[AppyPappy]

You need lots of tin-foil for this one.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[linear]

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

There, now it makes perfect sense.

[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?

[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?

[MississippiMan]

I bought two paintings from a guy claiming to be an Israeli art student maybe a year ago. Surely no connections to the DEA or any government agency do I have. The guy was going door to door at small businesses, was super polite, believable, and happened to have a couple of paintings I liked. I bought 'em.

MM

[wheezer]

If the Art Students angle was even remotely on the level....they would not have been deported.

[genefromjersey]

Just as a quick point of information: Israel and Holland sited factories make the popular "Rave" drug Ecstasy,and the primary importers / distributors of this drug tend to be Israeli or Dutch- which might account for an attempt to penetrate DEA offices.

As to military/strategic penetrations, I imagine any thinking person would acknowledge Israel is an ally - but is not joined at the hip to us.

[Senator Pardek]

A bmp.

[atafak]

The two French journals came to conclusions that the memo itself clearly did not. And yet they had unearthed some intriguing material. Six of the "students" were apparently carrying cell phones purchased by a former Israeli vice consul to the United States. According to Le Monde, two of the "students" had traveled from Hamburg to Miami to visit an FBI agent in his home, then boarded a flight to Chicago and visited the home of a Justice Dept. agent, then hopped a direct flight to Toronto -- all in one day. According to Intelligence Online, more than one-third of the students, who were spread out in 42 cities, lived in Florida, several in Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- one-time home to at least 10 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers. In at least one case, the students lived just a stone's throw from homes and apartments where the Sept. 11 terrorists resided: In Hollywood, several students lived at 4220 Sheridan St., just down the block from the 3389 Sheridan St. apartment where terrorist mastermind Mohammed Atta holed up with three other Sept. 11 plotters. Many of the students, the DEA report noted, had backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence and/or electronics surveillance; one was the son of a two-star Israeli general, and another had served as a bodyguard to the head of the Israeli army.

some odd data here, but i become immediately suspicious of its accuracy when the one address on sheridan is called "just down the block" from the other...the addresses seem to belie that...in fact, yahoo mapping places them over a half mile away from each other...

[rmlew]

I have no doubt that Israel has and is spying on the US, just as the US spies on Israel.
However, the art student thing really is in the catagory of strange. The Mossad is not a featherweight org. In the 1960's, they got a spy so deep that he became the Defense Minister of Syria. (If you wondered how the Israeli's took teh Golan hieghts so quickly, the reason is that they knew everything about teh Syrian positions).

Compared to that, this is sophmoric. It is possible that there were some agents posing as art students. However, it is not odd that most Israeli art students served in the IDF or that some served in military intell. This is a common positng for connected draftees who don't want to risk their lives in the Territories. Amazingly enough, these leftists are more likely to be artists.

I buy a cup of coffee from one of these every day. He is no spy.

[RightWhale]

This is great! A cross between Onion and DEBKA, but on a vast scale!