The Israeli "art student" mystery

Salon ^

[AppyPappy]

You need lots of tin-foil for this one.

[SJackson]

You need lots of tin-foil for this one.

And a Salon Premium membership.

[corkoman]

i beleive the whole thing.

[scratchgolfer]

There is not enough tinfoil on the planet for this one. Nothing but recycled news reports. Garbage in garbage out.

[Sally II]

I just skimmed over the article. I kind of chuckled when I read the headline, because I visited Israel about 12 years ago. And I was so amazed by how many people consider themselves artists in Israel. There was art and artists everywhere. Most of it was pretty bad or just not very special. But as a nation they really seem to value their artists.

[Dog]

You all need to look at this...

Oddly, four days after the Cameron investigation ran, all traces of his report -- transcripts, Web links, headlines -- disappeared from the Foxnews.com archives. (Normally, Fox leaves a story up for two to three weeks before consigning it to the pay archive.) When Le Monde contacted Fox in March for a copy of the original tapes, Fox News spokesmen said the request posed a problem but would not elaborate. (Fox News now says Le Monde never called.) Asked why the Cameron piece disappeared, spokesman Robert Zimmerman said it was "up there on our Web site for about two or three weeks and then it was taken down because we had to replace it with more breaking news. As you know, in a Web site you've got x amount of bandwidth -- you know, x amount of stuff you can put stuff up on [sic]. So it was replaced. Normal course of business, my friend." (In fact, a text-based story on a Web site takes up a negligible amount of bandwidth.)

When informed that Cameron's story was gone from the archives, not simply from the headline pages (when you entered the old URL, a Fox screen appeared with the message "This story no longer exists"), Zimmerman replied, "I don't know where it is."

[VinnyTex]

.

[eno_]

One is that these were spies in training, newly minted Mossad graduates on test runs to see how they would operate in field conditions.

I like this one best. It fits the unfocused, haphazard nature of it. Put trainees into genuinely hostile but not physically dangerous environments and see how they perform. And the involutary test sites have good reason to be too embarassed to complain much. Cheap, elegant, and effective.

[joltinjoe]

Oddly enough, on Monday night (two days ago) two Israeli art students appeared at our door. We live in the boonies and asked how they chose this location. They said because of the new houses in the area. Since I speak Hebrew, I spoke some Hebrew to the guy. I could tell he was surprised. We did buy a nice piece of artwork though.

[Tacis]

These art salesmen DID visit a local strip mall in which my wife's employer, a work hardening office, had a center. They came in, looked around, made some vague overtures about selling art or displaying for sale and left. There is no DEA or related activity anywhere in the area. So, I know these folks were out there, that they claimed to be out there for what seemed like illogical reasons, and that they seem to have gone away.

I also believe that much of the crime in Europe is managed by Israeli mobsters (see area on KaiserWillamStrasse near the BonHof in Frankfurt). But, it is still a mystery why these young folks were walking about in the heat of a Texas summer.

[Registered]

Will this thread be published as a novel and in hardcover? Maybe I'll wait until it hits Amazon.com...

[vance]

How thoughtful of the author to give us a dozen or so unproven theories to cherry pick from. Don't like allegation one, pick another. Talk about BS.

[Dakmar]

The paintings are bugged, and some even have tiny cameras. How do I know this? My kitty told me. She wants me to tell everyone. She wants you to send her a set of steak knives.

[linear]

I think someone just got the DEA confused with the NEA.

There, now it makes perfect sense.

[Fabozz]

"I like this one best."

So do I—once we dismiss the "it's all bunk" theory as being too boring. ;-) In addition to the reasons you cite, the "information" these people would acquire is all stuff the Israelis already know and could therefore verify—Israeli LEOs work with DEA and visit DEA offices, IDF officers work on-site at U.S. bases, etc. No point giving a final exam if the teacher doesn't know the right answers, is there?

[Sally II]

I'm not particularly worried about Israeli spies in America. If they were watching out for Islamic fanatics in the US and knew more about what was going on that we did, that only refects badly on our national security system, which Clinton weakened in his 8 years in office. Israel is in a pretty tight spot out there, surrounded by such large, hostile countries. If I were them, and I knew that the friendly USA had such a weak intelligence system and I suspected that there were Islamic fanatics plotting to exact revenge for Israel's existence, I'd be doing as much as I could to keep an eye on the enemy.

[Iconoclast2]

Our office got visited in the January 2001 timeframe; I can't recall the exact date. The FBI rents at least two floors of our building below ours. The guy peddling the pictures seemed suspicious to me, but who knows?

[Sally II]

But, it is still a mystery why these young folks were walking about in the heat of a Texas summer.

Uh, yeah, right. Israel is such a coooold climate. Surely they wouldn't be able to stand the heat of a hot Texas summer. That sure is suspicious. :oP

[IsItTimeYet]

thanks for posting this. It's been hard to dig up any information on this. There is a pdf file floating around the net that is reportedly the DEA "internal document" cited in this article. It appears to be credible.

But that won't silence the sneers from the "innocent art students" crowd.

It's foolish and naive to think that our nation has never suffered an intellegence compromise engineered by another nation. There are countless examples of Isreal specifically doing just that.

They are our friends though, so that's ok I guess. right?