Israeli Espionage in the US

Posted June 18, 2009

Though Israel likes to describe itself as an American ally, as do Israel-first Americans, Israel has often engaged in espionage against the United States.  The most famous case is that of Jonathan Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst who spied for Israel, passing off thousands of classified documents.  He is now serving a life sentence in Federal prison.  Afterwards, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir denied that there were any more Israeli spies in the US, but that is what Israel said when Pollard was arrested too.  Subsequent events show that Pollard is not the last Americans to spy for Israel.

• Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, two employees of the AIPAC, were indicted in 2005 for conspiring to pass classified US information regarding Iran to Israel.  These charges were dropped in 2009 after heavy lobbying by the Israel Lobby of the new Obama administration.
• Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon expert, pled guilty in April 2009 to passing the classified information to the two lobbyists, Rosen and Weissman.
• Congresswoman Jane Harman was recorded on an FBI wiretap conspiring with an Israeli intelligence officer to have the charges against Rosen and Weissman dropped, in exchange for Israeli help in making her chairman of the House Select committee on intelligence.
• In 2008, a former US Army civilian employee Ben-Ami Kadish pleaded guilty to passing classified information to Israel in the 1980s.  It was stolen from the Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, where he worked.
• The LA Times reported in 2003, using off the record US government sources, that Israel conducts large scale intelligence gathering operations in the US.
• In1997 David Tenenbaum admitted to disclosing classified information from his place of work, the military’s Army Tank, Automotive and Armaments Command to Israel.  It was reported that ‘ ”Tenenbaum admitted to divulging nonreleasable classified information to every Israeli liaison officer” assigned to the tank command over the last 10 years.’
• In the 1990s, the FBI conducted a large investigation into Israeli intelligence gathering in the US, focusing on a senior Israeli diplomat codenamed “Mega.”
• The Washington Post reported that Richard Smyth, the owner of the defense contractor MILCO, [“Computer expert used Firm to Feed Israel Technology, October 31, 1986] illegally supplied with Israel weapons technology, including technology for nuclear weapons.
• A New York Times article [“Close U.S.-Israel Relationship Makes Keeping Secrets Hard,” December 22, 1985] quoted former Justice Department official John Davitt as saying, “The Israeli intelligence service, when I was in the Justice Department, [1950-1980] was the second most active in the United States, to the Soviets.”

It is clear that despite the ties between the two nations, Israel has no qualms with running agents in the United States and stealing vital US secrets.  This is in sharp contrast with the behavior of true close US allies in the UKUSA intelligence sharing consortium.  One can only imagine the outcry if Britain or Germany, let alone an Arab ally such as Jordan or Egypt, had conducted operations like the Pollard and Kadish ones.

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