Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural Understanding

www.ccun.org

www.aljazeerah.info

Opinion Editorials, December 2013

 

Al-Jazeerah History

Archives 

Mission & Name  

Conflict Terminology  

Editorials

Gaza Holocaust  

Gulf War  

Isdood 

Islam  

News  

News Photos  

Opinion Editorials

US Foreign Policy (Dr. El-Najjar's Articles)  

www.aljazeerah.info

 

 

 


The Mother of All Jokes:
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Pretends to Protest US Spying on Israeli Officials!


December 24, 2013

Editor's Note
By Hassan El-Najjar

Many agreements between the US and Israeli governments have provided the Apartheid state with all security, military, technological, economic, and financial resources it needs to maintain its occupation of Palestine and its hegemony on the entire Middle Eastern region and beyond.

Yesterday, the prime minister of the Israeli occupation government, Benyamin Netanyahu, joined the chorus of puppet world government leaders who pretended to protest the US spying operations!

That was the "Mother of All Jokes," as the US government is the most spied on by Israelis and their Zionist collaborators. A quick search in the internet will give you lists and details about these spies, whether individuals or organizations.

Moreover, just look at the 29 standing ovations Netanyahu got in the US Congress (video below), which exceeded what Obama got during his State-of-the-Union address (25 times). Obama was even shouted on as a liar by a member of the US Congress. This tells you about who is more influential in the U.S., the prime minister of Israel or the president of the United States!

Nobody actually believes Bibi, particularly in this one, as the reports of spying on him (if this ever happened) may be ultimately provided to him, as a result of the security agreements and cooperation!



Members of the AIPAC-controlled US Congress give Netanyahu 29 standing ovations, in May 2011!

***

Israeli Spying: The Mother of all Scandals

Ben-ami Kadish

Jonathan Pollard

Once again, Israel has been caught with spies at the highest levels of the US Government.

At the heart of the investigation are two people who work at The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington. The FBI investigation, headed up by Dave Szady, has involved wiretaps, undercover surveillance and photography that CBS News was told document the passing of classified information from the mole, to the men at AIPAC, and on to the Israelis.

CBS sources say that last year the suspected spy, described as a trusted analyst at the Pentagon, turned over a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran while it was, "in the draft phase when U.S. policy-makers were still debating the policy." This put the Israelis, according to one source, "inside the decision-making loop" so they could "try to influence the outcome." [CBS News]

Once again Israel denies wrongdoing, or faced with incontrovertible evidence (in this case one of the spies has reportedly cooperated with the FBI) dismisses the spying with the claim that such spying is harmless, because Israel and the United States are such good friends.

Well, let us take a closer look at that idea of “harmless espionage” by recalling Israel’s most famous failed spy, Jonathan Pollard.

Jonathan Pollard is an American of Jewish descent, born in Galveston Texas, who established a career as an intelligence analyst for the US Navy. There have been many theories offered as to why Pollard decided to betray his country of birth to the Jewish state, but that Pollard did betray his country of birth to Israel is beyond all doubt. Pollard’s defense was that he did not spy so much against the United States, only that he spied for Israel, sending them documents that in his opinion the US should have shared with Israel anyway.

That it was never Pollards job to decide what documents Israel should have was apparently irrelevant. Pollard arrogated that authority to himself. From his position of trust within the US Navy, Pollard delivered over 1000 classified documents to Israel for which he was well paid. Included in those documents were the names of over 150 US agents in the Mideast, who were eventually “turned” into agents for Israel.

But by far the most egregious damage done by Pollard was to steal classified documents relating to the US Nuclear Deterrent relative to the USSR and send them to Israel. According to sources in the US State Department, Israel then turned around and traded those stolen nuclear secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas from the USSR to Israel. Other information that found its way from the US to Israel to the USSR resulted in the loss of American agents operating inside the USSR. Casper Weinberger, in his affidavit opposing a reduced sentence for Pollard, described the damage done to the United States thus, "[It is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by... Pollard's treasonous behavior."

This should end the suggestion that Israel’s spies are harmless. They are not. The United States’ nuclear deterrent cost an estimated five trillion taxpayer dollars during the 50s and 60s to build and maintain, and less than $100,000 for Pollard to undermine. Israel waited 13 years to admit Pollard had been spying for them, and now lobbies for his release, having granted him Israeli citizenship.

Pollard is hardly the only Israeli spy operating in the United States. He just had the misfortune to get caught.

Here are just a few examples of the Israeli spy operations that have been detected.

1947. Information collected by the ADL in its spy operations on US citizens is used by the House Select Committee on Unamerican Activities. Subcommittee Chair Clare Hoffman dismisses the ADL’s reports on suspected communists as “hearsay."

1950 John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal security section notes that the Israeli intelligence service is the second most active in the United States after the Soviets.

1954 A hidden microphone planted by the Israelis is discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv.

1956 Telephone taps are found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attach� in Tel Aviv.

1954 "The Lavon Affair". Israeli agents recruit Egyptian citizens of Jewish descent to bomb Western targets in Egypt, and plant evidence to frame Arabs, in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon is eventually removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion.

1965 Israel apparently illegally obtains enriched uranium from NUMEC Corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.")

1967 Israel attacks 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 2004, Captain Ward Boston, Senior Legal Counsel for the Navy’s Court of Inquiry into the attack swears under oath that President Lyndon Johnson ordered the investigation to conclude accident, even though the evidence indicates the attack was deliberate. Given the use by Israel of unmarked boats and planes, and the machine-gunning of USS Liberty’s lifeboats, the most likely explanation is that USS Liberty was to be sunk with all hands, with evidence left to frame Egypt for the sinking. This would have dragged the US into the war on Israel’s side.

1970 While working for Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Richard Perle is caught by the FBI giving classified information to Israel. Nothing is done.

1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, is overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. Bryen obtains a lawyer, Nathan Lewin, and the case heads for the grand jury, but is mysteriously dropped. Bryen later goes to work for Richard Perle.

1979 Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tries to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a “Honey Trap”, using a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl.

1985 The New York Times reports the FBI is aware of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, quoting [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal. The Justice Department does not prosecute.

1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO, is indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86).

1987 April 24 Wall Street Journal headline: "Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won't be Explored in Detail by Panels"

1992 The Wall Street Journal reports that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc's top-secret airborne spy-camera system.

1992 Stephen Bryen, caught offering confidential documents to Israel in 1978, is 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.

1992 "The Samson Option," by Seymour M. Hersh reports, “Illicitly 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."

1993. The ADL is caught operating a massive spying operation on critics of Israel, Arab-Americans, the San Francisco Labor Council, ILWU Local 10, Oakland Educational Association, NAACP, Irish Northern Aid, International Indian Treaty Council, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco police. Data collected was sent to Israel and in some cases to South Africa. Pressure from Jewish organizations forces the city to drop the criminal case, but the ADL settles a civil lawsuit for an undisclosed sum of cash.

1995 The Defense Investigative Service circulates a memo 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.

1996 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."

1996 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)

1997 An Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, "inadvertently" gives classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97).

1997 The Washington Post reports US intelligence has 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 Yassir Arafat. One of the Israelis, identified only as “Dov”, had commented that they may get the letter from "Mega”, the code name for Israel’s top agent inside the United States.

1997 US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, complains privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents.

1997 Israeli agents place a tap on Monica Lewinsky’s phone at the Watergate and record phone sex sessions between her and President Bill Clinton. The Ken Starr report confirms that Clinton warned Lewinsky their conversations were being taped and ended the affair. At the same time, the FBI’s hunt for “Mega” is called off.

2001 It is discovered that US drug agents’ communications have been penetrated. Suspicion falls on two companies, AMDOCS and Comverse Infosys, both owned by Israelis. AMDOCS generates billing data for most US phone companies and is able to provide detailed logs of who is talking to whom. Comverse Infosys builds the tapping equipment used by law enforcement to eavesdrop on all American telephone calls, but suspicion forms that Comverse, which gets half of its research and development budget from the Israeli government, has built a back door into the system that is being exploited by Israeli intelligence and that the information gleaned on US drug interdiction efforts is finding its way to drug smugglers. The investigation by the FBI leads to the exposure of the largest foreign spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, operated by Israel. Half of the suspected spies have been arrested when 9-11 happens. On 9-11, 5 Israelis are arrested for dancing and cheering while the World Trade Towers collapse. Supposedly employed by Urban Moving Systems, the Israelis are caught with multiple passports and a lot of cash. Two of them are later revealed to be Mossad. As witness reports track the activity of the Israelis, it emerges that they were seen at Liberty Park at the time of the first impact, suggesting a foreknowledge of what was to come. The Israelis are interrogated, and then eventually sent back to Israel. The owner of the moving company used as a cover by the Mossad agents abandons his business and flees to Israel. The United States Government then classifies all of the evidence related to the Israeli agents and their connections to 9-11. All of this is reported to the public via a four part story on Fox News by Carl Cameron. Pressure from Jewish groups, primarily AIPAC, forces Fox News to remove the story from their website. Two hours prior to the 9-11 attacks, Odigo, an Israeli company with offices just a few blocks from the World Trade Towers, receives an advance warning via the internet. The manager of the New York Office provides the FBI with the IP address of the sender of the message, but the FBI does not follow up.

2001 The FBI is investigating 5 Israeli moving companies as possible fronts for Israeli intelligence.

2001 JDL’s Irv Rubin arrested for planning to bomb a US Congressman. He dies before he can be brought to trial.

2002 The DEA issues a report that Israeli spies, posing as art students, have been trying to penetrate US Government offices.

2002 police near the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in southern Washington State stop a suspicious truck and detain two Israelis, one of whom is illegally in the United States. The two men were driving at high speed in a Ryder rental truck, which they claimed had been used to "deliver furniture." The next day, police discovered traces of TNT and RDX military-grade plastic explosives inside the passenger cabin and on the steering wheel of the vehicle. The FBI then announces that the tests that showed explosives were “false positived” by cigarette smoke, a claim test experts say is ridiculous. Based on an alibi provided by a woman, the case is closed and the Israelis are handed over to INS to be sent back to Israel. One week later, the woman who provided the alibi vanishes.

2003 The Police Chief of Cloudcroft stops a truck speeding through a school zone. The drivers turn out to be Israelis with expired passports. Claiming to be movers, the truck contains junk furniture and several boxes. The Israelis are handed over to immigration. The contents of the boxers are not revealed to the public.

2003 Israel deploys assassination squads into other countries, including the United States. The US Government does not protest.

2004 Police near the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Tennessee stop a truck after a three mile chase, during which the driver throws a bottle containing a strange liquid from the cab. The drivers turn out to be Israelis using fake Ids. The FBI refuses to investigate and the Israelis are released.

2004 Two Israelis try to enter Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, home to eight Trident submarines. The truck tests positive for explosives.

This brings us to the present scandal. Two years into an investigation of AIPAC’s possible role as a spy front for Israel, Larry Franklin, a mid-level Pentagon Analyst is observed by the FBI giving classified information to two officials of AIPAC suspected of being Israeli spies. AIPAC hires lawyer Nathan Lewin to handle their legal defense, the same lawyer who defended suspected Israeli spy Stephen Bryen in 1978.

Larry Franklin worked in the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, run by Richard Perle, at the time Perle (who was caught giving classified information to Israel back in 1970) was insisting that Iraq was crawling with weapons of mass destruction requiring the United States to invade and conquer Iraq. There were no WMDs, of course, and Perle has dumped the blame for the “bad intelligence” on George Tenet. But what is known is that the Pentagon Office of Special Plans was coordinating with a similar group in Israel, in Ariel Sharon’s office.

With two suspected Israeli spies (at least) inside the office from which the lies that launched the war in Iraq originated, it appears that the people of the United States are the victims of a deadly hoax, a hoax that started a war.

The leaking of the investigation of AIPAC to the media on August 28th, 2004 gave advance warning to other spies working with Franklin. The damage to the FBI’s investigation was completed when United States Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the FBI to stop all arrests in the case. Like the Stephen Bryen case and the hunt for “Mega”, this latest spy scandal seems destined to be buried by officials who have their own secret allegiances to protect, barring a massive public outcry.

The organization at the heart of the latest spy investigation, AIPAC, wields tremendous influence over the US Congress. Through its members and affiliated PACs, AIPAC directs a huge flow of campaign cash in favor of, and occasionally against, Senators and Representatives solely on the basis of their willingness to support Israel. As an example, in 2002, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham received so much help from pro-Israeli pacs that 76% of his campaign budget came from OUTSIDE the state of Alabama, mostly from New York.

Let me repeat that. A Congressman AIPAC wanted elected received more money from pro-Israel groups outside his state than from his own constituents inside his state. Who is that Congressman going to be thinking of when he votes in Congress?

So here is the mother of all scandals.

For two years, the FBI has suspected AIPAC of spying for a foreign country, and for those two years (and for decades before) that group suspected of spying for Israel has been reshaping the US Congress for the benefit of a foreign government.

And THAT is the mother of all scandals.

Think about that as billions of your tax dollars flow to Israel while your roads and schools crumble and decay and services are cut.

Think about that as the coffins come home with your loved ones inside.

Think about that when you and a million of your fellow citizens march down the streets of America opposing wars built on lies and deceptions and wonder why the government just doesn’t want to listen to you any more.

See also: Is Israel Blackmailing America?

Source:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/motherofallscandals.php

================================================

Israeli PM says U.S. spying "unacceptable"

JERUSALEM, Dec. 23, 2013 (Xinhua) --

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that it is "unacceptable" that United States ' intelligence agency is spying on Israeli officials, local media reported.

In a weekly meeting of Knesset (parliament) members of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, the Prime Minister said he had asked to call forth an inquiry into the details of the supposed eavesdropping.

"In the close relationship between Israel and the U.S. there are things that must not be done and that are unacceptable for us, " the Ynet news website cited Netanyahu as saying.

Netanyahu also mentioned in that aspect Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. -Israeli spy who has been incarcerated for spying against the U.S. on Israel's behalf and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for espionage, a sensitive topic in the alliance between Israel and the U.S. and the conduct of espionage between the allies.

"He should have been released a long time ago," Netanyahu said. "This is understood to everyone here and I believe it is understood to growing audience in the U.S. as well," the prime minister added.

Documents were leaked over the weekend by the former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden and published in Der Spiegel and the New York Times.

These documents showed that the NSA, along with British Intelligence, intercepted emails and phone calls of Netanyahu, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Israeli ministers demand U.S. to end spying

JERUSALEM, Dec. 22, 2013 (Xinhua) --

Israeli ministers are demanding on Sunday the U.S. to end espionage in light of the revelation that the National Security Agency has spied on Israel's top leaders.

"Now the secret is out," said Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz in a statement, "The U.S. is systematically spying on the defense and diplomatic leadership here in Israel. Is this how friends treat each other?"

Katz said he would urge the cabinet's Sunday meeting "to demand an American commitment to end the surveillance."

The Minister of International and Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio that the eavesdropping is "illegitimate. " "Israel doesn't conduct surveillance on the U.S. President, the White House or the Secretary of Defense," Steinitz said.

He added that the U.S. and Israel "unprecedented" strategic alliance, "in a level sufficient to prevent eavesdropping or mutual espionage."

They also called for the release of Jonathan Pollard, an American citizen who was sentenced to life for passing classified information to Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at the cabinet meeting that the government has raised the issue in private talks with the U.S. administration over the weekend, adding that he "hoped that the circumstances would be created that will enable returning Jonathan home."

The release of Pollard, who began serving his sentence in the U. S. in 1985, is a persistent Israeli demand from the U.S.

Documents leaked over the weekend by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed that the NSA cooperated with the British intelligence agency to intercept emails and phone calls of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Editor: Zhu Ningzhu

Israel slams reports of U.S. spying on prime minister

By Steve Almasy,

Sun December 22, 2013

(CNN) --

Israel reacted angrily Sunday to recent reports that British and U.S. intelligence officials spied on top Israeli officials' e-mails.

"The tracking after prime ministers and defense ministers is not legitimate and not acceptable to us," the spokesman of Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said, according to a CNN translation. "There is an intelligence alliance between (the United States and Israel) at an unprecedented level, and we are sharing the most sensitive (intelligence) material."

On Friday, The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel newspapers reported that the communications of more than 1,000 organizations and individuals were monitored from a facility in southwest England.

Der Spiegel, a German publication, wrote: "At least four Israeli targets are named in the lists, including an email address named as the 'Israeli prime minister.' "

The document, among those provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, is from early 2009.

A spokeswoman for the NSA said Friday the United States collects foreign intelligence just as many other nations do.

"The intelligence community's efforts to understand economic systems and policies, and monitor anomalous economic activities, are critical to providing policymakers with the information they need to make informed decisions that are in the best interest of our national security," Vanee Vines said.

None of the newspapers published any of the documents they were shown, and the volume of information collected on any particular individual or organization is unclear.

On Friday afternoon, the U.S. State Department's spokeswoman said Secretary of State John Kerry has been communicating with U.S. allies.

"The secretary has been a part of engaging on this process, whether it's discussing with foreign countries their concerns, attempting -- working to alleviate those," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "Our goal remains to continue to strengthen our intel gathering processes and relationships. But I'm not going to speak to different reports or allegations."

President Barack Obama vowed this month to find ways of reforming the NSA, though he also defended the agency's work.

Obama is going through 40 recommendations made last week by the independent presidential Review Group on Intelligence. He will make a "definitive statement" on surveillance programs in January after he returns from a Hawaiian vacation.

Israel has said it would never spy on the U.S. in the wake of the conviction of a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who was caught spying for Israel in 1985.

Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in 1987 after he was convicted of one count of espionage, and since then many Israeli leaders have appealed to U.S. presidents for his release.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the newest revelations have no bearing on the case.

"We do not need any special event in order to discuss the release of Jonathan Pollard. We are dealing with it. I am dealing with it, with all U.S. presidents, including President Obama, all the time, including now," he said Sunday at the weekly Cabinet meeting. "We hope that the conditions will be created that will enable us to bring Jonathan home. This is neither conditional on, nor related to, recent events, even though we have given our opinion on these developments."

Pollard has dual citizenship.

CNN's Tim Lister and Michael Schwartz contributed to this report.




Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

 

 

 

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org