Israel Matzav

FBI and CIA 'paranoid' about the Mossad

When I reported the arrest of Stewart Nozette earlier this week, I questioned why Israel was involved at all. After all, the FBI knew that Nozette had visited 'Country A' (which was explicitly not Israel) in January and had left a couple of thumb drives behind. I asked why that country was not used in the sting instead of Israel.

I wasn't the only one asking that question. In Wednesday's JPost, there's an interview with Steve Rosen, one of two former AIPAC officials who was charged with passing secrets to Israel illegally. Those charges were dismissed earlier this year. Rosen says that the reason why Israel was dragged into the Nozette case was - shocka - the FBI and CIA are 'paranoid' about the Mossad.

"One of the things that our case revealed is the very extreme views that are held by some in counterintelligence agencies of the CIA and FBI about Israel," Rosen said. "They believe that the Mossad spied on the US on a huge scale and they believe that the Pollard case was the tip of some sort of iceberg.

"When you keep repeating that the Mossad is spying on America, Israel is harming the United States, of course it harms the alliance between Israel and the US," he continued. "The current case is even more peculiar because the government of Israel did nothing.

"It's revealing that they used Israel for the sting," Rosen added. "They could have used China, or others. But they chose Israel."

Describing an "obsession" with Israel within certain parts of the CIA and FBI, Rosen said if his own case had gone to trial, details reflecting the extreme views of his investigators would have come out. "There was no wrongdoing," he said, reflecting on the case against him and Weissman.

"But we go through this all the time. There is a faction in the counterintelligence bureaucracies that is fomenting these tales," he said. "They are methodically trying to create the impression that Mossad is under every bed."

It's not just the FBI and the CIA unless they're commenting on my blog. If you go back to that post from earlier this week, you'll see that I let a couple of the paranoid comments through (there were worse comments that I deleted).

Is it just paranoia? I think not. There's also an element of anti-Semitism involved. Every post I do that mentions Pollard or spying draws them out of the woodwork and I get some pretty nasty comments that sound like something straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

But by charging Nozette in a sting operation that used Israel, the FBI perpetuated the stereotype this week.

It's not paranoia when they're really after you, but perhaps the paranoia should be running in the other direction. They're really after us.

The picture at the top is Larry Franklin, the Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty in the AIPAC case. By the way, he's not Jewish.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:02 AM