Posted on 08/28/2004 8:59:07 AM PDT by yonif
Translation from Hebrew to English by me
This mornings newspapers are screaming: "The FBI on the trail of an Israeli spy" - writes the French Le Monde. "The FBI: Israeli spy in the Pentagon," a popular Swedish paper writes. The Arab media is celebrating. Could it be that Israel got in trouble with another spy case with America? It's hard to believe.
How then should one react to the FBI announcement that there is an investigation of a medium official in the Pentagon who is suspected of spying for Israel? One needs to receive this news carefully, because of a number of reasons.
First of all, according to the FBI message, the investigation has been going on for a year and arrests are only projected to happen in a week. How could that be? If it is really an investigation of someone passing on classified material to a foreign entity - even a friendly one like Israel - how come the "spy" was not arrested a year ago? Secondly, what is the point of this FBI announcement if they have no arrest yet? There are a number of question marks here.
Let us not forget that in the US there is an elections season going on right now where foreign policy, especially the Iraqi topic, is being used as a main topic in information campaigns. Noteworthy sources in the US have been accusing the neo-conservative officials in the Pentagon for pushing President Bush to go to war with Iraq, and even accusing them of starting a special intellgience arm.
In their words, this arm passed the main intelligence branches of the US like the CIA and gave wrong or misleading information to the president. The official that is suspected in this controversy was employed in that unit once. Among the Jewish neo-conservative people in high ranking positions in the pentagon there is Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith.
There is a theory flying around that a Jewish nest got the US in trouble. If one can get Israel involved and hint that she had classified documents, from which she could learn the US policy leanings and influence its moves - even on the Iranian issue - all the better. This strengthens the positions of those who continue to accuse the president of acting and continuing to act for the interests of Israel rather then those of the US.
This is nothing but a priliminary explanation concerning the "strangeness" of the FBI message and its timing. But not only that. Israel had no interest to operate a spy. Not only because it promised America not to do so after the Pollard fiasco, but also because during the last few years it has had good relations with the US government and its branches, and there is back and fourth intelligence and coordination flowing between the two countries in various fields.
And one last thing. Official Israel denied this. Even AIPAC, the Israeli lobby in America, which is accused of getting the document or documents, has said there is no truth to the thing. But the issue is grabbing big headlines all over the world, though of course anything that is got to do with Israel is paramount over other stories.
Israel has been measured in a different and special way. I remember a few years ago the US accused France of industrial espionage in the US. It was a large accusation, but it died out quickly and disappeared from the media - because it had no connection to Israel - nor the presidential elections.
The writer has a masters degree in Political Science from Paris University, and he retired a short time ago from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affirs. He, among other positions, was the Israeli Ambassador in Romania during the revolution, vice manager of the African Affairs office and was a ambassador in Cairo from 96-2001. He was made famous from the incident where he got mad at a pro-terrorist "art" exhibition in Sweden, during his last posting.
Ping.
Bill Gertz was on Greta's show last night and talked about this matter.
He said there is so called "friendly spying" which nearly all countries do.
Then there is espionage, a much more serious matter.
It is not known at this time whether this is friendly spying or espionage.
Before you flame me,this was a humor story in National Lampoon-probably before many of you were born. The hero was the dashing Israel Bond -better known as Oy-Oy-7 .
Agent 86
Ah, yes "friendly spying." Never mind. Move along, nothing to see here.
No one is saying there's nothing to this story. But Gertz is very respected in this area and his reporting was interesting.
Talk about "OY" !
Ve ist mir !
Perhaps. I see remarkably concern here, however especially from those freepers who are so quick on the draw to use the word "treason" in other contexts.
sounds like Kerry talking.
That's remarkably little concern.
Victor David Hansen was on television this morning saying that this could easily be a case of mishandling documents.
Considering the early mis-reporting we have witnessed time and again by the media which tries to gin up controversy where there is none, I am merely trying to report what I hear and suggesting it is way too early to jump to conclusions.
If you wish to interpret that to mean that I am unconcerned if an Israeli did indeed spy on our country for nefarious purposes, there is nothing I can do about that.
You keep taking this as a personal attack. I was merely poitning out the double standard of many freepers. I did not include you in my statement. As to Victor "Woodrow Wilson" Hanson, he wouldn't criticize Israel if his life depended it.
LOL. Okey doke.
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