Report: Israel behind '08 assassination of Assad confidante, US monitors Israeli military communications
This guy is so secretive, I have not found his picture online.
Seven years ago next week, I reported on the apparent assassination of Mohammed Suleiman, a close confidante of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the port city of Tartus (which used to have a Russian Naval installation before Bashar was on the run). There were rumors all along that Israel had carried out the assassination.
Now, in a piece of convenient timing, it's being reported once again that Israel did it. But this time, the report is based on documents provided by Edward Snowden and confirmed by US intelligence (which by the way spies on Israeli military communications - imagine the scandal if that report were the other way around Mr. Obama) (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
While Israel has never spoken about its involvement, secret U.S.
intelligence files confirm that Israeli special operations forces
assassinated the general while he vacationed at his luxury villa on the
Syrian coast.
The internal National Security Agency document, provided by former
NSA contractor Edward Snowden, is the first official confirmation that
the assassination of Suleiman was an Israeli military operation, and
ends speculation that an internal dispute within the Syrian government
led to his death.
A top-secret entry in the NSA’s internal version of Wikipedia, called
Intellipedia, described the assassination by “Israeli naval commandos”
near the port town of Tartus as the “first known instance of Israel
targeting a legitimate government official.” The details of the
assassination were included in a “Manhunting Timeline” within the NSA’s
intelligence repository.
According to three former U.S. intelligence officers with extensive
experience in the Middle East, the document’s classification markings
indicate that the NSA learned of the assassination through surveillance.
The officials asked that they not be identified, because they were
discussing classified information.
The information in the document is labeled “SI,” which means
that the intelligence was collected by monitoring communications
signals. “We’ve had access to Israeli military communications for some
time,” said one of the former U.S. intelligence officers.
The former officer said knowledge within the NSA about
surveillance of Israeli military units is especially sensitive because
the NSA has Israeli intelligence officers working jointly with its
officers at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Read the whole thing. My guess is that (a) this is true, (b) the timing was designed to throw the first of what will be many monkey wrenches in Israel's efforts to convince Congress to vote down the Iran deal, and (c) the part of the article (which I did not quote here) about Israel violating international law is meant to serve as a warning to Netanyahu not to get out of line in his efforts to defeat the Iran deal.
By the way, Netanyahu was not Prime Minister in 2008. Ehud K. Olmert was. Hmmm.
It's been a wild day at work and I'm going back to work momentarily....
You will recall that last weekend, I reported on the letter written by 43 (hopefully former) members of Unit 8200 in which they decried their unit's 'harming innocent Palestinians.'
Wednesday's New York Times has an op-ed from James Bamford, who spent a considerable amount of time this summer interviewing Edward Snowden for Wired Magazine. Bamford claims that Snowden told him that information about 'Palestinian Americans' was routinely shared with the IDF's Unit 8200.
Among
his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the N.S.A.
was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a
large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit
8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the
communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.
Typically,
when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it
would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally
identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel,
the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this
way.
Mr.
Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained
the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab-
and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian
territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think
that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve
seen.”
Bamford goes on to tie Snowden's 'revelations' into the 8200 scandal.
It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses.
In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used
information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political
persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media,
they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual
orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions
and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into
becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.
The
veterans of Unit 8200 declared that they had a “moral duty” to no
longer “take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians.” An
Israeli military spokesman disputed the letter’s overall drift but said
the charges would be examined.
The data was transferred pursuant to an agreement between the NSA and the government of Israel.
I'm not in favor of - and I don't believe that the information was used - just to harass people. On the other hand, if it's used to fight terrorism, I don't really have a problem with allies sharing information that way. Obviously, it's not admissible in court. But it can be used to stop terror attacks before they happen.
When you don't share information, the result is that people like the Tsarnaev brothers, about whom the governments of Russia and Saudi Arabia both claimed to have 'warned' the United States, but about whom no one had any solid evidence until after the Boston Marathon terror attack.
Glenn Greenwald tells Israel's Channel 10 that Snowden has lots more secrets about Israel - US relations
Israel's Channel 10 television interviewed Glenn Greenwald on Monday night regarding Edward Snowden, the NSA whistle blower who is currently in Russia. Among other things, Greenwald said that Snowden has many secrets about Israel's relations with the US that have not yet been disclosed.
The ridiculousness of gag orders in the age of the internet
This might be the only country in the world that still thinks that they can block the publication of names of celebrities who have been accuses of crimes. And they can. At least from the public airwaves in Israel.
A famous Israeli singer (and draft dodger) is being investigated for taking advantage of underage girls. If you use Google, read blogs or Facebook (where I saw two identical pictures of him in the same place - one with his face scrambled), read anything from the Jewish community overseas, or watch Israel's Channel 1, you already know who this is.
But if you missed it, Channel 1 told the world last week. Let's go to the videotape.
Figured it out yet?
There's a blog in the US that has published that picture without the blurriness. You can search for it on Google. But if, like me, you're an Israeli, you're stuck publishing banal stories like this one from the Jerusalem Post.
Almost
a week after a scandal involving a famous Israeli singer and
allegations of sex with underage girls broke, the singer, his father,
and two other men were brought in for questioning on Wednesday, Tel
Aviv police said.
In addition to the singer, those being investigated include the manager of a well-known radio station and a Tel Aviv promoter.
The case,
which broke last week and has dominated the media since, involves one of
Israel’s most famous singers and a complaint made by one 15-year-old girl that
she had sexual relations with him on more than one occasion.
The media has been rife with reports that
people close to the singer “scouted” girls at his concerts and invited them to
the parties, a report that police would not confirm on Sunday.
That
allegation has been followed by testimony from other girls believed to be linked
to the case, which was first opened months earlier.
In the meantime, the Israeli blogger who broke the story has been 'called in for questioning'....
Figured it out yet? Here's another hint.
The singer, for his part, said during a concert in Tel Aviv on
Thursday night that “I had a difficult day, I could have canceled, but music
conquers all.”
Hmmm.
Don't get me wrong - there is still a place for gag orders in society. For example, earlier this week it was disclosed that Israel has been holding an al-Qaeda specialist in biological weapons for the last three years. The news broke when the terrorist appealed to the Supreme Court to be released because he has not yet been placed on trial. The Supreme Court refused to free him.
But a gag order is only in place when Israel's security is involved. When what's at stake is the (already sullied) reputation of a teen idol, the gag order is out of place. Better that the girls should be warned about him. The age of Big Brother 'protecting' us should have ended a long time ago.
UPDATE 3:55 PM
Eyal Golan's name has now been cleared for publication.
Report: NSA shares unredacted information about US citizens... with Israel
Take this with a grain of salt, because given that the US extensively spies on Israel, it doesn't really make sense that they would be sharing unredacted intelligence information about US citizens with the Israeli government. But this report in al-Guardian under Glenn Greenwald's byline claims that the United States does in fact share unredacted personal information about US citizens with the government of Israel.
The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA
and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over
intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of
American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the
use of the data by the Israelis.
The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy
of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls
this process "minimization", but the memorandum makes clear that the
information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized
state.
The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum, which lays out the ground rules for the intelligence sharing.
I wonder how Obama can find a way to blame Bush for that one.
According to the agreement, the intelligence being shared would not be filtered in advance by NSA
analysts to remove US communications. "NSA routinely sends ISNU [the
Israeli Sigint National Unit] minimized and unminimized raw collection",
it says.
Although the memorandum is explicit in saying the
material had to be handled in accordance with US law, and that the
Israelis agreed not to deliberately target Americans identified in the
data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations.
"This
agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and
shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a
legally binding instrument according to international law," the document
says.
In a statement to the Guardian, an NSA
spokesperson did not deny that personal data about Americans was
included in raw intelligence data shared with the Israelis. But the
agency insisted that the shared intelligence complied with all rules
governing privacy.
"Any US person information that is acquired as a result of NSA's surveillance activities is handled under procedures that are designed to protect privacy rights," the spokesperson said.
The NSA
declined to answer specific questions about the agreement, including
whether permission had been sought from the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance (Fisa) court for handing over such material.
And how did the NSA get this information?
The NSA is required by law to target only non-US persons without an individual warrant, but it can collect the content and metadata
of Americans' emails and calls without a warrant when such
communication is with a foreign target. US persons are defined in
surveillance legislation as US citizens, permanent residents and anyone
located on US soil at the time of the interception, unless it has been
positively established that they are not a citizen or permanent
resident.
Moreover, with much of the world's internet traffic
passing through US networks, large numbers of purely domestic
communications also get scooped up incidentally by the agency's
surveillance programs.
The document mentions only one check carried out by the NSA
on the raw intelligence, saying the agency will "regularly review a
sample of files transferred to ISNU to validate the absence of US
persons' identities". It also requests that the Israelis limit access
only to personnel with a "strict need to know".
I don't know what data is being provided, but my guess is that what interests the Israeli government is information regarding US citizens who come here to assist 'Palestinian' terrorism - like International Solidarity Movement members. I'm fine with that.
But the Israeli government may also be interested in the activities of US citizens who live in Israel while they are in the United States. While I understand that might be necessary for people with security clearances, let's just say that it doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy.
National Security Council chief v. Israeli diplomatic corps
National Security Council chief Yaacov Amidror snapped at Israeli diplomats over the timing of the announcement to build at E-1 during a briefing on Monday, and the Israeli diplomats snapped back.
Amidror then began to answer, stopped, and chastised the envoys.
"I
don't think that in the British Foreign Office they would clap at a
question that hinted at criticism of the government's policy," he said.
"You would not have a situation where there would be applause in the
State Department at a question that hinted at criticism of President
Obama's policies."
This exchange led Ran Curiel, a ministry
deputy director general, to clarify that the applause was not against
the government's policies, but rather because the question was one that
was on the mind of many in the room. "It is possible this reflected a
degree of frustration because we want to explain the government's
policies, but are not always given the tools to do so," he said.
To
this Amidror replied, "Gentlemen, don't get confused. You are
representatives of the government. If this does not suit you, either go
into politics or resign. I am a government functionary; the chief of
general staff is a government functionary. Our job is to give advice and
at the end the leaders make the decisions. If you think there is a
problem with the policy, you can express that in closed forums."
One
diplomatic official explained afterward that many of the envoys feel
they were not properly briefed on the reason for the E1 decision, the
timing of it, and what the objectives were of the government's
settlement policy
The government's decision to respond to the
Palestinian Authority's move at the UN by announcing plans for new
building and planning in the settlements was taken against the foreign
ministry's advice, which was that such a move would be counterproductive
since it would deflect the world's attention away from the Palestinian
abrogation of the Oslo accord, and onto the settlement issue.
The
Prime Minister's Office had no response to the Amidror incident. Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address the envoys on
Thursday.
Although this article makes an attempt to make it appear that this was not a factor in this case, I have mentioned many times that the Foreign Ministry rank and file is crawling with Leftists. It's going to take a long time to get the rot out of the foreign ministry....
MK Nitzan Horowitz
(Meretz), Meretz Knesset candidate Michal Rosin and Meretz leader Zehava
Gal-On gathered under a staircase in Meretz MK Ilan Gilon's home
Monday, after a siren went off during an anti-war forum hosted by the
party and attended by residents of the south.
Gal-On said that
true security can only come as a result of a negotiated agreement, and a
land incursion can "trap Israel in the Gazan mud and bring a high price
in human lives."
Really? Do we have 'true security' with the Islamist regime in Egypt thirty years after Camp David? Do we have 'true security' with Jordan 18 years after we signed a treaty with them, and will we still have it if the Muslim Brotherhood replaces the house of Hussein? Do we have 'true security' with the 'Palestinian Authority' 19 years after Yitzchak Rabin stood on the White House lawn with Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton?
No. We have security with none of them. All of them would like to wipe us out, and would do so in a New York minute if they are ever - God forbid - given the opportunity.
Does France have security from Germany today? Does England? Does Belgium?
Does South Korea have security from Japan today? Does Russia? Does the Phillipines?
What's the difference? The difference that World War II was fought until there was a winner and a loser. The winners have security. The losers surrendered.
We will have security - and therefore peace - when we trust in God enough to fight the Arab terrorists to the finish. When they see they cannot defeat us, we will have both peace and security. When we come cowering for peace because we are tired of fighting, we will have neither peace nor security.
True security as a result of a negotiated agreement? Name me one time in history that it's happened.
LATMA's tribal update with the latest on the 'Palestinians'
Here's this week's LATMA tribal update with lots about the 'Palestinians' (not including Operation Pillar of Defense, which came too late), and the song you saw before about learning the language of the Arabs.
Outrageous: Once again, the branja protect their own
The only institution in Israel that might be more unfairly Left than its Supreme Court is its prosecutors' office, whose 'stars' end up Supreme Court justices (yes, there is definitely a symbiotic relationship there, but we can discuss that another time).
Please recall Uri Blau, the Haaretz reporter who was indicted for receiving, holding onto and using classified IDF documents from self-proclaimed crusader Anat Kam. Recall also (from the first link in this paragraph) that one of the reasons that Blau was indicted was because he violated a deal he made with the State's attorneys to return all the documents in his possession.
In light of all that, you may be surprised to learn that Blau will soon be back in the field writing anti-Israel drivel for Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily. You see, the uber-Leftist prosecutors' office has reached a deal with the uber-Leftist reporter for Israel's uber-Leftist newspaper, pursuant to which Blau will be sentenced to four months in jail... all of which will be converted into community service.
The deal was sealed between Haaretz attorneys Mibi Muzar and Jacque Chen, who represented Blau, and Ariella Segal Antaler and Hadas Forer Gafni of the District Attorney's Office.
At the same time it filed the plea bargain, the District Attorney's office submitted its indictment against Blau, in which it accused him of illegally possessing approximately 1800 "top secret" and "secret" IDF documents.
Many journalists, including the Jerusalem Journalists Association, had loudly protested Blau’s arrest, even demonstrating outside the Justice Ministry in the capital over Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein’s decision to indict Blau.
Weinstein had announced that he would charge Blau with possession of classified military documents, which he received from former OC Central Command secretary Anat Kamm. The decision followed a 2008 story in which Blau, using leaked documents, revealed that the military planned in advance to kill Palestinian leaders and fighters, but then passed their deaths off as mishaps during “failed” attempts to arrest them.
Before the plea bargain, Blau was expected to be charged with aggravated espionage, which stipulates that obtaining, collecting, preparing, recording or keeping secret information without authorization, but without intent to harm state security, is punishable by seven years in prison.
Earlier, the attorney-general explained that before deciding to indict the reporter, he had taken into account “all the relevant considerations,” including the need to preserve the character of a free press and allow the media to carry out its essential role in ensuring the public’s right to know.
The next step is that Kam - who is appealing her 4.5 year sentence - will have that sentence commuted to time served since, after all, it now appears outrageous compared to Blau's joke of a sentence.
You can bet that those Neturei Karta guys who scribbled outrageous and offensive graffiti on Yad vaShem and several other sites will get stiffer sentences than four and a half months, and maybe even stiffer than four and a half years. After all, who is really endangering our national security? (And no, I'm not saying they should get off scot-free - only pointing out the likely imbalance in the sentences).
Recall the following from a post on Friday discussing the lack of a role for the National Security Council in planning the Mavi Marmara raid:
This morning, there was a commentary on Israel Radio that explained that more than anyone else in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu aims to please Defense Minister Ehud Barak, even though Barak seemingly has no political base and may not even be a part of the next Knesset. The example they cited was Netanyahu's killing a bill to increase the power of the National Security Council, which had been promoted by National Security Adviser Uzi Arad, who has been a Netanyahu confidant for many years. The bill was killed because Barak didn't like it - he didn't want to take away more power from his ministry or from the IDF. The context was that as a result of the bill being killed, the National Security Council played no significant role in planning what became the Mavi Marmara fiasco.
In light of that paragraph, you should not be too surprised to see Uzi Arad blasting Netanyahu over the Mavi Marmara. Or should you be surprised? After all, Arad was Netanyahu's closest confidant....
Arad, who was forced to resign as national security adviser in March 2011 because he inadvertently leaked classified information to a journalist, has reiterated on several occasions his claim that Netanyahu has failed to empower the NSC.
On Friday, Arad described Netanyahu as having a careless attitude in the lead up to the May 2010 flotilla. "I would come to him claiming something had to be done in a certain way, and he would answer me: 'Uzi, what is your obsession with process.'"
Arad claimed that he had been pushing for a cabinet meeting to discuss the issue for three months prior to the flotilla, but was denied. He criticized Netanyahu's former military secretary Yochanan Locker for contributing to the problem.
"All of a sudden, four days before the flotilla, the military secretary organized some kind of meeting. With no preparation, with no reference material, without looking at the full scope of the problem and without the right ministers present. In other words, what happened was exponentially sloppy work," Arad charged.
Arad said that when he pressed Netanyahu to prepare, the prime minister would tell him to focus on "substance," rather than "process."
"And I would tell him that process determines the outcome of the substance," Arad said.
There is a law that is supposed to give the National Security Council a role - Netanyahu has never implemented it. And Netanyahu has never implemented that law because he worships Ehud Barak, his former commanding officer in Sayeret Matkal. Uzi Arad blasting Netanyahu just shows how far off its path this government has gone.
Blau will be charged under the Penal Code with aggravated espionage, which stipulates that if a person obtained, collected, prepared, recorded or kept secret information without authorization, but without intent to harm state security, he will face a maximum seven years in prison.
Significantly, Blau will not be charged with intending to harm state security, which attracts a maximum 15 year prison term.
The district attorney also emphasized that while the offense with which Blau will be charged under the Penal Code is "aggravated espionage", the indictment will not attribute to Blau the offense of "espionage" as it is usually understood.
Some two months ago, the Tel Aviv District Prosecutor's Office said it was withdrawing its agreement with the journalist. It claimed that Blau had falsely made it appear as though he returned all of the classified documents that had been in his possession. Blau had previously handed over some 50 documents he had received from Anat Kam to the Shin Bet.
The prosecution further stated that the State had provided Blau with the necessary sum needed for a new computer after it had destroyed his PC. "Blau had blatantly broken the agreement signed with him, allegedly lied to investigators and handed over only a small part of the stolen military information he had obtained.
Blau, a journalist with Haaretz, returned to Israel after a long period abroad following an agreement with the State Prosecutor's Office. He said he had turned over all of the documents he received from Kam to the State and had pledged to forward any secret document he had otherwise obtained over the years.
According to the agreement, the authorities would shred the documents without checking the source. Blau also committed to being investigated by the Shin Bet and police and declared he was no longer in possession of any of the documents. As part of the agreement the journalist also pledged to undergo a lie detector test.
I don't know why the government agreed to a ridiculous deal where they would shred all the documents without checking their source. Maybe that's why they are charging Blau with a lot less than he deserves.
Anat Kam, who stole between 700 and 2,000 confidential documents from the IDF, and turned them over to Haaretz reporter Uri Blau, was sentenced to 4.5 years in jail on Sunday morning, plus an additional year and a half of probation. The nearly two years she has spent under house arrest will not count toward her sentence. That's still less than the 15 years the prosecution had demanded.
Kam had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors (pursuant to which she could not receive a life sentence for intentionally endangering state security), but her attorneys could not agree on a sentence with prosecutors. She was also the target of some scathing criticism from the judges.
According to Tel Aviv District Court judges, "If the IDF would not be able to fully trust its soldiers, it would not be able to function as an army."
The court continued in its criticism of Kam, saying, "The passing on of the documents while violating basic duties constitutes a violation of the most severe criminal norms. An IDF soldier is expected to carry out his duty out of a sense of loyalty to the country. Kam disgracefully exploited this trust."
What Kam stole had serious military value.
The documents stolen by Kam contained plans of military operations, summaries of discussions within the IDF, deployment and order of battle (ORBAT) of IDF forces, summaries of internal IDF inquiries, IDF situation estimates, IDF targets and more.
But Israel Radio reports that many Israelis consider the sentence too light, and are complaining that there is one rule for Tel Aviv and another for others.
In March, the Justice Ministry reported that it intends to put Uri Blau, who has since returned to Israel after hiding out in London, on trial for charges arising from the Kam affair (link in Hebrew). Israel Radio reports that a hearing was held to allow Blau to be heard before a decision to try him is finally made, and a decision from the State's Attorney has yet to be received.
Claiming that he violated the terms of his plea bargain, the Israeli government is considering reopening its case against Uri Blau, the Haaretz reporter to whom Anat Kam passed some 2,000 confidential IDF documents.
Blau was abroad when the Kamm case broke last year, and returned only after brokering a deal through lawyers that would give him immunity from prosecution as long as he handed over classified documents in his possession.
The Justice Ministry is now considering charging Blau for holding unauthorized information, Ynet and Haaretz reported Wednesday.
Israeli authorities are now accusing Blau of violating his agreement, although it was not clear how, Ynet reported.
Haaretz said in a statement that it "regretted" the decision.
"We are confident the hearing will make it even clearer that throughout this affair, Uri Blau was doing nothing but his work as a journalist, and was acting according to the accepted norms in covering the defense establishment," the newspaper said.
Blau was 'acting according to the accepted norms in covering the defense establishment'? Really?
Security sources say the documents contain top-secret information concerning General Staff orders, personnel numbers in the Central Command, intelligence information, information on IDF doctrine and data on sensitive military exercises, weaponry and military platforms. The files also allegedly contain details on what the Central Command does in the event of a major escalation – how it deploys forces to the West Bank and where it stations them there.
Far less comprehensible than Kamm’s alleged ideologically motivated decision to steal so many documents is Blau’s refusal to hand them back. He’s had the documents since at least October 2008, when he began publishing reports based on them.
Damage control is possible only after the Shin Bet verifies precisely which classified documents were taken by Kamm and who received them. The public interest in such damage control, given the sensitivity of the material, should be obvious to Blau and to Haaretz. This is a matter of life-and-death national security.
...
Regrettably, however, the unwillingness of Blau and his newspaper to meet the Shin Bet’s demand to return stolen documents whose content would aid our enemies and render our people more vulnerable raises grave questions about the paper’s priorities.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
