department did not prosecute.
"When the Pollard case broke, the general media and public perception was that this was the first time this had ever happen," said John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal security section. "No, that's not true at all. The Israeli intelligence service, when I was in the Justice Department, [1950-1980] was the second most active in the United States, to the Soviets."
***
From "The Samson Option," by Seymour M. Hersh
[Page numbers are from the Vintage paperback edition, 1992.]
The name "Mega" in the recent Washington Post story may be noteworthy:
[I]llicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, [Ari] Ben-Menashe recalled: "Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts." ("The Samson Option," pg 295)
After Jonathan Pollard was arrested for selling secrets to Israel, the Israeli leadership denied all knowledge. Hersh provides several sources indicating that they did know. Here's one:
The top leadership, of course, knew what was going on. One former Israeli intelligence official recalled that Peres and Rabin, both very sophisticated in the handling of intelligence, were quick to ask, as the official put it, "Where are we getting this stuff?" They were told, the Israeli added, that Israeli intelligence 'has a penetration into the U.S. intelligence community.' Both men let it go. No one said: 'Stop it here and now.'" ("The Samson Option," pg 296)
One of the little-known aspects of the Pollard case is that information was passed along by the Israelis to the Soviets:
For Shamir, the Israeli added, the relaying of the Pollard information to the Soviets was his way of demonstrating that Israel could be a much more dependable and important collaborator in the Middle East than the "fickle" Arabs: "What Arab could give you this?" ("The Samson Option," pg 299)
The Pollard information helped in Israel's ability to exercise "The Samson Option" -- to threaten the Soviet Union, and therefore the US, with nuclear war if they didn't get their way in developments in the Mideast. Disclosure of information to the Soviets also apparently led the Soviets to track down US agents:
One senior American intelligence official confirmed that there have been distinct losses of human and technical intelligence collection ability inside the Soviet Union that have been attributed, after extensive analysis, to Pollard. "The Israeli objective [in the handling of Pollard] was to gather what they could and let the Soviets know that they have a strategic capability--for their survival [the threat of a nuclear strike against the Soviets] and to get their people out [of the Soviet Union]," one former CIA official said. "Where it hurts us is our agents being rolled up and our ability to collect technical intelligence being shut down. When the Soviets found out what's being passed"--in the documents supplied by Pollard to the Israelis--"they shut down the source." ("The Samson Option," pg 300)
***
A portion of a 1979 CIA internal report, "Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services" (from The Nation, "I Spy, You Spy, We All Spy," December 14, 1985, by Alexander Cockburn) included the following:
In one instance Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tried to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl. They rigged a fake abortion case against the employee in an unsuccessful effort to recruit him. Before this attempt at blackmail, they had tried to get the Israeli girl to elicit information from her boyfriend.
Two other important targets in Israel are the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) with headquarters in Jerusalem. There have been two or three crude efforts to recruit Marine guards for monetary reward. In the cases involving UNTSO personnel, the operations involved intimidation and blackmail.
In 1954, a hidden microphone planted by the Israelis was discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv. In 1956, telephone taps were found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attache.
***
In March 1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, was overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. The F.B.I. found Bryen's fingerprints on the documents in question, and he admitted to having obtained them the night before the meeting with the Israelis. Bryen was forced to quit his job, but was never indicted. He was later brought on to the Defense Department as a deputy to Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary Richard Pearle. There Bryen was in charge of such matters as overseeing technology transfers in the Mideast. (See "The Armageddon Network" (Amana Books) by Michael Saba, an officer of the National Association of Arab Americans when he overheard Bryen offer the documents to the Israelis.)
As late as 1992, Stephen Bryen was serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant -- with security clearance -- on exports of sensitive US technology. (Wall Street Journal, 1/22/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers)
***
* "The Lavon Affair": In 1954, Israeli agents attacked Western targets in Egypt in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon was removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.
* In 1965, Israel apparently illegally obtained enriched uranium from NUMEC corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.")
* In 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See "Assault on the Liberty," by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House).
* In 1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO was indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).
* April 24, 1987 Wall Street Journal headline: "Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won't be Explored in Detail by Panels"
* In 1992, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc's top-secret airborne spy-camera system. (1/17/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers).
* In early 1997, an Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, told investigators that he "inadvertently" gave classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).
* For detailed analysis of the Israel-US relationship, including covert operations, see "Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel" by Stephen Green (Amana Books). Also see "Dangerous Liaisons" by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn (Harper Collins).
* For information on economic espionage see "War By Other Means: Economic Espionage in America" by Wall Street Journal reporter John Fialka (Norton). Also see "Israel's Unauthorized Arms Transfers" in Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, by Prof. Duncan Clarke of American University.
SAM HUSSEINI
The Washington Post reported in a front-page story on May 7th, 1997 that US intelligence had intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis had commented that they may get the letter from "Mega"-- apparently a codename for an Israeli agent within the US government.
This revelation has been treated by much of the press as something of an aberration, as Israeli officials have claimed that they do not spy on the US. Israel Foreign Minister David Levy told the Washington Post (5/8/97) that "Our diplomats all over the world, and of course specifically in the US, don't deal with such a thing." Prime Minister Netanyahu's office declared: "Israel does not use intelligence agents in the United States. Period."
Here is a sampling of the public record of Israeli espionage and covert actions against the US:
According to Time magazine (5/19/97), the US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, last year "complained privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents, who had been following American-embassy employees in Tel Aviv and searching the hotel rooms of visiting US officials."
***
Three relevant documents were made public in early 1996:
1) A General Accounting Office report "Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors" found that according to intelligence sources "Country A" (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally." The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, "Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country."
The report described "An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was "a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel's LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information."
The GAO report also noted that "Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes."
2) An Office of Naval Intelligence document, "Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare" reported that "US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology." Jane's Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that "until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China." The report noted that this "represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation." (Flight International, 3/13/96)
3) The Defense Investigative Service circulated a memo in late 1995 warning US military contractors that "Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology." The report stated that Israel obtains information using "ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties" of US citizens. (Washington Post, 1/30/96) (This report was criticized by several groups for allegedly implying that Americans Jews were particularly suspect.)
***
From New York Times December 22, 1985, by David K. Shipler:
Many American officials are convinced of Israel's ability, on a routine basis, to obtain sensitive information about this county's secret weapons, advanced technology and internal policy deliberations in Washington...
The F.B.I. knew of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal said. The Justice Department did not prosecute.
"When the Pollard case broke, the general media and public perception was that this was the first time this had ever happen," said John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal security section. "No, that's not true at all. The Israeli intelligence service, when I was in the Justice Department, [1950-1980] was the second most active in the United States, to the Soviets."
***
From "The Samson Option," by Seymour M. Hersh
[Page numbers are from the Vintage paperback edition, 1992.]
The name "Mega" in the recent Washington Post story may be noteworthy:
[I]llicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, [Ari] Ben-Menashe recalled: "Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts." ("The Samson Option," pg 295)
After Jonathan Pollard was arrested for selling secrets to Israel, the Israeli leadership denied all knowledge. Hersh provides several sources indicating that they did know. Here's one:
The top leadership, of course, knew what was going on. One former Israeli intelligence official recalled that Peres and Rabin, both very sophisticated in the handling of intelligence, were quick to ask, as the official put it, "Where are we getting this stuff?" They were told, the Israeli added, that Israeli intelligence 'has a penetration into the U.S. intelligence community.' Both men let it go. No one said: 'Stop it here and now.'" ("The Samson Option," pg 296)
One of the little-known aspects of the Pollard case is that information was passed along by the Israelis to the Soviets:
For Shamir, the Israeli added, the relaying of the Pollard information to the Soviets was his way of demonstrating that Israel could be a much more dependable and important collaborator in the Middle East than the "fickle" Arabs: "What Arab could give you this?" ("The Samson Option," pg 299)
The Pollard information helped in Israel's ability to exercise "The Samson Option" -- to threaten the Soviet Union, and therefore the US, with nuclear war if they didn't get their way in developments in the Mideast. Disclosure of information to the Soviets also apparently led the Soviets to track down US agents:
One senior American intelligence official confirmed that there have been distinct losses of human and technical intelligence collection ability inside the Soviet Union that have been attributed, after extensive analysis, to Pollard. "The Israeli objective [in the handling of Pollard] was to gather what they could and let the Soviets know that they have a strategic capability--for their survival [the threat of a nuclear strike against the Soviets] and to get their people out [of the Soviet Union]," one former CIA official said. "Where it hurts us is our agents being rolled up and our ability to collect technical intelligence being shut down. When the Soviets found out what's being passed"--in the documents supplied by Pollard to the Israelis--"they shut down the source." ("The Samson Option," pg 300)
***
A portion of a 1979 CIA internal report, "Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services" (from The Nation, "I Spy, You Spy, We All Spy," December 14, 1985, by Alexander Cockburn) included the following:
In one instance Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tried to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl. They rigged a fake abortion case against the employee in an unsuccessful effort to recruit him. Before this attempt at blackmail, they had tried to get the Israeli girl to elicit information from her boyfriend.
Two other important targets in Israel are the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) with headquarters in Jerusalem. There have been two or three crude efforts to recruit Marine guards for monetary reward. In the cases involving UNTSO personnel, the operations involved intimidation and blackmail.
In 1954, a hidden microphone planted by the Israelis was discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv. In 1956, telephone taps were found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attache.
***
In March 1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, was overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. The F.B.I. found Bryen's fingerprints on the documents in question, and he admitted to having obtained them the night before the meeting with the Israelis. Bryen was forced to quit his job, but was never indicted. He was later brought on to the Defense Department as a deputy to Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary Richard Pearle. There Bryen was in charge of such matters as overseeing technology transfers in the Mideast. (See "The Armageddon Network" (Amana Books) by Michael Saba, an officer of the National Association of Arab Americans when he overheard Bryen offer the documents to the Israelis.)
As late as 1992, Stephen Bryen was serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant -- with security clearance -- on exports of sensitive US technology. (Wall Street Journal, 1/22/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers)
***
* "The Lavon Affair": In 1954, Israeli agents attacked Western targets in Egypt in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon was removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.
* In 1965, Israel apparently illegally obtained enriched uranium from NUMEC corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.")
* In 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See "Assault on the Liberty," by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House).
* In 1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO was indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).
* April 24, 1987 Wall Street Journal headline: "Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won't be Explored in Detail by Panels"
* In 1992, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc's top-secret airborne spy-camera system. (1/17/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers).
* In early 1997, an Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, told investigators that he "inadvertently" gave classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).
* For detailed analysis of the Israel-US relationship, including covert operations, see "Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel" by Stephen Green (Amana Books). Also see "Dangerous Liaisons" by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn (Harper Collins).
* For information on economic espionage see "War By Other Means: Economic Espionage in America" by Wall Street Journal reporter John Fialka (Norton). Also see "Israel's Unauthorized Arms Transfers" in Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, by Prof. Duncan Clarke of American University.
SAM HUSSEINI
posted by R7 | 8/31/2004 07:35:00 PM
7 Comments:
The Axis of Treason
Israeli spies in the Pentagon
by Justin Raimondo
The death agony of the neoconservatives is going to be a prolonged
and quite ugly procedure, painful not only for them but for the
entire country – which will learn, to its chagrin and growing anger,
how and by whom they were lied into war. It started late Friday, when
Lesley Stahl of CBS News reported that the FBI has "solid evidence"
that a spy, embedded in the top echelons of the Pentagon's civilian
leadership, handed over classified documents, including the draft of
a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran, to Israel. Such
an investigation would have been politically explosive in any case,
but add to this the news that Franklin had passed the documents to
Tel Aviv via AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee,
one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, and the result is
political dynamite.
Within hours the story had grown from focusing on a single
individual, Lawrence Franklin, described as a "mid-level desk
officer," to include an entire nest of spies ensconced in the top
echelons of the Pentagon, centered around the office of Douglas
Feith, the Director of Policy:
"An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by
Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well
beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret
Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the
investigation said Saturday.
"The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has
focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said
the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who
have firsthand knowledge of the subject.
"In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have
conducted interviews to determine whether Pentagon officials gave
highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group,
the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to
Iran. INC leader Ahmed Chalabi has denied his group was involved in
any wrongdoing."
This Knight-Ridder report, by Warren Strobel, went on to note
that "the linkage, if any, between the two leak investigations,
remains unclear." But it couldn't be clearer to those of us who have
been following the various scandals that have recently rocked the
national security bureaucracy – Chalabi-gate, the outing of CIA agent
Valerie Plame, the Niger uranium forgeries, and now the Franklin
affair. They all involve the same cast of neoconservative characters:
the inhabitants of the "policy shop" presided over by Feith,
including the infamous Office of Special Plans – otherwise known as
the Lie Factory – which produced a steady supply of utter falsehoods
to justify the rush to war. Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson,
commenting on MSNBC, said his sources were telling him that the
Franklin affair is also connected to the Niger uranium forgery
investigation. As I wrote a couple of months ago:
"The other day FBI agents paid a visit to the Pentagon, and subjected
several top neocons to lie-detector tests. They wanted to know where
neocon protégé (and Iranian spy) Ahmed Chalabi got his hot little
hands on highly valued U.S. secrets. But what I want to know is this:
How many different teams of investigators have to go through the same
desks? Why not consolidate all these ongoing investigations –
l'affaire Plame, the Niger uranium forgeries, Chalabi-gate, and the
Abu Ghraib war crimes – into one big investigation? We can call it
Neocon-gate."
That's what the Franklin affair shows every sign of turning into:
Neocon-gate. And it's about time. As regular readers of this column
are aware, it's been a long time coming.
For over two years, the feds have put scarce law enforcement
resources into this investigation, and it hasn't been for nothing:
they've been watching and eavesdropping on Israel's American fifth
column for at least that long, as Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
make clear enough in this Newsweekpiece:
"It was just a Washington lunch – one that the FBI happened to be
monitoring. Nearly a year and a half ago, agents were monitoring a
conversation between an Israeli Embassy official and a lobbyist for
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, as part of a
probe into possible Israeli spying. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly,
in the description of one intelligence official, another
American 'walked in' to the lunch out of the blue. Agents at first
didn't know who the man was. They were stunned to discover he was
Larry Franklin, a desk officer with the Near East and South Asia
office at the Pentagon."
"…FBI counterintelligence agents began tracking him, and at one point
watched him allegedly attempt to pass a classified U.S. Policy
document on Iran to one of the surveillance targets, according to a
U.S. Intelligence official. But his alleged confederate was 'too
smart,' the official said, and refused to take it. Instead, he asked
Franklin to brief him on its contents – and Franklin allegedly
obliged. Franklin also passed information gleaned from more highly
classified documents, the official said. If the government is
correct, Franklin's motive appears to have been ideological rather
than financial."
Yes, but what ideology are we talking about here? Hosenball and
Isikoff don't say. However, unconditional support to Israel has
always been a central tenet of neoconservative foreign policy
doctrine, and never more so than today. Feith was a co-author, along
with several prominent neocons, of "A Clean Break," a 1996 policy
paper written for then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that
proposed the elimination of Saddam Hussein as a primary goal: Baghdad
was depicted as the gateway to Damascus, a byway on the road to
Tehran.
The strategic utility of invading Iraq as a means to
combat "terrorism" as represented by al-Qaeda has always baffled war
opponents, and even a few reluctant supporters, because it was so
strikingly counterintuitive. Osama was forgotten: Saddam was the new
demon figure, and Iraq, not al-Qaeda, the target. The invasion and
subsequent occupation created a terrorist recruitment and training
center in the Sunni triangle that soon extended outward, to the
Shi'ite south. Only two leaders have been well-served by the American
conquest, and George W. Bush is not one of them. CIA analyst Michael
Scheuer, writing as "Anonymous," put it well in the opening paragraph
of his recent book, Imperial Hubris:
"U.S. forces and policies are completing the radicalization of the
Islamic world, something Osama bin Laden has been trying to do with
substantial but incomplete success since the early 1990s. As a
result, I think it is fair to conclude that the United States of
America remains bin Laden's only indispensable ally."
If bin Laden is the chief beneficiary of American policies in the
Middle East, then Ariel Sharon runs a close second. His government
has been given a free hand to do what it wills in the occupied
territories, including increased settlement-building, increased state
terrorism, and even U.S. acquiescence on the "Wall of Separation."
Israeli agents are swarming over Kurdistan, fomenting rebellion, and
threatening Iran. The old Zionist dream of extending Israel's
hegemony from the Nile to the Euphrates suddenly seems close to
realization.
Former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski, who has firsthand
experience with Franklin and his neocon comrades at the Office of
Special Plans, described direct contacts with top-ranking Israeli
officials. Jason Vest and Robert Dreyfuss also describe an Israeli
component of the OSP, working in collaboration with their American
counterparts. Stove-piping phony "intelligence," including forgeries
such as the Niger uranium papers, and passing them off as "evidence"
of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction," what was essentially an
Israeli covert action succeeded in lying us into war. Franklin is
just a cog in a much bigger cabal.
We're not just dealing with an overzealous individual who somehow got
confused that he shouldn't share sensitive intelligence with a
good "ally" such as Israel. That's the line being put out by
Franklin's defenders, who are even now mobilizing to support their
new hero.
Franklin's defenders are moving quickly to downplay his importance:
he's a "mid-level desk officer," supposedly in no position to make or
even have much of an impact on American policy in the Middle East.
But others point to his status as a favorite of his bosses, Feith and
Paul Wolfowitz – both of whom are no doubt of interest to the FBI in
the sense that they will be questioned. What did Franklin's bosses
know about their trusted underling's activities? In any case, one
official cited by Newsweek described the Franklin inquiry as "the
most significant Israeli espionage investigation in Washington since
Jonathan Pollard."
The raid on Chalabi's headquarters in Iraq was a first strike in the
war against the neocons. The coming arrest of Franklin, and perhaps
some of his confederates, rumored for this week, will bring the war
home.
The reaction of the Israelis, and their amen corner in the U.S., has
been uniformly and unintentionally comic: Who, us? Spy on America? It
never happens, at least not since Pollard.
But the reality of Israeli covert agents in America, far from being
something out of a cheap paperback spy thriller, is certainly borne
out by the Franklin affair. Not since Pollard? Tell that to Carl
Cameron of Fox News, whose four-part series on Israeli surveillance
of targets in the U.S., including Mohammed Atta and the 9/11
hijackers, cited anonymous law enforcement and government officials.
In Part I, broadcast on December 17, 2001, Cameron stated:
"There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9/11
attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have
gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it.
A highly-placed investigator said there are – quote – 'tie-ins.' But
when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying –
quote – evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I
cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's
classified information.'"
At the time, Cameron's report – and my columns on the subject – were
derided as "conspiracy theories," and largely ignored. When Cameron's
sources leaked an interagency report on the existence of an
Israeli "art student" operation in the U.S. that was clearly an
intelligence-gathering tool, a Justice Department spokeswoman
described its thesis – that the Israelis had launched a massive
covert action in on U.S. soil – as an "urban myth," and the Israel
First crowd took up the cry. The respected German weekly news
magazine, Die Zeit, reported that Israeli agents were living "next
door to Mohammed Atta," but this, too, was ignored.
Now that we have uncovered a pro-Israeli cabal engaged in espionage
operating at the very highest levels of the U.S. government, does it
all seem so improbable? The whole story is told in my short book, The
Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection, which presciently
concludes as follows:
"This burgeoning scandal underscores why the two-sided Manichean view
promoted by George W. Bush in his 'war on terrorism' is fundamentally
false. 'You're either with us,' he intoned, 'or against us.' But what
about the Israelis? When they were shadowing the hijackers and
learning their secrets, were they with us – or against us?"
Israel's secret war against America – which you could only read about
here, in this space, up until now – is out in the open, exploding
into the headlines. The reason is because it looks like the
Americans, or at least some of them, are beginning to fight back.
The Franklin affair is already being compared to the Pollard spy
case, but a more apt historical analogy is the case of Alger Hiss.
Like Franklin, Hiss was a top U.S. government official who didn't
sell out for money, but because he was a true believer in the cause.
Hiss saw himself, and was seen by his numerous American supporters,
not as a traitor, but as an idealist, the advocate of an ideology
that would, in the end, make for a better America – a Sovietized
America. Franklin and his neocon comrades are no less committed to
their vision of a neoconized America.
At this point we are lacking some essential information, including
the identities of the "two or three" AIPAC employees involved. How
far up in the organization did knowledge of these illegal activities
go? What else have the feds got on AIPAC – after an extensive
investigation, including electronic surveillance, ongoing for over
two years?
We don't know the answers to these questions. But I do know that if
this had been an Islamic or Arab group, they would have been shut
down, their assets impounded, and their headquarters bolted shut.
Will something even approaching that happen to AIPAC?
Of course not. But, if not, why not? Is Israel going to be allowed to
openly operate a spy nest in Washington with impunity? It's an
outrage, and it's time someone said so. Furthermore, those
politicians who have taken money from AIPAC have a lot of 'splaining
to do, especially if they don't return the dough. As Israeli spies in
Washington steal our secrets, and feed us lies, our politicians are
pigging out at the trough of AIPAC campaign contributions, raking in
cash while their patrons take in classified documents.
When the American people find out what is going on, God help the
neocons, because they are going to need it. The arrest and trial of
Israel's fifth column in the Pentagon is going to unleash a lot of
anger, because it is going to make Americans understand the nature
and extent of the treason that entrapped them in Iraq. The very
word "neocon" will become a synonym for treason, like Quisling.
Moreover, the complexity of this war that we found ourselves in, as
the smoke from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon began to
clear, will perhaps begin to dawn on us.
The party line, coming out of Neocon Central, is that Israel has a
right to classified material, since we're such good buddies and all:
friends don't have any secrets from each other, now do they? This is
all just a matter of a faction fight within the administration,
between neocons and "old guard" Republican realists in the State
Department.
That may well be true, but it may also be true that one of the
factions has committed illegal acts – espionage – on behalf of a
foreign power. The "AIPAC kerfluffle," as the Jerusalem Post smugly
refers to it, is surely the result of an internecine struggle within
the Bush administration, but that doesn't rule out the possibility
that one side constitutes an axis of treason.
At any rate, grab some chips and dip, stock up on beer – heck, bring
out the champagne! – put your feet up and get ready for the political
trial of the new millennium, because it's going to be quite an
entertaining and instructive show.
POSTSCRIPT
The New York Times is reporting that the CBS News story may have
derailed efforts by law enforcement to follow the investigative trail
from Franklin all the way "back to the Israelis." The result is
that "several areas of the investigation remain murky."
That's just what the Israelis and their apologists in this country
are hoping for: traitors can only operate under cover of night, and
the murkier the better.
There was a great suspicion, voiced by Pat Buchanan the other night
on MSNBC, and by Laura Rozen on her excellent blog, warandpiece.com,
that this was a case of a "controlled burn," as Laura put it, and she
was right. Friday night is the slowest news night of the week, and
add to this the coverage eaten up by the Republican convention, and
you have a classic tactic of bury-that-story. Add to that the usual
victimological posturing and cries of "anti-Semitism," and the
strategy of the Amen Corner is clear: deny everything, and go on the
offensive. Will it work? I doubt it, but we shall see. Israel's fifth
column in the U.S. government, and especially within the Justice
Department, but the patriotic resistance is growing, both within the
administration and the court of American public opinion. The axis of
treason is fighting for its life, but the usual tactics – fear,
smear, and obfuscation – may not be enough.
–Justin Raimondo
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