The KGB's man in Ramallah
Israel's Channel 1 (government-owned television) disclosed on Wednesday night that '
moderate' '
Palestinian' President
Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen is a
longtime KGB spy. He was recruited while doing a PhD in Holocaust Denial in Moscow in the early 1980's.
Here are some of the details that make this story so compelling: The
Channel 1 report is based on a new study by two research fellows at
Hebrew University’s Truman Institute, Isabela Ginor and Gideon Remez.
(Ginor, a Russian native, and Remez, a veteran Israeli journalist, are
married.)
They obtained documents from a collection kept by former KGB chief
archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, who defected to the West in 1992 and lived
in London. Mitrokhin kept mementos from his spook days, and part of his
collection was recently opened up, allowing researchers to study it.
That’s where the Israeli couple found files that mentioned Abbas, code-name “Krotov” (“mole”).
“They could have called him ‘friend,’ or ‘our man,’ or whatever, but
in the documents he’s referred to as an agent,” Remez says.
Specifically, Abbas was described in a 1983 document as a KGB agent in
Damascus. (It isn’t clear if the spy agency used Abbas’ services after
that date.)
Moscow is where Abbas wrote his infamous Ph.D. thesis that included
some choice Holocaust denial. But the researchers say these new
revelations don’t change the facts on the ground. Abbas can’t be ignored
just because we now know his anti-Western bona fides were more robust
than previously thought.
But Remez conditions that with a warning.
“Look, Abbas now heads the Palestinian Authority, and as such he’s
the man to talk to,” Remez told me. Yet, he added, “the Americans should
know that the Kremlin may well still have stuff on him, and Washington
must take that into account.”
Especially now, as President Vladimir Putin is trying to arrange an
Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in Moscow, perhaps in the next few
weeks.
If successful, even as a photo-op, such a powwow could help Putin add
yet another Mideast corner to his collection of spots once dominated —
or at least mostly influenced — by America.
But Israel cannot be complacent either.
Remez told me he doesn’t know whether Putin, the ex-KGB man, knew of
the recruitment of the future Palestinian leader in the early 1980s. But
Abbas’ direct KGB handler at the time was Nikolai Bogdanov, and that’s
just as crucial.
After all, Bogdanov, a top Mideast hand at the Kremlin, is now one of
Putin’s closest aides, serving as special envoy to the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute. He is the main player in orchestrating the
Moscow peace parlay. “As we speak, Bogdanov is working with the Israelis
and Palestinians,” trying to coax them to come to Moscow, Remez says.
So Abbas is an old, ahem, acquaintance. But Israelis should also
worry about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu increasingly
consults with Putin, Remez says: “It’s a mistake to see the Russians as
our allies.”
But let’s remember: The main reason Putin’s influence is growing is
that for nearly a decade America has decided to watch from the sidelines
one of the most transformative periods in the modern history of the
Mideast. The vacuum America has left has driven some of our closest
allies and friends to the arms of the former spymaster.
And now, in addition to that loss of influence, we’re placing a
diplomatic bet on a leader who has been exposed as a former Kremlin
agent.
There are no friends in international relations. Only interests.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, KGB, Mahmoud Abbas, spying, Vladimir Putin
Israel expels Jordanian intelligence agent
For those who don't know him, Mudar Zahran is a member of the Jordanian opposition who lives in Israel.
Hmmm.
Labels: Jordan, Mudar Zahran, spying
It came to this: Netanyahu had to ask Berlusconi for help with Obama
In case you missed it, Haaretz reported on Tuesday that the US National Security Administration intercepted a 2010 phone call between Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in which Netanyahu asked Berlusconi for help in repairing his relations with the self-declared '
most pro-Israel administration evah.'
During their conversation, Netanyahu claimed he needed Berlusconi's help due to an "absence of direct contact" between himself and President Barack Obama.
The document leaked to the WikiLeaks website is a brief summary of Netanyahu and Berlusconi's communications that was published by the NSA for internal usage by the American intelligence community and the White House. According to the document, the call was intercepted as part of U.S. monitoring of Berlusconi's office, and not through a wiretap on Israeli lines.
The conversation between Netanyahu and Berlusconi took place four days after a crisis erupted during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel on March 9 due to Israel's decision to green light 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, which is beyond the 1967 Green Line.
The NSA report said "Israel has reached out to Europe, including Italy, for help in smoothing out the current rift in its relations with the United States."
The call took place on an open international line, so it is likely Netanyahu knew the conversation would be intercepted by U.S. intelligence services. It is even possible Netanyahu used the conversation with Berlusconi to try to reach out to America.
I don't know which is more troubling here - the fact that Netanyahu even had to reach out to Berlusconi in the first place or the fact that the United States, which continues to hold Jonathan Pollard after he spent 30 years in jail for 'spying' on Israel's behalf, was spying on Israel in the first place.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden, Jonathan Pollard, Ramat Shlomo, Silvio Berlusconi, spying, Wikileaks
Friends don't spy on friends?
Shavua tov, and a good week to everyone from Boston.
If you think friends don't spy on friends, you're wrong. Of course, when the friends are doing the spying on behalf of Israel, they end up in jail for 30 years and then
cannot leave the United States once they are released. But it's perfectly okay for the United States and Britain to
spy on Israel.
The
United States and Britain have monitored secret sorties and
communications by Israel's air force in a hacking operation dating back
to 1998, according to documents attributed to leaks by former U.S. spy
agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Israel voiced
disappointment at the disclosures, published on Friday in at least two
media outlets and which might further strains ties with Washington after
years of feuding over strategies on Iran and the Palestinians.
Israel's
best-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, said the U.S. National
Security Agency, which specialises in electronic surveillance, and its
British counterpart GCHQ spied on Israeli air force missions against
Gaza, Syria and Iran.
The spy operation, codenamed "Anarchist", was run out of a Cyprus base and targeted other Middle East states too, Yedioth said.
Online
publication The Intercept, which lists Snowden confidant Glenn Greenwald
among its associates, ran a similar report, with what it said were
hacked pictures of armed Israeli drones taken from cameras aboard the
aircraft.
Yedioth said German news-magazine Der
Spiegel, whose publication day is Saturday, also planned to run an
article based on Snowden's leak.
...
[Energy Minister Yuval] Steinitz said Israel was "not surprised" by the hacking described in the latest Snowden leak.
"We
know that the Americans spy on the whole world, and also on us, also on
their friends," he said. "But still, it is disappointing, inter alia
because, going back decades already, we have not spied nor collected
intelligence nor hacked encryptions in the United States."
Hey Yuval - are you sure they're our friends? After all, they've been telling us for 30 years that friends don't spy on friends.
#DoubleStandards
#Hypocrisy
Labels: double standards, hypocrisy, spying, Yuval Steinitz
UNIFIL assisting Lebanese government investigation into alleged 'spying' by Israel
And you thought that UNIFIL's function was to keep the peace.
UNFIL has turned over to the Lebanes government a long-time employee who is accused of '
spying' for Israel, and has said that it will assist the Hezbullah-dominated Lebanese government's 'investigation.'
The Lebanese man who had worked in the UNIFIL
administration for over 20 years is among three people accused by
authorities of spying for Israel.
On Sunday, Lebanese authorities said they had arrested
the three suspects, a Syrian man and his Lebanese wife and a Lebanese
man.
But the Lebanese man "was in the UNIFIL compound when authorities requested him," UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP.
"We asked U.N. headquarters in New York to determine
whether immunity would be applied in his case, and the U.N. determined
that since the allegations were not related to his official functions,
immunity from legal proceedings would not apply," he added.
The man was taken into custody on Wednesday.
In an official statement, UNIFIL said Wednesday that it
“will continue to provide the assistance required to facilitate the
Government's investigations into the allegations.”
“UNIFIL considers it of the utmost importance that the
investigative and judicial process is conducted in accordance with the
international standards of justice, fairness and due process of law and
fully supports the Lebanese authorities in the effort,” it said.
“To this end, UNIFIL will continue to act in full
transparency, in coordination with the Lebanese authorities, and in
accordance with the long-established procedures and agreements,” it
added.
On Sunday, Lebanon's General Security service announced it had arrested a "spy network."
It accused the three suspects of gathering information on individuals and security and military targets.
It said the three also allegedly filmed "sensitive"
roads and other areas in south Lebanon "and sent the footage to their
employers to be used in later attacks."
Because the Lebanese 'justice' system is right up to UN standards of due process. And to think that the United States under Obama continues to contribute millions of dollars every year to this travesty.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hezbullah, Lebanon, spying, UNIFIL, United Nations budget
Report: Israeli satellites spying on Russian support for Assad
Defense News reports that
Israeli satellites are keeping a close watch on Russian efforts to prop up the Assad regime. You don't say....
Images captured earlier this month from the Eros-B, a dual-use
imaging satellite owned and operated by ImageSat International, reveal
high operational tempo at Latakia International Airport, where Moscow
has based some 12 Su-25 fighters, a similar amount of Su-24 bombers, 16
Mi-35 attack helicopters and a small amount of Su-30 and Su-34 aircraft.
Outsized
Antonov 124 and Ilyushin Il-76 cargo aircraft are seen offloading
additional cargo, all of which is protected by at least one SAM-22
surface-to-air missile system.
In an image dated Oct. 10, support
vehicles and open cockpit canopies indicate high levels of alert while
another image taken on the same day shows a foursome of Su-30 attack
fighters in so-called fast launch positions at the end of the runway.
Such
imagery taken by the relatively low end of Israel’s satellite force
represents a mere snapshot of the Jewish state’s persistent ability to
monitor areas of interest throughout Syria and beyond.
With more
than a handful of satellites orbiting the Earth at 90-minute intervals,
Israel has multiple opportunities every day to revisit suspected sites.
...
IDF officers and their Russian counterparts plan to hold their second
round of so-called deconfliction talks in Moscow later next month, with
an eye toward establishing a mechanism to prevent unintended
consequences in the event that Russian and Israeli aircraft are flying
in the same airspace.
Hmmm.
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, drone, IAF, Russia, spying, Syria, Syrian uprising
ICYMI: Hamas arrests Flipper
In case you missed this on Wednesday, Hamas has arrested Flipper and charged him with
spying for Israel.
For real though: Army Radio reported that the dolphin was
decked out with "spying equipment," including cameras, when it was
captured by Hamas' naval unit. While The Times of Israel reports that the Israeli Navy has a fleet of "dolphin-class submarines," Hamas was definitely talking about an actual dolphin.
Israel is so often accused of animal espionage that an entire "Israel-related animal conspiracy theories"
Wikipedia page exists. However, since dolphins are some of the smartest
mammals on the planet, perhaps they are more likely to actually be
spies than, say, the "trained sharks" that Israel allegedly used to target Egypt.
Anyone who knows whether we actually used a dolphin to spy on Hamas isn't saying. But think about this.
Heh.
Labels: Dolphin class submarines, Hamas, Israeli animal spy conspiracy theories, spying
How generous: Obama wants to release Pollard 3 months before parole date but tie him to US
Having served nearly 30 years in an American jail for far less serious crimes than others who served
far less time, Jonathan Pollard is up for parole in November. Now, the Obama administration wants to
release Pollard (who has been
held for ransom for years) three months early in the hope of mollifying Israel in the face of its sellout to a nuclear Iran. There's just one small catch: Fearful of Pollard receiving a hero's welcome in Israel, the Obama administration wants to
confine him to the United States.
A senior Israeli diplomatic source revealed on Monday that if
Jonathan Pollard is released in November as has been reported, he won't
be allowed to come to Israel for fear he will receive a hero's welcome.
"The Americans are very worried of a situation in which Pollard will
be received as a hero in Israel, and therefore they likely will prevent
Pollard from leaving American territory," the source told Yedioth Aharonoth.
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on Saturday that she won't
interfere in the possible release of Pollard, and denied that the move
was timed to assuage Israeli concerns over the Iran nuclear deal.
I don't know what makes them think Pollard will be any more interested in being released in exchange for Israel accepting a nuclear Iran than he was in being released
in exchange for terrorists. And some of the people who generally oppose Pollard's release point out that there's
no connection between Pollard and Iran.
"Releasing Pollard was a bad idea in 1998 and 2001. It is not a better
idea today," [Former US Secertary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld posted on Twitter, along with a copy of letters
stating his opposition to the move, which he sent to former US
presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush while serving as secretary of
defense.
In another tweet Rumsfeld wrote, "Releasing spy Jonathan Pollard doesn't
make the #IranDeal any less of a disaster for Israel and the free
world," suggesting that Pollard's possible release and the Iran deal are
directly related.
I disagree with Rumsfeld and think Pollard ought to be released. But I agree with him that Pollard's release ought not to be connected with Iran.
Seth Lipsky reminds us why.
It’s not that Pollard’s breach of our
Espionage Act wasn’t serious. It certainly was. But the charge to which
he pled guilty comprised a single count of passing classified secrets to
a friendly nation. In exchange for his plea, which saved the government
the risk of losing in court or being forced to drop its case rather
than disclose the secrets, the government made promises it failed to
keep.
This came to a head in the early 1990s.
Pollard was arrested in 1985. He pled guilty in 1986. He drew life in
1987. He sought to withdraw his plea in 1990. And the Appeals Court
judges who ride circuit in the District of Columbia disposed of his
claims in 1992. It was an incredibly distinguished panel, including
Laurence Silberman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Fain Williams.
Yet two of the three judges took what can
only be described as a powder, casting Pollard into prison for what the
law calls life (30 years) on the grounds that he didn’t appeal the life
sentence in a timely manner. The memorable opinion in the case was the
dissent of Judge Williams, who concluded that the government that put
Pollard away had broken the promises it had made in return for his plea.
The promises were that it would bring to
the court’s attention the value of Pollard’s cooperation, refrain from
seeking a life sentence, and limit its allocution — its statements —
regarding “the facts and circumstances” of Pollard’s crimes. Williams
concluded that the government “complied in spirit with none of its
promises” and, in respect of the third promise, “it complied in neither
letter nor spirit.”
One of the points Williams marked was the
government’s suggestion that Pollard had committed treason. That came
in a memo to the court from the defense secretary at the time, Caspar
Weinberger, who asked the Court to mete out a punishment reflecting the
“magnitude of the treason committed.” Yet Weinberg and the Court knew
that whatever Pollard did was not treason.
That’s because the Constitution prohibits
Congress from defining treason as anything other than levying war
against the U.S. or adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and
comfort. Treason, Williams noted, carries the death penalty. It can be
committed only with an enemy. The espionage statute to which Pollard
pled encompassed aid to friendly nations and carried a maximum of life.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Donald Rumsfeld, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iranian nuclear threat, Jonathan Pollard, spying
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.
Labels: assassination attempt, Bashar al-Assad, Binyamin Netanyahu, Edward Snowden, Ehud K. Olmert, Israeli national security, spying, Syria, targeted killings
US wiretapped last three French Presidents
Just a hunch, but I doubt that even if caught, any American will sit in a French jail for doing this for even a tenth of the time that Jonathan Pollard has been imprisoned in the United States.
Just sayin'....
Labels: France, Jonathan Pollard, spying
That's the way they operate
Does anyone else think it odd that the Obama administration would
leak a story about Israel spying on the US to the Wall Street Journal rather than calling in the Israeli ambassador and making a formal complaint?
Odd? Not really. This is standard operating procedure for Obama.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, John Boehner, joint session of Congress, Moshe Yaalon, P 5+1, Ron Dermer, spying, uranium enrichment, US-Israel relationship
What a shock: Pollard imprisonment based on lies
I really feel like slamming some of the chickens**t American Jews who regularly comment - both on this blog and on Twitter and Facebook - that Jonathan Pollard should rot in jail because
what he did was so terrible they're afraid of being accused of having 'dual loyalties' if they actually question Pollard's life sentence. Much of the infamous Cap Weinberger memo (that Pollard's lawyers were never allowed to see) has been declassified, and it shows that much of the US government argument for keeping Pollard imprisoned is
based on lies and mischaracterizes what Weinberger (an anti-Semite in his own right) wrote (Hat Tip:
NY Nana).
Key portions of a critical classified document on which the US
government has cited as justification for keeping Jonathan Pollard in
jail have been declassified – and his lawyers say the government has
been "dishonest" in "hiding behind the mask of 'classified information'
to materially mischaracterize the nature and extent of the harm caused
by Mr. Pollard."
Lawyers Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, who have represented
Pollard for 15 years pro-bono, say the newly disclosed material shows
that any harm possibly caused by Pollard was only "in the form of
short-term disruption in foreign relations between the United States and
certain Arab countries."
"That is not at all the same thing as harm to U.S. national security," they write in a World Net Daily op-ed, "and it was dishonest for the government to pretend that it is."
The government position for 30 years has been that Pollard must
remain in prison because a secret note from then-Secretary of State
Caspar Weinberger stated that Pollard caused greater harm to U.S.
national security than had ever occurred previously.
"The government has been able to present this harsh characterization
of the Weinberger declaration without fear of contradiction," Semmelman
and Lauer write, because "no one representing Mr. Pollard [was ever]
allowed to see the Weinberger declaration since the day Mr. Pollard was
sentenced" – until now.
...
The lawyers state that the U.S. government's "deception had its most
blatant and prejudicial impact at Mr. Pollard's parole hearing held in
July 2014, during which the government invoked the Weinberger
declaration and - without showing it to the parole commission - urged
the commission to accept its representation that the document
substantiated more harm to the national security of the United States
than had ever occurred previously."
"In its decision denying parole, the commission took the government
at its word and essentially parroted the government's characterization
of the Weinberger declaration when it wrote that Mr. Pollard had caused
'the greatest compromise of U.S. security to that date,'" noted the
lawyers.
"That is an outright falsehood," the lawyers write, "and the recent
revelations prove it... [It] is now revealed that Mr. Pollard provided
Israel with information concerning the 'political-economic affairs of
Middle Eastern nations,' various 'Middle Eastern orders of battle,' and
the 'technology of Soviet weapons and radar systems' used by various
Arab governments."
"The potential consequence [thereof] is described by Mr. Weinberger
as 'a high probability of harm to the foreign relations of the U.S.
with friendly Arab nations'" – and nothing more than that.
The op-ed details the type of information Pollard gave Israel, and the modest and temporary damage it caused to U.S. relations with some countries – but not to U.S. security.
Hang your heads in shame chickens**t American Jews. Maybe you should worry more about why your government has been holding an American Jew imprisoned for 30 years for a crime that normally carries a 2-4-year sentence than you worry about accusations that you hold dual loyalties (as if any of you holds any loyalty to the Jewish state).
So why did then-CIA director George Tenet
threaten to resign if Bill Clinton released Pollard (as he promised to do) in exchange for Israel signing the Why Why Wye agreement? Probably because Tenet knew that if what was really in the Weinberger document was made public (and there would have been no more reason to keep it classified 17 years ago had Pollard been released), he and other government officials who had lied about its contents would have found their butts in a sling. Now, they're all dead or retired.
Read the whole thing.
It's long past time to release Jonathan Pollard NOW.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Caspar Weinberger, Central Intelligence Agency, Jonathan Pollard, spying
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hezbullah has all but admitted that the general charged with exacting 'revenge' on Israel for the death of
Imad Mughniyah was an Israeli spy.
The accounts in the Lebanese and Arab news media, relying on unnamed
sources, identify the mole as Mohammad Shawraba, the man charged with
exacting revenge for Israel’s assassination of a top operative, Imad Mughniyeh, in 2008. They say Mr. Shawraba fed information to Israel that foiled five planned retaliation attempts.
The
Hezbollah official, Naim Qassem, who is often called upon to handle
difficult issues, made no mention of the specific allegations. In his
remarks on Al-Nour, a Hezbollah-affiliated radio station, he added that
Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful militant organization and political party, was able to contain any damage from espionage.
This
is not the first time that Hezbollah has admitted to spies within its
ranks. But this breach, if confirmed, comes at a time when the party has
grown from a tight, exclusive cell focused on fighting Israel to a much
larger operation that has significantly expanded its mission, sending
thousands of its Shiite fighters to Syria to prevent the overthrow of
its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, by Sunni insurgents.
That,
in turn, has angered Lebanese Sunnis, who call Hezbollah’s involvement
in Syria an abuse of the national consensus that supports the group’s
keeping an independent militia only for fighting Israel, known here as
resistance.
I'm sure we have other spies in Hezbullah. Heh.
Labels: Hezbullah, Imad Mughniyah, Lebanon, spying
A new Israeli spy scandal?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone from Boston where I have been freezing... and working....
Did an Israel send classified information from the Jet Propulsion Lab at Cal Tech University to his PhD adviser in Israel? That's what a Cal Tech professor is claiming.
Let's go to the videotape.
No, that's not how he sent it.
This is (Hat Tip:
Joe L).
The former Caltech research scholar who is the catalyst for the
lawsuit is identified as Amir Gat. He is in Israel and employed as an
assistant professor of mechanical engineering at ITT, an Israeli
government institution, according to the complaint.
Troian alleges
a virus attack in May 2010 caused hundreds of project files on her
computer to be uploaded to an unknown IP address outside of Caltech. She
later discovered the virus originated from Gat’s laptop and repeatedly
notified Caltech officials about her findings, according to the lawsuit.
Gat admitted he shared details of a top-secret new space
micropropulsion system with his doctorate advisor, Daniel Weihs, at ITT
without first getting permission from the U.S. government. Weihs is a
member of Israel’s National Steering Committee for Space Infrastructure
of the Ministry of Science, chair of Israel’s National Committee for
Space Research and chief scientist at the Ministry of Science and
Technology, according to the suit.
Also without proper approval
from the U.S. Department of State, Gat allegedly made 65 online postings
about key operating principles for the micropropulsion device,
according to the lawsuit.
Hmmm.
Labels: California, spying
Russian spy post discovered on Syrian side of Golan
Well, what a surprise. Syrian rebels overran a Syrian government position on the Golan Heights this past weekend and discovered that some of the position's occupants spoke Russian. The position was being used to
spy on Israel.
Free Syrian Army officials, U.S. officials, and independent experts
told The Daily Beast that the evidence of Russian involvement in the
facility, just a few miles from Syria’s border with Israel, if verified,
would show a level of Russian involvement in the Syrian civil war that
was not previously known. Free Syrian Army officials posted several
videos on YouTube showing both the outside and the inside
of the facility, which the FSA captured over the weekend during a
battle near Al Harah, south of Damascus, next to the Golan Heights.
The
videos and accompanying photos show insignias representing a branch of
Syrian intelligence and the Russian Osnaz GRU radio electronic
intelligence agency. The FSA found photos and lists of senior Russian
intelligence and military officials who visited the facility, pictures of Russian personnel running the base, and maps showing the location of Israeli military units. Israeli news reports earlier this year said
the Russian government had upgraded an advanced surveillance and
intelligence gathering station in that area which could snoop on Israel,
large parts of Jordan, and western Iraq, potentially to warn Iran in
advance of an Israeli strike. Initial reports said documents from the
facility suggested the Russian equipment was used to spy on Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
U.S. defense officials told The Daily Beast the photos of the Russian
insignia first shared on blogs
were legitimate. But that evidence, at the same time, may not
necessarily mean the facility captured by the opposition was controlled
by Russia’s military; it could just mean that Russians were working
there, as advisors or partners to Syrian troops.
בימים ההם אין מלך ... איש כל הישר בעיניו יעשה.
(In those days, there was no King... each man did what he saw fit - translation from the book of Judges).
Barack Obama chose to degrade the United States' capabilities to the
point where the world no longer has a (Western, democratic) superpower.
And now the rest of the world is doing whatever it wants.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Golan Heights, Nusra Front, Russia, spying, Syria
Israeli and Jordanian convicted of spying on Egypt
An Israeli and a Jordanian have been convicted of
spying on Egypt on behalf of Israel. The Israeli was convicted in absentia (Hat Tip:
David R).
Cairo's state security court has sentenced a Jordanian and an Israeli to 10 years in jail on charges of spying for Israel.
Bashar Abu-Zaid, a Jordanian communications engineer, was charged with
planting communication networks in Egypt and using them to spy on
Egyptian officials in exchange for payment from Mossad, Israel's
national intelligence agency.
The Israeli official in the case, Ofer Haray, was sentenced in absentia.
Both were accused of transmitting phone calls to Israel with aims of
monitoring the whereabouts of Egyptian police and army personnel.
Abu-Zaid was arrested in Egypt in 2011 and was referred to court in August of the same year.
The Egyptian revolution overthrowing Hosni Mubarak started in January 2011. Hmmm.
Labels: Egypt, spying
What a shock: Newsweek reporter who accused Israel of 'unprecedented spying' 'has a history'
What a surprise. Jeff Stein, the Newsweek reporter who accused Israel of 'unprecedented spying' on the US - including a claim that an Israeli agent was
caught in an air conditioning duct at Jerusalem's King David Hotel (pictured) - '
has a history' of anti-Israel activity.
Last year, in his blog SpyTalk, Stein commented on the potential nomination
of then-Congresswoman Jane Harman to head the CIA: “Congress is already
Israeli-occupied territory. The last thing Washington needs is to cede
another settlement in Langley.” The idea that Israel or Jews control or
occupy the American government is common trope of anti-Semites.
The problem with Stein’s reporting isn’t limited to his own
judgments, but also his choice of sources. One source he used is Philip
Giraldi. Giraldi is a writer for the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based anti-Israel organization. In one of his recent analyses,
Giraldi referred to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as an
“Israel-firster,” adopting the language of those who consider supporters
of Israel to be suspect of disloyalty to the U.S.
Another source for Stein is a website, the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). The website describes
one of sections the “Israel Lobby Archive” as documenting “one of the
most harmful forces driving policy formulation in the U.S. political
process.”
Stein, in his own words and his choice of sources, shows himself to
be not merely a critic of Israel but someone who believes that support
for Israel is inimical to the interests of the United States.
For those wondering about the air conditioning duct story, the hotel manager assures us that
a cat could not fit in there.
Labels: Al Gore, Amos Yadlin, anti-Israel media bias, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Edward Snowden, Jonathan Pollard, spying
Steinitz blasts Newsweek accusations
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz has blasted reports in Newsweek accusing Israel of spying on the United States, and has asked
who is seeking to harm relations between the two countries.
Media reports surfaced last week that Israel’s intelligence operations
in the US are “unrivaled and unseemly,” extending to surveillance of
senior White House officials.
...
Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, who holds the
intelligence portfolio in the Netanyahu government, accused “someone of
trying to maliciously and intentionally harm relations between Israel
and the United States.”
Steinitz “unequivocally” denied the report, featured in Newsweek magazine, as having “no basis” in fact.
But
the initial report was followed by one that detailed alleged US
efforts to “cover up” Israel’s spying on then vice president Al Gore in
1998. It claimed that the US Secret Service caught an Israeli “agent”
in an air duct in the process of bugging the vice president’s hotel
room.
Since National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden
leaked classified documents on American intelligence tactics, President
Barack Obama has suggested that the US spies on its allies – with the
tacit understanding being that the practice is mutual.
Publicly,
Obama has drawn the line at spying on foreign leaders, after
revelations that the US had tapped the cellphone of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel. But the US president has said that foreign allies would
conduct greater surveillance if they had the capability to do so.
...
Former Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin also dismissed the allegations.
“Israel
is certainly not spying in the United States,” Yadlin said. “This is a
former Military Intelligence head telling you this. If you bring all
of the past Military Intelligence chiefs from the past 29 years, since
the of [the arrest of Jonathan] Pollard, or the past heads of the
Mossad, they will tell you the same .”
Yadlin said he expects the
leaders of the US intelligence community to address the American
public in response to the report, and to “either say that this is
baseless, or present facts.”
You don't think the Obama administration would cook up something like this to cover for the fact that they have spied on every country in the world, do you?
Labels: Al Gore, Amos Yadlin, Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Edward Snowden, Jonathan Pollard, spying, Yuval Steinitz
Foxman: State Department 'hypocritical, almost irrational'
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, ADL National Director Abe Foxman decried the State Department's denial of visas to Israelis, and US intelligence agencies' refusal to allow Israel to join the visa waiver program, as '
hypocritical, almost irrational.'
The Anti-Defamation League has reacted harshly to reports that several
members of US Congress and representatives of the country’s
intelligence community have cautioned against admitting Israel into the
State Department’s visa waiver program due to concerns over espionage.
During an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday, ADL National
Director Abraham Foxman said he could not square such worries with the
“special relationship” and high level of intelligence cooperation
between the two nations.
“Is there a certain amount of hypocrisy? Sure,” Foxman told the Post,
referring to recent revelations of widespread American spying on close
allies. “Every couple of years something publicly surfaces, focusing
the light on Israelis or Israel spying…. It is inordinate and
inappropriate and inaccurate. This is the most recent example of it.”
...
Foxman said he continued to be “disturbed at the level of
preoccupation, primarily in the American government, not just now but
going back for years” in relation to alleged Israeli spying.
“I have a file of people who applied for [a security] clearance,
American Jews who had difficulty getting it and didn’t get it because
of questions which were inappropriate,” the ADL head stated.
“But none of these people wanted to take the case public because they
were afraid it was going to destroy their employment opportunities.”
Foxman alluded to what he believes is an inbuilt institutional bias
connected to a widespread belief that American Jews hold dual
loyalties.
“One out of three Americans believe that they [US Jews] are not loyal,”
and the current allegation of Israeli spying “enhances the stereotype
and it fuels it,” he said. “This is endemic in our political system out
of Washington.”
A 2013 poll by the ADL found that 30% of Americans believe Jews are
“more loyal to Israel” than to the United States, a number that remains
unchanged from a previous poll taken in 1964.
Such attitudes predate the arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a
Jewish-American intelligence analyst convicted of passing information
to Israel. The Pollard case, Foxman averred, gave those concerned with
Israeli spying “legitimacy” but did not create such worries.
“The exchange of information and data and specific research on
technology is very high, and so at the same time to say we have to be
careful of Israelis who come here on tourist visas because they can spy
on us is almost irrational,” he said. “But if we are talking about
being motivated in part by stereotypes, stereotypes are not rational.
It’s a prejudice.”
That should make all you American Jews feel warm and cozy as you head back to work on the morning after the Passover holiday, no?
Labels: Abe Foxman, anti-Semitism, hypocrisy, intelligence, spying, travel visas, US State Department
A new excuse to bar Israelis from the US?
In the latest and possibly most (sur)real excuse for barring Israelis from the US, Roll Call reports that
US intelligence agencies are opposed to making Israel part of the US visa waiver program.
Until now, U.S. officials have said they have refused Israel’s entry
into the program only because the Jewish state does not meet specific
requirements for inclusion, including a rate of refusal for Israelis
seeking U.S. visas no higher than 3 percent and reciprocal courtesies
for U.S. citizens visiting Israel.
Several senators are pushing a bill that would effectively waive those requirements for Israel.
But this is the first time congressional aides have indicated
that intelligence and national security concerns also are considerations
in weighing Israel’s admission into the Visa Waiver Program.
“The U.S. intelligence community is concerned that adding
Israel to the Visa Waiver program would make it easier for Israeli spies
to enter the country,” a senior House aide said.
Spies? A shpy? Like this guy?
Let's go to the videotape.
Yes, a shpy.
Several congressional aides said that members of the intelligence
community, as well as officials from the State and Homeland Security
departments, expressed those concerns in a classified briefing to
lawmakers and staffers on the House Judiciary Committee, which has
jurisdiction over visa issue.
Chairman Robert W. Goodlatte,
R-Va., “has heard reservations from the intelligence community about
allowing Israel into the visa waiver program because of concerns that it
would allow in Israeli spies,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee aide
said.
Judiciary staffers conveyed those concerns to the Foreign Affairs Committee, aides from the Foreign Affairs panel said.
A U.S. official confirmed the Goodlatte briefing, saying
officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the
FBI and the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive took
part.
Here's a list of the countries who are currently part of the visa waiver program.
Israel is one of nine countries on a list of countries that are 'nominated and roadmap countries.' You can see a list of the rejection rates for every country
here. (Scroll down to the bottom). Among the countries with a lower rejection rate than Israel are Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Malaysia. Something is really wrong here.
The reason for Israel's rejection is surreal, but it also may finally be the real reason. How do you prove a negative?
Labels: spying, travel visas, United States, US-Israel relationship
