Opinion Editorials, July 2012

Mitt Romney has a Relationship With Netanyahu, Who Is Known for Recruiting American Spies

By Eileen Fleming

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, July 31, 2012

 Message to Mitt: Courtesy of CIA, FBI, Bibi's nephew and a Candidate for US HOUSE

U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be a genuine counterintelligence threat.

"The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency's Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.

"Israel employs highly sophisticated, professional spy services that rival American agencies in technical capability and recruiting human sources. Unlike Iran or Syria, for example, Israel as a steadfast U.S. ally enjoys access to the highest levels of the U.S. government in military and intelligence circles." [1]

Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s relationship began in the 1970s at the Boston Consulting Group where they worked as advisers before Romney left to found his own private-equity firm.

Regarding Israel's Military Occupation of Palestine, Jonathan Ben Artzi, a nephew of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who spent eighteen months in jail for refusing to serve in the IDF said: "Sometimes it takes a good friend to tell you when enough is enough. As they did with South Africa two decades ago, concerned citizens across the US can make a difference by encouraging Washington to get the message to Israel that this cannot continue. If Americans truly are our friends, they should shake us up and take away the keys, because right now we are driving drunk, and without this wake-up call, we will soon find ourselves in the ditch of an undemocratic, doomed state."

From a July 28th News-Press Release:

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Linked to Nuclear Technology Smuggling Ring

"The FBI partially declassified and released files linking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuto a nuclear technology smuggling ring that targeted the United States."

The FBI’s secret interview report with indicted American smuggler Richard Kelly Smyth in 2002, details that during his trips to Israel Smyth's handler connected him with Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Smyth and [Netanyahu] would meet in restaurants in Tel Avivand in [Netanyahu's] home and/or business. It was not uncommon for [Netanyahu] to ask Smyth for unclassified material."

Released on the Internet on July 4, 2012, the files have been reported on by the Israeli press; but although the FBI report has also been sent to the New York Times, Washington Post, all members of Congress and United Nations members, no top-tier establishment news coverage, Congressional or UN investigations have been made public.

However, the public can read those declassified files courtesy of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy @ http://www.IRmep.org/ila/krytons/06272012_milco_mdr.pdf

Under the "Five Eyes" umbrella, the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand agreed to share intelligence and not to spy on one another.

Israel is part of a second-tier relationship known as "Friends on Friends” which plays on the phrase "Friends don't spy on friends."

Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, and its FBI equivalent, the Shin Bet, have been suspected of recruiting U.S. officials and trying to steal American secrets.

In 1987, when Jonathan Pollard, was convicted of spying for Israel the Friends on Friends agreement was in effect. In January 2011, Netanyahu asked Obama to free Pollard and acknowledged that Israel's actions in the case were "wrong and wholly unacceptable." "Ronald Olive, a former senior supervisor with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who investigated Pollard, said that after the arrest, the U.S. formed a task force to determine what government records Pollard had taken. Olive said Israel turned over so few that it represented 'a speck in the sand.'" [Ibid]

Since Pollard's arrest, Israel has received over $60 billion of Americans tax dollars, and the government has also supplied Israel with Patriot missiles, helped pay for an anti-missile defense program and provided sensitive radar equipment to track Iranian missile threats.

Last week, Obama announced he was releasing an additional $70 million in military aid and again spoke of America's "unshakable commitment to Israel."

During President George W. Bush’s administration the Syrian scientist who 'disappeared' was the CIA's only spy inside Syria's military program in the development of chemical and biological weapons.

"The scientist was providing the agency with extraordinary information about pathogens used in the program, former U.S. officials said about the previously unknown intelligence operation. At the time, there was pressure to share information about weapons of mass destruction, and the CIA provided its intelligence to Israel. A former official with direct knowledge of the case said details about Syria's program were published in the media. Although the CIA never formally concluded that Israel was responsible, CIA officials complained to Israel about their belief that Israelis were leaking the information to pressure Syria to abandon the program. The Syrians pieced together who had access to the sensitive information and eventually identified the scientist as a traitor. Before he disappeared and was presumed killed, the scientist told his CIA handler that Syrian Military Intelligence was focusing on him." [Ibid]

Two former U.S. officials also told the Associated Press, that a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged and that the U.S. government believes Israel's security services were responsible.

That reminded me of my probable visit from Israel's SECURITY establishment during one of my seven trips to Israel Palestine since 2005. It happened shortly after Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu's historic freedom of speech trial concluded on 3 July 2007 with a six-month jail sentence.

When the sentence came down, Vanunu quipped, "Maybe I need to turn to the Queen or to Tony Blair in order to grant me justice."

I laughed when I read that, for my very first question to Vanunu when we taped the "30 Minutes with Vanunu" video was regarding how Israel maintains the British Mandate rules but ignores the Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights upon which their very statehood was contingent upon upholding.

But, I wasn’t laughing on 16 July 2007, when I chanced by Vanunu on Nablus Road but failed to recognize him, until I passed by and heard his voice call out, "Hi, remember me?"

Vanunu was not interested in talking to me as media, but we met for a few hours as friends and the very next day, I had a visit from 'housekeeping' that smelled like SECURITY to me. Every item of my clothing that I had tossed around my room and flung into drawers and closets had been expertly folded as if they had just come from the dry cleaners. My laptop, which I had left with the top down, but not logged off, was logged off and the top was up. I knew in my gut that someone wanted me to know they were watching me so closely as to manhandle all my personal belongings -and so I wrote all about it and more in my third book: BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker:2005-2010 .

I am now writing my fourth- "Vanunu Waits for LIBERTY and My Life as a Candidate of Conscience for US House."

I am Eileen Fleming for US HOUSE and I approve of all of my messages.

1. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/former-u-s-officials-say-cia-considers-israel-to-be-mideast-s-biggest-spy-threat-1.454189

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