[Flashback: What is the Anti-Defamation League, if not a Jewish private police agency?]
How The Anti-Defamation League Turned the Notion of Human Rights on Its Head, Spying on Progressives and Funneling Information to Law Enforcement,
by Robert I. Friedman, Webshells (originally from The Village Voice, May 11, 1993, Vol. XXXVIII No. 19
"For the next two years, [Roy Bullock] worked as an unpaid informant for the FBI. But he found his true calling when he became a paid spy for the Anti-Defamation League in 1960. Now his activities are at the center of the biggest domestic spy scandal in recent American history -- a scandal that may end with the ADL's criminal indictment in San Francisco. Over a 30-year period, he compiled computer files for the ADL on 9876 individuals and more than 950 groups of all political stripes, including the NAACP, the Rainbow Coalition, ACLU, the American Indian Movement, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Pacifica, ACT UP, Palestinian and Arab groups, Sandinista solidarity groups, Americans for Peace Now, and anti-apartheid organizations. Bullock, who even spied on the recently slain South African nationalist Chris Hani when he visited the Bay Area in April 1991, sold many of his ADL files on anti-apartheid activists to South African intelligence. Meanwhile, between 1985 and 1993, the ADL paid him nearly $170,000, using a prominent Beverly Hills attorney as a conduit in order to conceal its financial relationship with Bullock. Last month, police raided ADL offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as Bullock's home, confiscating computer files and boxes of documents. According to court records, Bullock's files contained the driver's license and vehicle registration information, in addition to criminal histories on individuals -- much of which was allegedly stolen from the FBI and police computers. Bullock, 58, told the FBI that copies of virtually everything in his computer data base had been given to the San Francisco ADL office. "Based on the evidence," says Inspector Ron Roth, in a police affidavit, "I believe that Roy Bullock and ADL had numerous peace officers supplying them with confidential criminal and DMV information." What's more, the San Francisco D.A. is investigating Bullock for tapping phones, accessing answering machines, and assuming false identities to infiltrate organizations ... The ADL was established in New York City in 1913 to defend Jews, and later other minority groups, from discrimination. It led the fight against racist and fascist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party, and in the 1960s championed the civil rights movement. But there was also a darker side. In the late 1940s, the ADL spied on leftists and Communists, and shared investigative files with the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the FBI. The ADL swung sharply to the right during the Reagan administration, becoming a bastion of neoconservatism. To Irwin Suall, a repentant Trotskyite who heads the ADL's powerful Fact Finding Department, the real danger to Jews is posed not by the right -- but by a coalition of leftists, blacks, and Arabs, who in his view threaten the fabric of democracy in America, as well as the state of Israel. In the tradition of his ideological soulmate William Casey, Suall directed the ADL's vast network of informants, who were given code names like "Scumbag," "Ironside," and -- for a spy reportedly posing as a priest in Atlanta -- "Flipper." For years, journalists and liberal members of the Jewish community knew the ADL spied on right-wing hate groups. As long as the targets were anti-Semitic organizations like the Liberty Lobby and Lyndon Larouche, no one seemed to be particularly troubled. But the Bullock case reveals that the ADL also spied on groups that have a nonviolent, and progressive orientation. This apparent massive violation of civil liberties may end with the ADL's criminal indictment in San Francisco, where the investigation began. The human rights group faces possible criminal prosecution on as many as 48 felony counts, including an indictment for gaining illegal access to police computers ... More than a few Jewish officials privately say the ADL has to decide whether it is a human rights group or a secret police agency. "The ADL is regarded both inside the Jewish community and outside the Jewish community as the definitive source of information on anti-Semitism and extremist groups," says Daniel Levitas, the former executive director of the Center for Democratic Renewal, an Atlanta- based group that monitors anti-Semitism, racism, and hate groups. 'One of the things this scandal has done is that it has completely tainted the ADL's credibility and reputation with regard to its objectivity. This scandal is going to be a devastating blow to the Jewish community at large because people regard the ADL as synonymous with American Jewry.'"

[Yet another Jew in a sensitive government position is suspected of spying and/or is caught stealing classified documents. See also Jonathan Pollard, former Jewish CIA chief John Deutch, Howard Teicher, etc. etc. etc. and the Israel connection.]
Sandy Berger Probed Over Terror Memos,
Fox News, July 20, 2004
"Former President Clinton's national security adviser is under criminal investigation for taking highly classified terrorism documents that should have been turned over to the independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, FOX News has confirmed. Sandy Berger is under scrutiny by the Justice Department following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives. Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents. However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of Al Qaeda terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers said. Officials said the missing documents also identified America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to seaports ... Lanny Breuer, one of Berger's attorneys, said his client had offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but had not yet been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors. Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the Sept. 11 commission. Late Tuesday, Berger announced that he would no longer aid Kerry's presidential bid, saying he didn't want to diminish the work of the Sept. 11 commission. ... David Gergen, who was an adviser to Clinton and worked with Berger for a time in the White House, said Tuesday, "I think it's more innocent than it looks."

Background: Not AIPAC's first controversy,
by CALEV BEN-DAVID, THE JERUSALEM POST, Aug. 29, 2004
"A lobby is like a night flower; It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." So wrote Steven Rosen, AIPAC director of foreign policy issues, in an internal organizational memo several years ago. Unfortunately for the influential pro-Israel lobbying group, this new affair is turning far too much of the media spotlight on an organization that prefers to work behind the scenes on Capitol Hill. But it is hardly the first time AIPAC has found itself at the center of public controversy, although never in such a serious matter as receiving classified security material. In 1988, the investigative show 60 Minutes ran a critical piece on AIPAC using information supplied by its former communications director (and ex-Jerusalem Post reporter) Barbara Amouyal. Among the material supplied by Amouyal was an internal memo suggesting that the media be fed stories regarding Jesse Jackson's private life. Also included in the 60 Minutes report was another internal memo which seemed to direct how political action committees should donate money to specific pro-Israel candidates, a possible violation of federal law forbidding lobby groups such as AIPAC from directly involving themselves in elections. A subsequent investigation by the Federal Elections Commission cleared AIPAC of any violations. Nonetheless, AIPAC continues to face accusations that it unduly interferes in the electoral process, especially from politicians who credit their defeats at the polls to the organization's efforts. The most notable example in recent years was the 2002 congressional race, in which two Georgia Democrats, incumbents Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard, were defeated in party primaries by contenders perceived as more pro-Israel. McKinney subsequently commented: "Despite the fact that I easily won the Democratic vote, 40,000 Republicans maliciously crossed over and overtook the Democratic Primary. And because AIPAC had telegraphed in newspaper articles that they were going to target both Earl Hilliard and me, the Democratic Party was paralyzed" ... AIPAC's efforts to keep a low media-profile have also led to accusations that it has put undue pressure on journalists, especially from the Jewish press, who cover it critically. Among them is Washington Jewish Week reporter Larry Cohler, who earlier this year told an Internet site: "Their mission statement doesn't say anything about them mucking around in Jewish newspapers. AIPAC tried to get me fired, [and editor] Andy [Silow-Carrol] fired [from The Washington Jewish Week in 1992]." (AIPAC has denied those charges.) Given its task, it is inevitable that AIPAC will serve as a perennial whipping-boy for anti-Semitic Jewish conspiracy theorists, and as the phantom spoiler by disgruntled anti-Israeli politicians who fall short at the ballot box. But its reported involvement in the Pentagon-leak story will force it to handle mainstream-media damage control of the like the organization has not yet known."

AIPAC's Overt and Covert Ops,
by Juan Cole, antiwar.com, August 30, 2004
"CBS is reporting that a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst detailed to Undersecretary of Defense for Planning Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans is under FBI investigation for spying for Israel. The person passed to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) confidential documents, including those detailing Bush administration policy toward Iran, and AIPAC then passed them to Israel. There are wiretaps and photographs backing up the FBI case (the FBI agents involved are extremely brave to take this on). But this espionage case is too narrow. Consider what journalist Jim Lobe wrote about Feith's Office of Special Plans (OSP) and the Pentagon Near East and South Asia (NESA) office: "[K]ey personnel who worked in both NESA and OSP were part of a broader network of neoconservative ideologues and activists who worked with other Bush political appointees scattered around the national-security bureaucracy to move the country to war, according to retired Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who was assigned to NESA from May 2002 through February 2003. The heads of NESA and OSP were Deputy Undersecretary William Luti and Abram Shulsky, respectively. Other appointees who worked with them in both offices included Michael Rubin, a Middle East specialist previously with the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI); David Schenker, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); and Michael Makovsky; an expert on neocon icon Winston Churchill and the younger brother of David Makovsky, a senior WINEP fellow and former executive editor of pro-Likud Jerusalem Post. Along with Feith, all of the political appointees have in common a close identification with the views of the right-wing Likud Party in Israel." Karen Kwiatkowski was an eyewitness in NESA, and Lobe reports: "[S]he recounts one incident in which she helped escort a group of half a dozen Israelis, including several generals, from the first floor reception area to Feith's office. 'We just followed them, because they knew exactly where they were going and moving fast.' When the group arrived, she noted the book which all visitors are required to sign under special regulations that took effect after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. 'I asked his secretary, "Do you want these guys to sign in?" She said, "No, these guys don't have to sign in."' It occurred to her, she said, that the office may have deliberately not wanted to maintain a record of the meeting." The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying group that used to support whatever government was in power in Israel, and used to give money evenhandedly inside the U.S. My perception is that during the past decade AIPAC has increasingly tilted to the Likud in Israel, and to the political Right in the United States. In the 1980s, AIPAC set up the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as a pro-Israeli alternative to the Brookings Institution, which it perceived to be insufficiently supportive of Israel. WINEP has largely followed AIPAC into pro-Likud positions, even though its director, Dennis Ross, is more moderate. He is a figurehead, however, serving to disguise the far right character of most of the position papers produced by long-term WINEP staff and by extremist visitors and "associates" (Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer are among the latter). WINEP, being a wing of AIPAC, is enormously influential in Washington. State Department and military personnel are actually detailed there to "learn" about "the Middle East"! They would get a far more balanced "education" about the region in any Israeli university, since most Israeli academics are professionals, whereas WINEP is a "think tank" that hires by ideology. I did some consulting with one U.S. company that had a government contract, and they asked me about WINEP position papers (many of them are just propaganda). When I said I would take them with a grain of salt, the guy said his company had "received direction" to pay a lot of attention to the WINEP material! ... The Likudniks like to pretend that they represent American Jewry, but they do not. And they like to suggest that objecting to their policies is tantamount to anti-Semitism, which is sort of like suggesting that if you don't like Chile's former dictator Pinochet, you are bigoted against Latinos ... A handful of special interests in the United States virtually dictate congressional policy on some issues. With regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a few allies have succeeded in imposing complete censorship on both houses of Congress. No senator or representative dares make a speech on the floor of his or her institution critical of Israeli policy, even though the Israeli government often violates international law and UN Security Council resolutions (it would violate more such resolutions, except that the resolutions never got passed because only one NSC member, the U.S., routinely vetoes them on behalf of Tel Aviv.) ... Franklin is a reserve Air Force colonel and former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst. He was an attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv at one point, which some might now see as suspicious. After the Cold War ended, Franklin became concerned with Iran as a threat to Israel and the U.S., and learned a little Persian (not very much – I met him once at a conference and he could only manage a few halting phrases of Persian). Franklin has a strong Brooklyn accent and says he is "from the projects." I was told by someone at the Pentagon that he is not Jewish, despite his strong association with the predominantly Jewish neoconservatives. I know that he is very close to Paul Wolfowitz. He seems a canny man and a political operator, and if he gave documents to AIPAC it was not an act of simple stupidity, as some observers have suggested. It was part of some clever scheme that became too clever by half. Franklin moved over to the Pentagon from DIA, where he became the Iran expert, working for Bill Luti and Undersecretary of Defense for Planning, Douglas Feith. He was the "go-to" person on Iran for Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and for Feith. This situation is pretty tragic, since Franklin is not a real Iranist. His main brief appears to have been to find ways to push a policy of overthrowing its government (apparently once Iraq had been taken care of). This project has been pushed by the shadowy eminence grise Michael Ledeen for many years, and Franklin coordinated with Ledeen in some way. Franklin was also close to Harold Rhode, a longtime Middle East specialist in the Defense Department who has cultivated far right pro-Likud cronies for many years, more or less establishing a cell within the Department of Defense."

A Long History Israeli Espionage Against the US,
By SAM HUSSEINI, Counterpunch, August 30, 2004
"[This survey of Israeli spying on the US was compiled in 1997.] The Washington Post reported in a front-page story on May 7th, 1997 that US intelligence had intercepted a conversation in which two Israeli officials had discussed the possibility of getting a confidential letter that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher had written to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. One of the Israelis had commented that they may get the letter from "Mega"-- apparently a codename for an Israeli agent within the US government ... Here is a sampling of the public record of Israeli espionage and covert actions against the US: According to Time magazine (5/19/97), the US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, last year "complained privately to the Israeli government about heavy-handed surveillance by Israeli intelligence agents, who had been following American-embassy employees in Tel Aviv and searching the hotel rooms of visiting US officials." *** Three relevant documents were made public in early 1996: 1) A General Accounting Office report "Defense Industrial Security: Weaknesses in US Security Arrangements With Foreign-Owned Defense Contractors" found that according to intelligence sources "Country A" (identified by intelligence sources as Israel, Washington Times, 2/22/96) "conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally." The Jerusalem Post (8/30/96) quoted the report, "Classified military information and sensitive military technologies are high-priority targets for the intelligence agencies of this country." The report described "An espionage operation run by the intelligence organization responsible for collecting scientific and technologic information for [Israel] paid a US government employee to obtain US classified military intelligence documents." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (Shawn L. Twing, April 1996) noted that this was "a reference to the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, a civilian US naval intelligence analyst who provided Israel's LAKAM [Office of Special Tasks] espionage agency an estimated 800,000 pages of classified US intelligence information." The GAO report also noted that "Several citizens of [Israel] were caught in the United States stealing sensitive technology used in manufacturing artillery gun tubes." 2) An Office of Naval Intelligence document, "Worldwide Challenges to Naval Strike Warfare" reported that "US technology has been acquired [by China] through Israel in the form of the Lavi fighter and possibly SAM [surface-to-air] missile technology." Jane's Defense Weekly (2/28/96) noted that "until now, the intelligence community has not openly confirmed the transfer of US technology [via Israel] to China." The report noted that this "represents a dramatic step forward for Chinese military aviation." (Flight International, 3/13/96) 3) The Defense Investigative Service circulated a memo in late 1995 warning US military contractors that "Israel aggressively collects [US] military and industrial technology." The report stated that Israel obtains information using "ethnic targeting, financial aggrandizement, and identification and exploitation of individual frailties" of US citizens. (Washington Post, 1/30/96) (This report was criticized by several groups for allegedly implying that Americans Jews were particularly suspect.) *** From New York Times December 22, 1985, by David K. Shipler: Many American officials are convinced of Israel's ability, on a routine basis, to obtain sensitive information about this county's secret weapons, advanced technology and internal policy deliberations in Washington... The F.B.I. knew of at least a dozen incidents in which American officials transferred classified information to the Israelis, [former Assistant Director of the F.B.I.] Mr. [Raymond] Wannal said. The Justice Department did not prosecute. "When the Pollard case broke, the general media and public perception was that this was the first time this had ever happen," said John Davitt, former chief of the Justice Department's internal security section. "No, that's not true at all. 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." *** From "The Samson Option," by Seymour M. Hersh [Page numbers are from the Vintage paperback edition, 1992.] The name "Mega" in the recent Washington Post story may be noteworthy: [I]llicitly obtained intelligence was flying so voluminously from LAKAM into Israeli intelligence that a special code name, JUMBO, was added to the security markings already on the documents. There were strict orders, [Ari] Ben-Menashe recalled: "Anything marked JUMBO was not supposed to be discussed with your American counterparts." ("The Samson Option," pg 295) After Jonathan Pollard was arrested for selling secrets to Israel, the Israeli leadership denied all knowledge. Hersh provides several sources indicating that they did know. Here's one: The top leadership, of course, knew what was going on. One former Israeli intelligence official recalled that Peres and Rabin, both very sophisticated in the handling of intelligence, were quick to ask, as the official put it, "Where are we getting this stuff?" They were told, the Israeli added, that Israeli intelligence 'has a penetration into the U.S. intelligence community.' Both men let it go. No one said: 'Stop it here and now.'" ("The Samson Option," pg 296) One of the little-known aspects of the Pollard case is that information was passed along by the Israelis to the Soviets: For Shamir, the Israeli added, the relaying of the Pollard information to the Soviets was his way of demonstrating that Israel could be a much more dependable and important collaborator in the Middle East than the "fickle" Arabs: "What Arab could give you this?" ("The Samson Option," pg 299) The Pollard information helped in Israel's ability to exercise "The Samson Option" -- to threaten the Soviet Union, and therefore the US, with nuclear war if they didn't get their way in developments in the Mideast. Disclosure of information to the Soviets also apparently led the Soviets to track down US agents: One senior American intelligence official confirmed that there have been distinct losses of human and technical intelligence collection ability inside the Soviet Union that have been attributed, after extensive analysis, to Pollard. "The Israeli objective [in the handling of Pollard] was to gather what they could and let the Soviets know that they have a strategic capability--for their survival [the threat of a nuclear strike against the Soviets] and to get their people out [of the Soviet Union]," one former CIA official said. "Where it hurts us is our agents being rolled up and our ability to collect technical intelligence being shut down. When the Soviets found out what's being passed"--in the documents supplied by Pollard to the Israelis--"they shut down the source." ("The Samson Option," pg 300) *** A portion of a 1979 CIA internal report, "Israel: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services" (from The Nation, "I Spy, You Spy, We All Spy," December 14, 1985, by Alexander Cockburn) included the following: In one instance Shin Beth [the Israeli internal security agency] tried to penetrate the US Consulate General in Jerusalem through a clerical employee who was having an affair with a Jerusalem girl. They rigged a fake abortion case against the employee in an unsuccessful effort to recruit him. Before this attempt at blackmail, they had tried to get the Israeli girl to elicit information from her boyfriend. Two other important targets in Israel are the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) with headquarters in Jerusalem. There have been two or three crude efforts to recruit Marine guards for monetary reward. In the cases involving UNTSO personnel, the operations involved intimidation and blackmail. In 1954, a hidden microphone planted by the Israelis was discovered in the Office of the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv. In 1956, telephone taps were found connected to two telephones in the residence of the US military attache. *** In March 1978, Stephen Bryen, then a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, was overheard in a DC hotel offering confidential documents to top Israeli military officials. The F.B.I. found Bryen's fingerprints on the documents in question, and he admitted to having obtained them the night before the meeting with the Israelis. Bryen was forced to quit his job, but was never indicted. He was later brought on to the Defense Department as a deputy to Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary Richard Pearle. There Bryen was in charge of such matters as overseeing technology transfers in the Mideast. (See "The Armageddon Network" (Amana Books) by Michael Saba, an officer of the National Association of Arab Americans when he overheard Bryen offer the documents to the Israelis.) As late as 1992, Stephen Bryen was serving on board of the pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs while continuing as a paid consultant -- with security clearance -- on exports of sensitive US technology. (Wall Street Journal, 1/22/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers) *** * "The Lavon Affair": In 1954, Israeli agents attacked Western targets in Egypt in an apparent attempt to upset US-Egyptian relations. Israeli defense minister Pinchas Lavon was removed from office, though many think real responsibility lay with David Ben-Gurion. * In 1965, Israel apparently illegally obtained enriched uranium from NUMEC corporation. (Washington Post, 6/5/86, Charles R. Babcock, "US an Intelligence Target of the Israelis, Officials Say.") * In 1967, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, an intelligence gathering vessel flying a US flag, killing 34 crew members. See "Assault on the Liberty," by James M. Ennes, Jr. (Random House). * In 1985 Richard Smyth, the owner of MILCO was indicted on charges of smuggling nuclear timing devices to Israel (Washington Post, 10/31/86). * April 24, 1987 Wall Street Journal headline: "Role of Israel in Iran-Contra Scandal Won't be Explored in Detail by Panels" * In 1992, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli agents apparently tried to steal Recon Optical Inc's top-secret airborne spy-camera system. (1/17/92, Edward T. Pound and David Rogers). * In early 1997, an Army mechanical engineer, David A. Tenenbaum, told investigators that he "inadvertently" gave classified military information on missile systems and armored vehicles to Israeli officials (New York Times, 2/20/97). * For detailed analysis of the Israel-US relationship, including covert operations, see "Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel" by Stephen Green (Amana Books). Also see "Dangerous Liaisons" by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn (Harper Collins). * For information on economic espionage see "War By Other Means: Economic Espionage in America" by Wall Street Journal reporter John Fialka (Norton). Also see "Israel's Unauthorized Arms Transfers" in Foreign Policy, Summer 1995, by Prof. Duncan Clarke of American University."

The Axis of Treason Israeli spies in the Pentagon,
by Justin Raimondo, antiwar.com, August 30, 2004
"The death agony of the neoconservatives is going to be a prolonged and quite ugly procedure, painful not only for them but for the entire country – which will learn, to its chagrin and growing anger, how and by whom they were lied into war. It started late Friday, when Lesley Stahl of CBS News reported that the FBI has "solid evidence" that a spy, embedded in the top echelons of the Pentagon's civilian leadership, handed over classified documents, including the draft of a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran, to Israel. Such an investigation would have been politically explosive in any case, but add to this the news that Franklin had passed the documents to Tel Aviv via AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, and the result is political dynamite. Within hours the story had grown from focusing on a single individual, Lawrence Franklin, described as a "mid-level desk officer," to include an entire nest of spies ensconced in the top echelons of the Pentagon, centered around the office of Douglas Feith, the Director of Policy: "An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday. "The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have firsthand knowledge of the subject' ...But it couldn't be clearer to those of us who have been following the various scandals that have recently rocked the national security bureaucracy – Chalabi-gate, the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the Niger uranium forgeries, and now the Franklin affair. They all involve the same cast of neoconservative characters: the inhabitants of the "policy shop" presided over by Feith, including the infamous Office of Special Plans – otherwise known as the Lie Factory – which produced a steady supply of utter falsehoods to justify the rush to war. Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, commenting on MSNBC, said his sources were telling him that the Franklin affair is also connected to the Niger uranium forgery investigation ... As regular readers of this column are aware, it's been a long time coming. For over two years, the feds have put scarce law enforcement resources into this investigation, and it hasn't been for nothing: they've been watching and eavesdropping on Israel's American fifth column for at least that long ... If bin Laden is the chief beneficiary of American policies in the Middle East, then Ariel Sharon runs a close second. His government has been given a free hand to do what it wills in the occupied territories, including increased settlement-building, increased state terrorism, and even U.S. acquiescence on the "Wall of Separation." Israeli agents are swarming over Kurdistan, fomenting rebellion, and threatening Iran. The old Zionist dream of extending Israel's hegemony from the Nile to the Euphrates suddenly seems close to realization ... The coming arrest of Franklin, and perhaps some of his confederates, rumored for this week, will bring the war home. The reaction of the Israelis, and their amen corner in the U.S., has been uniformly and unintentionally comic: Who, us? Spy on America? It never happens, at least not since Pollard. But the reality of Israeli covert agents in America, far from being something out of a cheap paperback spy thriller, is certainly borne out by the Franklin affair ... At this point we are lacking some essential information, including the identities of the "two or three" AIPAC employees involved. How far up in the organization did knowledge of these illegal activities go? What else have the feds got on AIPAC – after an extensive investigation, including electronic surveillance, ongoing for over two years? We don't know the answers to these questions. But I do know that if this had been an Islamic or Arab group, they would have been shut down, their assets impounded, and their headquarters bolted shut. Will something even approaching that happen to AIPAC? Of course not. But, if not, why not? Is Israel going to be allowed to openly operate a spy nest in Washington with impunity? It's an outrage, and it's time someone said so. Furthermore, those politicians who have taken money from AIPAC have a lot of 'splaining to do, especially if they don't return the dough. As Israeli spies in Washington steal our secrets, and feed us lies, our politicians are pigging out at the trough of AIPAC campaign contributions, raking in cash while their patrons take in classified documents. When the American people find out what is going on, God help the neocons, because they are going to need it. The arrest and trial of Israel's fifth column in the Pentagon is going to unleash a lot of anger, because it is going to make Americans understand the nature and extent of the treason that entrapped them in Iraq. The very word "neocon" will become a synonym for treason, like Quisling ... Friday night is the slowest news night of the week, and add to this the coverage eaten up by the Republican convention, and you have a classic tactic of bury-that-story. Add to that the usual victimological posturing and cries of "anti-Semitism," and the strategy of the Amen Corner is clear: deny everything, and go on the offensive. Will it work? I doubt it, but we shall see."

U.S. Spy Probe Focuses on Two Lobbyists,
By CURT ANDERSON, Guardian (UK), September 1, 2004
"Investigators are focusing on two employees of the main pro-Israel lobbying group in a probe into whether a Pentagon analyst provided them with secret U.S. material on Iran that they funneled to Israel. The two American Israel Public Affairs Committee employees involved are director of foreign policy issues Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, an Iran expert, said AIPAC attorney Nathan Lewin on Wednesday. They were interviewed by the FBI on Friday - the same day news first broke of the existence of the yearlong investigation - but the interviews were halted after the men said they wanted a lawyer present before answering further questions, Lewin said. ``The FBI could resume the interview. We have not heard from the FBI,'' Lewin said. Rosen and Weissman have hired lawyer Abbe Lowell to represent them. Lowell, who did not return a telephone message seeking comment, is a veteran Washington attorney who is perhaps best known as the Democratic House Judiciary Committee counsel during President Clinton's impeachment. Investigators are trying to determine if Rosen and Wiessman obtained classified Bush administration policy materials concerning Iran from a Defense Department analyst, Larry Franklin. Franklin works on issues involving Iran and the Middle East in the office of Defense Department policy undersecretary Douglas Feith. No charges have been brought or arrests made in the case. Law enforcement officials have said prosecutors are weighing whether to charge anyone involved with the most serious offense of espionage or with lesser counts of mishandling classified documents. AIPAC officials have said they are cooperating in the probe and have denied any wrongdoing, as has the Israeli government. Franklin has not responded to several telephone calls seeking comment ... A senior House Democrat, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, is calling for a Judiciary Committee investigation into the matter and said it should be expanded to include allegations that sensitive U.S. information may have been given to political opponents of now-deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, including Ahmed Chalabi. ``The fact that a rogue element of the United States government may have been working with a foreign government in possible contravention of current foreign policy is a grave matter that should be of concern to every American,'' Conyers, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a letter dated Tuesday to the panel's chairman, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis."

Maqsoud and spying for Israel in the USA Israel-USA, Politics,
Arabic News, September 1, 2004
"Former Director of the Arab League Bureau in Washington, Cloris Maqsoud, on Tuesday stressed that the American administration's attempt to play down the shock of the Israeli spying on the U.S. reflects the extent of the Zionist lobby power on the American administration and the decision makers there. In an article published in Kuwait-based "al-Ra'i al-Aam" daily, Maqsoud pointed out that the American administration pretext that the case is a mere "Documents Divulging" and not a spy operation forbids the American people of their rights to account the spies at the expense of appeasing Israel. He said the American administration seeks to protect Israel from international sanctions and condemnation due to its continued violation of the international resolutions."

Pollard Affair Casts Large Shadow. Latest spy allegations seen colored by 1985 espionage case,
by Joshua Mitnick, Jewish Week, September 3, 2004
"As Israeli officials struggled this week to deflect allegations of spying on the United States, they derided FBI suggestions of an Israeli Pentagon mole as a “poor imitation” of the 1985 arrest of U.S. naval intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard for selling classified data to Israel. With U.S.-Israeli security collaboration on Iraq and Iran as cozy as ever, cultivating an informant in the office of Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, made little sense, the officials argued. And yet, the espionage charges made public over the weekend highlight the residue of suspicion from the Pollard affair that still colors Israel’s relationship with its most important ally nearly two decades later. The FBI inquiry is not the first official accusation of Israeli betrayal to rankle U.S. ties over the last decade, and some predict it won’t be the last. “I think this will escort us for many years to come,” said Danny Yatom, a former chief of the Mossad, Israel’s espionage agency. “There was one attempt made by Pollard, and since then there is still an assessment that Israel will try again whenever it is pushed into a corner.” Pollard, who provided Israel intelligence on Soviet shipments to Iraq and Syria, was sentenced to life in prison. While initially claiming that Pollard was part of an unauthorized intelligence operation, Israel issued a formal apology to the U.S. and renounced all future espionage activities on American soil. At the same time, Israel’s government disbanded the obscure defense ministry agency responsible for the Pollard connection, the Lakam, Science Liaison Bureau. Separate from the Mossad, army intelligence or the Shin Bet, the agency had been instructed to obtain technology for Israeli biological and nuclear projects, according to experts. The Pollard affair chilled strategic cooperation between the two countries in the ensuing years. But by the 1990s, the dialogue began to deepen once again as Israel and the U.S. set up a host of joint forums between their military, intelligence and diplomatic agencies. As time went by, Israel became more open about its relationship with Pollard, granting him citizenship. During the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at Wye Plantation in 1998, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked for a grant of clemency from President Bill Clinton. Ministers made pilgrimages to Pollard’s North Carolina prison. But that only made the shadow over the Pollard affair endure longer, Israeli experts said. “If Israeli politicians keep visiting Pollard in jail and keep raising it in meetings with the president, it’s an open wound in that regard,” said Itamar Rabinovich, who was an Israeli ambassador to the United States during the mid-1990s. “If it were resolved five or 10 years ago, the lingering effect would be reduced. Because the file was not closed, it’s still causing damage.” The former ambassador recalled from his tenure in Washington a series of allegations about unauthorized Israeli sales of U.S. military technology to China. The accusations were eventually dropped. Yatom said that as Mossad chief he was compelled to fly to the U.S. on one occasion to defuse claims from former CIA Director George Tenet that Israel had placed an informant in the intelligence agency. And when former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, had his security clearance stripped for creating secret cables on an unclassified laptop computer, it stirred suspicion whether the American Jewish diplomat had leaked the information to Israel.

Jews Fear Fallout On Fed Spy Probe. Serious consequences even if no charges are filed,
by James D. Besser, Jewish Week, September 3, 2004
"This week’s media sensation, centering on allegations that the primary pro-Israel lobby in Washington passed secret information to Jerusalem, has left Jewish leaders uncertain about the motives behind the reported federal spy probe and deeply concerned about its consequences — even if no charges are filed. Early in the week, pro-Israel forces, backed by powerful political friends, mounted a major damage control effort. But that was impaired by a lack of knowledge about exactly what and whom the federal government is targeting. Jewish leaders pointed to similar media frenzies about alleged Israeli spies in the past that fizzled, and some expressed the expectation that this week’s controversies — which began with a CBS News expose on Friday asserting that federal authorities were investigating a possible Israeli “mole” inside the Pentagon — would be no different. “For years, since Pollard, we’ve seen a slew of leaks, innuendo, accusations, and none of them ever amounted to anything, except for a little news coverage that gives a black eye to Israel or to the Jewish community or to both,” said Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman, referring to Jonathan Jay Pollard, whose 1985 arrest for spying for Israel continues to shadow Jews in sensitive government positions. “This isn’t new. It’s important people understand that.” But on Tuesday there were reports federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Va. — the site of several high-profile spy and terrorism trials in recent years — were nearing a decision on legal action. The Jerusalem Post reported that computer data belonging to a top official of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby, has been searched. Two AIPAC officials, Steven Rosen, the group’s longtime foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, an analyst specializing in Iran, have reportedly been questioned by the FBI. The controversy left Jewish leaders with some disconcerting questions, like why a political officer of the Israeli embassy was being followed by government investigators. It was that surveillance that reportedly ensnared the focal point of the investigation, Larry Franklin, a mid-level Pentagon analyst who specializes in Iran policy. Reports suggest that Franklin gave over to AIPAC officials U.S. documents dealing with alternatives for the U.S. in dealing with the growing nuclear threat from Iran, and that the AIPAC officials passed the information on to Israel. “The first question I have is this: Do we trail the representatives of the embassies of other friendly countries?” asked Shoshana Bryen, special projects director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a Jewish group with close ties to the military and intelligence communities in both countries. “If not, why was he being trailed?” The Israeli representative is Naor Gilon, a political adviser at the Israeli embassy in Washington. Israeli officials this week expressed concern that Gilon apparently was the focus of U.S. surveillance, but they would not seek an explanation from Washington, according to Israeli press reports. Those reports said Gilon was having lunch with a top AIPAC official when they were joined by Franklin, a non-Jew who, as an Air Force Reserve officer, once worked in the U.S. defense attaché’s office Tel Aviv. Such meetings are routine for U.S., Israeli and AIPAC officials. “If they weren’t doing that, they weren’t doing their jobs,” said Neal Sher, a former AIPAC executive director and Justice Department official “I was surprised to read the suggestion these meetings were being surveiled by the FBI. That’s a big unanswered question in all this.” Federal authorities have refused to identify the original target of their investigations. Jewish leaders suggested that the leak that produced the CBS report could have been part of the ongoing battle within the defense and military establishments over the role of several high-profile neo-conservatives, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith — both lightning rods for criticism over the administration’s war in Iraq. There is also speculation that the original leak may have been part of a preemptive effort by anti-neo-con forces inside the government to prevent a U.S. confrontation with Iran by suggesting an improper Israeli role in setting U.S. policy on the issue. In a series of conference calls since the initial story, Jewish leaders tried to work out a strategy for minimizing the impact of reports that could damage U.S.-Israeli strategic cooperation, the effort to slow Iran’s rush to nuclear weaponry and the careers of countless Jewish defense and intelligence personnel, even if the investigation does not result in arrests and convictions ... Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) said in a statement that “AIPAC is an organization of American patriots committed to promoting America’s interest in strengthening ties with our democratic ally Israel. ... AIPAC deserves our gratitude and support for its important service and devotion to our country.” Laudatory statements also came from Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), the Senate majority leader, Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the Minority Leader and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the House majority whip, among others. In the communal conference calls on Monday and Tuesday, AIPAC leaders admitted they had been worried that the sudden negative publicity might lead politicians to shun their convention events. That didn’t happen. AIPAC officials and independent sources say attendance by political figures met or exceeded expectations. “The response was absolutely remarkable at the convention,” said Lonnie Kaplan, a former AIPAC president. “All our events had greater attendance than we expected. Nobody canceled, and we had many expressions of support.”

[The new AIPAC spy scandal? Do you seriously trust Zionist Jews in the American government? Just to whet your appetite, here's merely a sampling of the same spy terrain for other Jewish Americans in very recent history:
*Jonathan Pollard, U.S. Navy researcher, in prison for spying for Israel.
*John Deutch (Jewish CIA Director under President Bill Clinton) caught with classified documents at home. "Mr. Deutch," noted the New York Times, "refused to be interviewed by the seucrity staff and senior CIA officials allowed him to avoid being questioned." Investigation was stopped before it was completed thanks to Presidential pardon.
*Sandy Berger (former Clinton national security advisor) "under scrutiny by the Justice Department following the disappearance of documents he was reviewing at the National Archives."
* Howard Teicher (earlier Jewish) National Security Council adviser. "Middle East experts in the State Department," noted John Walcott of the Wall Street Journal, "the NSC staff and some Washington think tanks conducted a tireless whispering campaign against [Teicher], intimating that he was an Israeli agent."
* Martin Indyk. Former U.S. ambassador to Israel and former National Security Advisor had his clearance suspended by the State Department for "suspected violations" of security norms, ostensibly for ("over a long period of time") "sloppy handling of classified information."
*Stephen Bryen, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz (all prominent Jewish American U.S. government officials, current and/or past, and activists in Bush Administration foreign policy: "Each of these five individuals had been investigated at some time during their government careers for passing information to a foreign government, namely Israel."
Israel Has Long Spied on US, Say Officials,
by Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, Common Dreams (from Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2004
"Despite its fervent denials, Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States that has long attempted to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, U.S. government officials said. FBI and other counterespionage agents, in turn, have covertly followed, bugged and videotaped Israeli diplomats, intelligence officers and others in Washington, New York and elsewhere, the officials said. The FBI routinely watches many diplomats assigned to America. There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States. Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States. Former intelligence official Officials said FBI surveillance of a senior Israeli diplomat, who was the subject of an FBI inquiry in 1997-98, played a role in the latest probe into possible Israeli spying. The bureau now is investigating whether a Pentagon analyst or pro-Israel lobbyists provided Israel with a highly classified draft policy document. The document advocated support for Iranian dissidents, radio broadcasts into Iran and other efforts aimed at destabilizing the regime in Tehran, officials said this week. The case is unresolved, but it has highlighted Israel's unique status as an extremely close U.S. ally that presents a dilemma for U.S. counterintelligence officials. "There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing set of Israeli activities directed against the United States," said a former intelligence official who was familiar with the latest FBI probe and who recently left government. "Anybody who worked in counterintelligence in a professional capacity will tell you the Israelis are among the most aggressive and active countries targeting the United States." The former official discounted repeated Israeli denials that the country exceeded acceptable limits to obtain information. "They undertake a wide range of technical operations and human operations," the former official said. "People here as liaison … aggressively pursue classified intelligence from people. The denials are laughable." Current and former officials involved with Israel at the White House, CIA, State Department and in Congress had similar appraisals, although not all were as harsh in their assessments. ... The U.S. officials all insisted on anonymity because classified material was involved and because of the political sensitivity of Israeli relations with Washington. Congress has shown little appetite for vigorous investigations of alleged Israeli spying ... In public, Israel contends it halted all spying operations against the United States after 1986, when Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former Navy analyst, was convicted in U.S. federal court and sentenced to life in prison for selling secret military documents to Israel. U.S. officials say the case was never fully resolved because a damage-assessment team concluded that Israel had at least one more high-level spy at the time, apparently inside the Pentagon, who had provided serial numbers of classified documents for Pollard to retrieve. The FBI has investigated several incidents of suspected intelligence breaches involving Israel since the Pollard case, including a 1997 case in which the National Security Agency bugged two Israeli intelligence officials in Washington discussing efforts to obtain a sensitive U.S. diplomatic document. Israel denied wrongdoing in that case and all others, and no one has been prosecuted. But U.S. diplomats, military officers and other officials are routinely warned before going to Israel that local agents are known to slip into homes and hotel rooms of visiting delegations to go through briefcases and to copy computer files. "Any official American in the intelligence community or in the foreign service gets all these briefings on all the things the Israelis are going to try to do to you," said one U.S. official. At the same time, experts said relations between the CIA and Israel's chief intelligence agency, the Mossad, were so close that analysts sometimes shared highly classified "code-word" intelligence on sensitive subjects. Tel Aviv routinely informs Washington of the identities of the Mossad station chief and the military intelligence liaison at its embassy in America. "They probably get 98% of everything they want handed to them on a weekly basis," said the former senior U.S. intelligence officer who has worked closely with Israeli intelligence. "They're very active allies. They're treated the way the British are." Another former intelligence operative who has worked with Israeli intelligence agreed. "The relationship with Israeli intelligence is as intimate as it gets," he said. Officials said Israel was acutely interested in U.S. policies and intelligence on the Middle East, especially toward Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. "They are sophisticated enough to want to know where the levers are they can influence, which people in our government are taking which positions they can try to influence," said a former high-ranking CIA official. But the official said the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, at least in intelligence circles, "is not one of complete trust at all" ... What mystifies those who know AIPAC is how one of the savviest, best-connected lobbying organizations in Washington has found itself enmeshed in a spy investigation. Although never previously implicated in a potential espionage case, AIPAC has frequently been a subject of controversy. Its close ties to Israel and its aggressive advocacy of Israeli government positions has drawn criticism that it should be registered as an agent of a foreign country. Others, noting its ability to organize significant backing for or against candidates running for national office, have demanded that it be classified as a political action committee. So far the group has avoided both classifications, either of which would impose major restrictions on its activities. Three years ago, Fortune magazine ranked AIPAC fourth on its list of Washington's 25 most powerful lobbying groups — ahead of such organizations as the AFL-CIO and the American Medical Assn."

Franklin-Gate and the Jews,
by james d. besser, Jewish News Weekly, September 3, 2004
"Hours after CBS News first reported that federal officials were investigating a possible Israeli “mole” at the Pentagon, the first analysis hit the wires claiming that the emerging scandal wouldn’t damage U.S.-Israel relations. It was quick journalistic work, but it wasn’t worth the bytes it was written on. The plain fact is, the scandal, dubbed “Franklin-Gate” after the implicated Department of Defense official, will affect Jewish and pro-Israel interests in myriad ways even if the federal investigation fizzles and no charges are brought. Any proof that Israel was spying on the Pentagon with the cooperation of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, would be devastating both for Israel and for the Jewish community here, but few other than anti-Israel conspiracy theorists expect that result. More likely is a confusing mess centering on the many gray areas created when two close allies share military and strategic information through a web of formal and informal contacts. “In an open relationship like this, there are conversations, there are meetings and conferences all over the world, where Israelis and Americans, Jews and non-Jews, share soft intelligence,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “If the mere fact of people having lunch together results in an investigation, that’s very intimidating.” Jewish leaders believe the leaks that produced the CBS story and the exaggerated talk of a mole may have been triggered by the bitter struggle between administration neoconservatives — many of them Jewish, many in the top ranks of the Pentagon organization chart — and the traditional conservatives and military and intelligence professionals who fear the neocons have led America into a military debacle in Iraq and want to do the same in Iran. In particular, these forces have been critical of Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, a hawk’s hawk and the boss of the man at the epicenter of the controversy, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin ... But even if the investigation produces no arrests and no evidence AIPAC went beyond the bounds of legal lobbying, it has the potential to cause damage to Israel, to Jewish interests here and to U.S.-Israel relations. The accusation of a “mole” — that term made sensational headlines, but it wasn’t borne out by later reporting — plays into the ongoing belief by many on both ends of the political spectrum that a cabal of Jewish neoconservatives led America into a destructive war in Iraq, not because of America’s interests but Israel’s ... There may be a growing longing for convenient scapegoats if public opinion continues to turn against the war, and this week’s reports offer up some traditional favorites: Israel and the Jews. The scandal will refocus attention on a group of Jewish neoconservatives who have been polarizing figures both inside and outside government circles, including Feith and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The charges, even if unsubstantiated, could impede the widespread military cooperation between Washington and Jerusalem — ties that are even more important as the allies fight the terrorist forces that have targeted both nations. The charges will also have a chilling effect on countless Jews serving in important government positions. Many say life hasn’t been the same since the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, the young Navy intelligence analyst who provided documents to his Israeli handlers. The shadow of “dual loyalty” already hangs over every Jewish official with a security clearance; the new spy scandal ensures that it won’t lift anytime soon. ... But even if the charges are quickly revealed as overblown, the fact that they have exploded in the middle of an emotionally charged presidential campaign and as protests proliferate over the Iraq war could adversely affect the Jewish community and Israel. Jewish leaders are worried — and they are right to be."

[Political Whore division. And American public brainwashing -- and cowardice. Jewish $$$ maintains its iron grip.]
Political Big Names Come Out To Back Lobby at the GOP Convention,
By E.J. KESSLER, [Jewish] Forward, September 3, 2004
"Less than 48 hours had passed since CBS News broke the news about an FBI investigation involving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the lobbying powerhouse was facing its first public test. The setting was Sunday's "community celebration" sponsored by Aipac, United Jewish Communities and the Republican Jewish Coalition. The list of expected guest included 1,000 delegates to the Republican convention, Jewish communal leaders, volunteers and public dignitaries. In the end, according to an Aipac spokesman, all the big names showed up. The crowd included more than 60 members of the House of Representatives, eight senators, two Cabinet officials, five governors, one lieutenant governor, the top three members of the Bush campaign staff, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani. They joined nearly 1,500 other guests in packing the main hall at Chelsea Piers, a cavernous sports and events space on the Hudson River docks in Lower Manhattan, munching on a buffet that included grilled vegetables, beef dishes cooked up hot in woks and sliced smoked salmon. If the Republicans were feeling burned by Aipac, it was not apparent in their speeches. The speakers took turns praising the organization's efforts in Washington "I know Aipac, I know the Aipac leadership," Senator Bill Frist said. "It is an outstanding organization." Bush campaign manager Kenneth Mehlman and Giuliani each gave red-meat, partisan speeches, replete with attacks on Democratic nominee John Kerry. Bloomberg also spoke. All the national Republican speakers gave ringing defenses of the war in Iraq, saying that the ousting of Saddam Hussein made both Americans and Israelis safer. Between bites, the mood among Aipac members was one of outrage and defiance at the news stories on the eve of the convention. In her speech to the assembled crowd, the organization's president, Bernice Manocherian, declared: "Be assured that we will not allow innuendo or false allegations to distract us from our central mission, which is supporting American interests in the Middle East and advocating for a strong U.S.- Israel-relationship.... The allegations are outrageous as well as baseless. They will not dissuade us from exercising our rights as American citizens to be involved in the political process." The chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Sam Fox, took pains in his speech to emphasize the closeness that his group feels with Aipac. "I've worked closely with Aipac for a quarter-century," he said. "I know Aipac. It has always reflected the very best qualities of professionalism." Fred Zeidman, a longtime friend of Bush's who is chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and a top Republican Jewish Coalition leader, acknowledged that the affair "can't all be bulls—t," but added: "We're obviously hoping it's bulls—t. Obviously there's a reason they timed it right now. This is the best president Israel ever had and the best communication between Israel and the administration. There's no reason for it to have happened. There's something surreptitious going on. We don't know what it is." Zeidman stressed: "The good news is that the administration is continuing [to show support for Aipac and the Jewish community]. I don't think that if there was anything behind this, the administration would be as open as it is," referring to the many administration officials in attendance. Republican officials were out in force, with Cabinet secretaries Gale Norton and Anne Veniman CK, Office of Management and Budget Director Josh Bolten, and dozens of lawmakers. Top campaign officials at the event included Mehlman, chairman Marc Racicot, chief strategist Matthew Dowd and top fund raiser Jack Oliver. Even as Republican leaders made their pitch for Bush, the controversial news reports were the talk of the event, with both Republicans and Jewish communal officials expressing alarm and unease over the impact of the scandal. "It doesn't smell right," said one Jewish communal official who deals with international affairs. "The Israelis don't need the information. With professionals doing this for so long, it doesn't make sense that they would do it through a Jewish organization." "How is this going to play outside New York and Washington?" the official wondered. "Will it increase suspicion of Jews? It makes our job harder. Why would they trust us?" The Bush-Cheney campaign's liaison to the Jewish community, Michael Lebovitz, declined comment on the controversy, saying: "It would be totally inappropriate." Others tried to put the events into perspective. Former Nixon aide G. Gordon Liddy, greeting admirers as he got some food at the event's buffet, was nonchalant. "I doubt that the Israeli government had any knowledge of it," he said ... Prominent Democrats, including Senate Minority leader Tom Daschle, were also defending Aipac. "For more than five decades, America as a country and Americans as individuals have stood by Israel," Daschle said in a statement. "Aipac and its members have tirelessly led that effort, and America is better and stronger for it. It is vital work — work I know Aipac will continue to lead effectively."

[More on the traitorous Jewish-American spy network.]
The Latest Spy Scandal in US: Will It Be Bryen Case All Over?,
by Michael Saba, Al-Jazeera, (from Arab News), 4 September 2004
"Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Israeli Parliament’s foreign and defense committee, responding to the recent Israeli spy scandal with the United States, said recently, “I’m 100 percent confident — not 99 percent, but 100 percent — that Israel is not spying on the United States.” As the scandal broke, a friend of mine who formerly served in the US diplomatic corps e-mailed me the following: “Years ago, I asked an Israeli friend of mine why his guys kept on running spy operations against us when they could get 99 percent of our secrets from loyal Jewish-Americans for nothing. He laughed and said Israelis want 100 percent.” Former Sen. Jim Abourezk and I spoke a few days ago. He commented: “My gosh, over 25 years ago you came to my office in the US Senate and told me you had just overheard a strange conversation between an American government employee and a group of Israelis in a Washington, D.C. restaurant and you didn’t know who to report it to. I told you that I thought that AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) was probably involved in that conversation. That incident turned into an Israeli spy scandal. And the Israeli spy scandal, the Larry Franklin case, that erupted this week, started with an American government employee and a group of Israelis in a Washington, D.C. restaurant with AIPAC involved. Are there any more similarities between the two cases?” “Yeah”, I told him, “They just announced that Nathan Lewin, the attorney for that government employee 25 years ago, is the attorney for AIPAC in the case today.” In 1978, the conversation that I overheard in the restaurant and the subsequent reporting of what was said to the FBI, led to an investigation of that government employee, Stephen Bryen, and a recommendation from the FBI investigators that the matter be brought before a grand jury with charges of espionage for Israel. That case was then mysteriously dropped. I wrote a book about this case and the investigation details titled “The Armageddon Network” which was published in November of 1984. Major characters in the book in addition to Stephen Bryen and Nathan Lewin, included Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen and Elliot Abrams. Those same names have been all over the news again in the current spy scandal. When I reported the facts of the 1978 Israeli spy scandal, I initially met with John Davitt, who was then the chief of the Justice Departments Internal Security Division. Davitt had essentially run the counterespionage section of the Justice Department from the end of World War II through the Cold War and up until the late 1970s. Davitt later told me and the New York Times that, up to that point, after the Soviet Union, the second most active espionage service investigated for spying on the United States was Israel. Yet through all of this spying and many Israeli espionage cases investigated, the Bryen case was the first made public and no one had been brought to trial. Bryen not only got off without being formally charged, but he also later became a high official in the US Defense Department. Richard Perle hired him in 1981. ... Author Stephen Green wrote the foreword to “The Armageddon Network” and later wrote two books of his own, “Taking Sides” and “Living by the Sword” in the mid and late 1980s, about Israeli espionage against the United States. Green wrote an article in early 2004 about five current and former American government employees, Stephen Bryen, Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz. Through extensive research and years of Freedom of Information requests to the US government, Green had compiled files that proved that each of these five individuals had been investigated at some time during their government careers for passing information to a foreign government, namely Israel. Over twenty mainstream American publications, most of which had previously published Green’s works, rejected the article for reasons given that ranged from “nothing new here” to “this is anti-Semitic”. One pundit said, “You can’t publish something like that about Israel in an election year”. Finally the article was published on an Internet publication, CounterPunch, in late February. Green has been receiving numerous requests lately for copies of his article as the names of the five individuals that he wrote about are reappearing in the current Franklin spy scandal. Congressman John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has written to the chairman of that committee calling for a special investigation of this Israeli spy scandal and its possible connections to the Ahmad Chalabi/Iran information leakage case and misinformation regarding the US invasion of Iraq. And the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the largest Jewish organizations in North America, has called on the Bush administration to immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate the circumstances of leaks to the American media regarding suspicions of an alleged Israeli “mole” in the Pentagon. That’s right, the ADL is calling for an investigation because they feel that the leak was made with malicious intent to defame Israel, its American supporters and AIPAC. The ADL and its head, Abraham Foxman, claim that the allegations of spying for Israel are “baseless.”

[It's about time. Say the forbidden "J" word. Loud and clear. But this is merely the tip of the iceberg. Don't stop with the "neoconservatives." Check out the FULL traitorous Jewish-Zionist dual-loyalty problem in government. (Also here.]
FBI probes Jewish sway on Bush government,
By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz (Israel), September 5, 2004
"The FBI investigation into the Pentagon mole affair has expanded beyond data analyst Larry Franklin's immediate circle to encompass the entire issue of Jewish influence on the neoconservative part of the administration. The FBI queries have recently been focusing on a number of officials, all from the neoconservative wing, who had access to the debates on Iranian affairs, the Washington Post reported yesterday. The officials include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Pentagon adviser Richard Perle; adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, David Wormser; and Iran specialist Harold Rhode, all of them Jews. The Washington Post reported that FBI people recently spoke to administration officials and Middle East experts to sound them out on the suspicion that senior officials funneled secret material to Israel. They asked each official whether he believes that a certain group of people could spy for Israel and transfer secret information. The investigation now appears to center on the claim made by the opponents of the neoconservatives in the administration - that the latter are responsible for the U.S. Middle East policy and that they are suspected of bias in favor of Israel's interests. The issues being queried have also increased. It transpires that the FBI is investigating, in addition to funneling classified information to Israel, the possibility that secret information had been given to Ahmed Chalabi, of the Iraqi opposition. Chalabi was close to many of the people mentioned in the affair and was a central source of information to the Americans on the goings-on in Iraq before the war. The Washington Post said the FBI asked the administration officials about Israeli embassy officials in Washington who allegedly held contacts with administration officials to procure secret information. So far, only the name of Naor Gilon, the political adviser in the embassy, was mentioned as involved in the affair. The L.A. Times reported on Friday that the American administration does not believe Israel's contention that it does not spy on America and that U.S. government officials say Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the U.S. The officials said the FBI and other bodies spy on Israeli diplomats in Washington and New York as a matter of routine. The report said that Israel has long attempted to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, according to the Times. Israel said it set a policy of not spying on the United States after Jonathan Pollard's arrest in November 1985 and the damage it did to bilateral relations in general and to intelligence and security ties in particular."

[The story of AIPAC's spying on the American government has completely evaporated in the mainstream press. Why? Why do you think?]
New Spy Investigation Suppressed at Crucial Juncture,
by Richard H. Curtiss, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2004
"The United States is investigating another case of Israeli espionage that apparently neither the Democrats nor the Republicans want to touch until after the Nov. 2 election. This latest case involves two long-time staff members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). U.S. investigators were surveilling a lunch meeting between an AIPAC employee and an Israeli Embassy official when an unknown person joined them. The investigators had no idea who he was. The man turned out to be Lawrence A. Franklin, a mid-level civil service employee who worked for many years at the Defense Intelligence Agency. The FBI obtained warrants from a special federal court for surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and for months kept tabs on Franklin. About three years ago Franklin transferred to the staff of Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, who has spent most of his career looking out for the interests of Israel. Interestingly, Feith’s father, Dalck, was an Israeli extremist and a long-time protégé of Zev Jabotinsky. Dalck Feith, who now lives in the United States, is just as extreme today as he was all those years ago in Israel. His son Douglas, as the person in charge of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP), for some time has worked on compiling any material, no matter how vague or extreme, to make the case for military action in Iraq. Having successfully made that case, Feith and his colleagues proceeded to the next step: making the case for war on Iran. He and his staff—which now totals roughly 1,500 people—are unstinting in their efforts to start another war as soon as possible against either Iran or Syria—or both. The point is to keep the spotlight and pressure off Israel. Even though it’s clear to everyone—even to Vice President Richard Cheney—that there should be no new war immediately, that doesn’t keep Feith from putting a sinister spin on everything. After working for the Defense Intelligence Agency for most of his career, Franklin transferred to Feith’s Office of Special Plans in the summer of 2001 to deal with Iranian issues. He currently is one of two Iran desk officers who work in the OSP’s Northern Gulf directorate. Franklin works under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary for defense for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, whose office is part of the operation under Feith. Franklin is also a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, and spent at least one of his annual tours on active duty working in the Defense Attaché’s office in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in the 1990s ... The FBI’s investigation of AIPAC has been assigned to federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia. Headed by Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the office has long experience in prosecuting espionage issues. A high-ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, however, demanded that a new prosecutor be assigned to investigate the alleged leaks, questioning McNulty’s “political leanings.” In a letter to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-MI) wrote, “The role of U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty in the case has obvious political implications” in an election year. Conyers cited anonymous allegations contained in a news report that McNulty “had put the brakes on” the probe. “While I have no reason to question Mr. McNulty’s integrity,” Conyers wrote, he ”suggested that either a special counsel or U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, who is overseeing a separate probe into the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame, should take over the Pentagon probe' ... The Israeli press provided the names of two possible suspects. They are Steven Rosen, AIPAC’s director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, an AIPAC expert on Iran. It is quite possible that the FBI was looking even higher in the organization. It appears, however, that someone blew the whistle on what might have been a major scandal. Why the investigation seems to have come to a standstill is not clear ... Investigators believe that the AIPAC officials turned over Franklin’s information to the Israelis, although the exact nature of their contacts with Israel remains unclear, and it is uncertain if Franklin knew of their discussions with Israel. “It is not illegal for employees of AIPAC to meet with Pentagon officials or representatives of the Israeli government, which has wide-ranging information-sharing with the United States,” wrote New York Times correspondent David Johnson. “But knowingly passing classified materials to a foreign power could be a crime under American espionage statutes.” Franklin’s legal status is unclear. Authorities believe he gave a draft policy directive on Iran to AIPAC officials, who then provided the information to Israeli intelligence. When FBI agents visitied AIPAC headquarters on Capitol Hill, they searched Rosen’s office and copied his computer hard drive. Agents also met with AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr, who was asked about AIPAC’s structure, acoording to people who have been officially briefed on the matter. “The whole thing makes no sense to me,” said Dennis Ross, special envoy in the Arab-Israeli peace process in the first Bush and the Clinton administrations. “The Israelis have access to all sorts of people. They have access to Congress and the administration,” said Ross, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—an AIPAC spinoff."

[This link includes a list of Israel spying incidents on the United States.]
The Mother of All Scandals,
What Really Happened
"The organization at the heart of the latest spy investigation, AIPAC, wields tremendous influence over the US Congress. Through its members and affiliated PACs, AIPAC directs a huge flow of campaign cash in favor of, and occasionally against, Senators and Representatives solely on the basis of their willingness to support Israel. As an example, in 2002, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham received so much help from pro-Israeli pacs that 76% of his campaign budget came from OUTSIDE the state of Alabama, mostly from New York. Let me repeat that. A Congressman AIPAC wanted elected received more money from pro-Israel groups outside his state than from his own constituents inside his state. Who is that Congressman going to be thinking of when he votes in Congress? So here is the mother of all scandals. For two years, the FBI has suspected AIPAC of spying for a foreign country, and for those two years (and for decades before) that group suspected of spying for Israel has been reshaping the US Congress for the benefit of a foreign government. And THAT is the mother of all scandals. Think about that as billions of your tax dollars flow to Israel while your roads and schools crumble and decay and services are cut. Think about that as the coffins come home with your loved ones inside. Think about that when you and a million of your fellow citizens march down the streets of America opposing wars built on lies and deceptions and wonder why the government just doesn’t want to listen to you any more."

[World Jewish spying for Israel is kind of busy these days ... Rest assured only a tiny few are getting caught and even those usually get sprung by the world Jewish/Zionist Lobby.]
'Spy' crisis souring Israel-NZ relations,
by Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post, November 29, 2004
"Israel's non-resident ambassador-designate to New Zealand, Naphtali Tamir, is not expected to present his credentials in Wellington until after New Zealand courts rule on the appeal of two alleged Israeli spies convicted over the summer of passport fraud. The two men, Uriel Kelman, 31, and Eli Cara, 51, were released in September after serving three months of a six-month sentence for fraud, but the issue continues to cloud Jerusalem-Wellington ties. The two men, who were also fined $100,000, have since returned to Israel, but are still appealing their conviction. The appeal is expected to be heard during the first half of 2005. The New Zealand government maintains that the two were Mossad agents, and has demanded an apology from Israel and assurances this type of incident will not happen again. Israel has refused to take any formal responsibility for the two or admit they are intelligence agents ... Diplomatic officials in Jerusalem said the relationship is still in crisis, and that the crisis won't be solved until after the appeal is heard and the legal issue resolved. One official said it is in Israel's interest to "get this issue behind us," but stressed that Israel will not take any "proactive" steps until the courts rule on the appeal. He said that the non-resident New Zealand ambassador to Israel, stationed in Turkey, has not visited Israel since the incident, nor have there been any reciprocal high-level governmental visits. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, in a withering verbal attack on Israel after the sentencing in July, announced a freeze of ties with Israel including a delay in approving the appointment of a new Israeli ambassador. Clark also cancelled joint foreign ministry consultations and official visits to and from Israel, and made clear that President Moshe Katsav would not be welcome in New Zealand on a proposed visit to Australia."

[Clearly, the Supreme Court, even with 2 Jews on it, is "anti-Semitic." Anti-Defamation League, time for a press conference. The Supreme Court probably refused to take this case because the details that would come out about another prospective Jewish American spy for Israel would be too damaging for the American Jewish community and it would be tossed yet again into the limelight for standard Jewish dual loyalty -- part to the U.S. and part to Israel. Zionists filtering, hiding, veiling -- everywhere.]
U.S. Court throws out discrimination suit by Jewish soldier,
Haaretz (Israel), November 30, 2004
"An Army engineer from Michigan who said he was investigated for spying for Israel because he is Jewish won't get his religious discrimination claim heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. With no comment, the court declined to hear David Tenenbaum's appeal on Monday. Tenenbaum, of Southfield, Mich., is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army Tank Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Mich. He also is an Orthodox Jew who is fluent in Hebrew. "We're very disappointed," said Tenenbaum's attorney, Mayer Morganroth. "I would think this was something that would have been important for the court to hear." Tenenbaum sued various government agencies in 1998 after the Defense Department and the FBI put him on paid leave and investigated his ties to Israel. As part of that investigation, the FBI raided Tenenbaum's house on the Jewish Sabbath and took two of his children's drawings as evidence, Morganroth said. According to court records, Tenenbaum was considered suspicious because he was close to representatives of the Israeli armed forces and he allegedly made incriminating statements during a polygraph test he took in order to get a higher security clearance. Tenenbaum said he never made the incriminating statements and that the investigators were conspiring against him because of his religion. Tenenbaum was cleared of leaking military secrets to Israel. He continues to work at TACOM and now has the highest security classification, Morganroth said. In 2002, the U.S. District Court in Michigan ruled in favor of the government, saying that it couldn't properly defend itself because it would have to reveal classified information. It noted that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said disclosure of information in the Tenenbaum case "could ... cause serious damage to the national security." The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision earlier this year, saying even if the government focused on Tenenbaum's religious discrimination claim, it still would have to reveal sensitive information."

[Here's the usual censorial Jewish/Zionist manipulation behind the scenes, throughout American government. Older article: context for the above.]
American Engineer Who Admitted Giving Classified Information to Israel is Back at Work,
by Shawn L. Twing, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998
"An American Jewish engineer who admitted giving classified U.S. technical data “inadvertently” to Israeli officials for 10 years is back at work at a U.S. Army tank and armor maintenance and research facility, the Detroit Jewish News reported in its June 5 issue. David Tenenbaum, a 40-year-old mechanical engineer with the Tank Automotive Research and Development Engineering Center, a division of the U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren, MI, no longer is under investigation for espionage by U.S. authorities, but the circumstances surrounding his case remain confusing and suspicious. Tenenbaum was suspended from TACOM without pay and had his employee and parking badges confiscated by U.S. authorities in February 1997 after he told Defense Investigative Service and FBI agents that he divulged “non-releasable classified information to every Israeli Liaison Officer (ILO) assigned to TACOM over the last 10 years.” According to a Feb. 14, 1997 affidavit by Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Sean Nicol, “Tenenbaum stated that he inadvertently provided his Israeli contacts, specifically the ILOs and Dr. Reuven Granot, scientific deputy director, Israeli Ministry of Defense (MOD), classified information from the three Special Access Program (SAP) projects to which he had access. The non-releasable classified information provided to the Israelis by Tenenbaum includes hydra codes from the Light Armor Systems and Survivability (LASS) ceramic armor data, Advanced Survivable Test Battery (ASTB) data, Heavy Survival Test Battery (HSTB) data, and Patriot missiles countermeasures data. Additionally, Tenenbaum admitted providing the Israelis with unreleasable classified information regarding the Bradley tank and HUMV.” Immediately following the public disclosure of the FBI affidavit, there was widespread speculation in the American Jewish and Israeli press that Tenenbaum’s arrest could be the beginning of another “Pollard Affair,” a reference to convicted spy-for-Israel Jonathan J. Pollard, a civilian U.S. naval intelligence analyst who was arrested in 1985 outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC after he was refused asylum there. [According to a U.S. General Accounting Office report, Pollard gave his Israeli handlers an estimated 800,000 highly classified U.S. intelligence documents. He was sentenced in 1986 to life in prison for his crimes, which severely strained U.S.-Israeli relations. Initially the Israeli government claimed that Pollard was part of a “rogue operation.” On the 10th anniversary of his arrest, however, the Israeli government granted Pollard Israeli citizenship, and in May, 1998 formally recognized him as an agent of the state of Israel.] Very little information about the case was made public by the FBI. As quickly as the Tenenbaum story appeared last year, however, it then vanished. Only a handful of articles, most of them in Jewish community newspapers and the Detroit Free Press, have been published, and very little information about the case was made public by the FBI. From the beginning, friends of Tenenbaum and his attorney, Martin Crandall, insisted that the entire case was a misunderstanding that would be cleared up quickly. A year-and-a-half later, however, serious questions remain unanswered, and the few answers available only add to the confusion. In the most recent article on the Tenenbaum case, the Detroit Jewish News reported June 5 that he was cleared of wrongdoing by U.S. authorities. When asked to confirm the report, FBI special agent Dawn Moritz told the Washington Report that Tenenbaum had not been cleared of the charges. “All I can tell you is a two-sentence statement,” she said. “The case is closed. No criminal charges have been filed.” The implication of that FBI statement is not clear. If Tenenbaum were found innocent of the charges, it would be reasonable to assume that he had been cleared, which is different than simply not having charges filed. The former implies innocence, but the latter suggests that some kind of a deal was made or that influence was brought to bear to quash an indictment. Exactly what kind of deal, if any, was made is impossible to determine unless somebody from the FBI, David Tenenbaum, or his attorney start talking. Given the history of this investigation to date, that is an unlikely scenario. Adding to the confusion, TACOM spokesman Eric Emerton told the Detroit Jewish News that Tenenbaum has returned to work, but he may not return to his previous job. Emerton declined to say when Tenenbaum returned to work, but a source close to the investigation confirmed that he returned to TACOM in early May 1998. This is supported by the TACOM civilian personnel directory on the Internet, which was last updated on March 30, 1998, and does not list David Tenenbaum as an employee. If the FBI investigation found that Tenenbaum is innocent, why isn’t he back at his previous job? And if this all was a misunderstanding, why did it take more than a year for that to become clear? Apparently there is considerably more to this case than is being made public ... It also doesn’t help Israel or David Tenenbaum that Israeli companies, particularly Rafael, Israel’s state-owned armaments company, are very interested in weapons data related to sophisticated armors. Rafael, in fact, is a world leader in this technology. In the last year alone, Rafael has won three contracts in the United States for ceramic armor, all in competition with America’s best firms in this highly specialized field. (See “U.S. Defense Firm Protests Marine Corps Contract Awarded to Israel’s Rafael Armaments Company,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1998, p. 48.) If Israeli engineers had access via David Tenenbaum to U.S. test data, as the FBI affidavit claims, it certainly could provide Rafael an advantage in building better, less expensive armor. Unfortunately, the public may never know exactly what was discovered during the FBI’s 12-month investigation of David Tenenbaum."

[*** YES! YES! YES! There IS a Santa Claus! But don't stop at AIPAC, guys, KEEP GOING. You're only standing on the tail. Get it all or it will come back.]
FBI searches pro-Israel group's office
Possible espionage probed; employees subpoenaed,
CNN, December 1, 2004
"FBI agents searched the offices of a pro-Israel lobbying group Wednesday as part of an espionage probe, two government sources told CNN. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, said the government also subpoenaed four senior staff members to appear before a federal grand jury. The probe involves allegations that a Pentagon analyst passed classified information to Israel through two employees of the organization, the sources said. Government officials previously told CNN the information that allegedly was passed included a draft presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran. Government sources refused to give a reason for Wednesday's search -- the second of the AIPAC offices -- because the search warrant is under seal. "It's just a normal investigative procedure," one official said. The investigation of AIPAC, which became public in late August, has been going on for many months. An FBI spokeswoman refused to comment on the search. In a statement released late Wednesday afternoon, AIPAC said it "learned in August that the FBI was investigating two AIPAC employees when the authorities visited the AIPAC offices and requested and obtained computer files related to these two employees. "Today, the FBI returned and requested and obtained additional files relating to the same two AIPAC staff members and delivered subpoenas requiring the appearance of four senior AIPAC staff before a grand jury." The group said it has done nothing wrong. "Neither AIPAC nor any member of our staff has broken any law," it said in the statement posted on its Web site. "We are fully cooperating with the governmental authorities. We believe any court of law or grand jury will conclude that AIPAC employees have always acted legally, properly and appropriately. "Despite the false and baseless allegations that have been reported, AIPAC will not be distracted from our central mission of supporting America's interests in the Middle East and advocating for a strong relationship with Israel." In August, AIPAC said it was assisting the government's investigation, including providing documents and information and making staff members available for interviews. Sources have told CNN that two AIPAC employees were previously interviewed by the FBI. The Pentagon analyst's lawyer told The Los Angeles Times his client did not engage in any espionage activities. CBS News, which first reported the story in August, said the FBI had developed evidence that included photographs and conversations recorded through wiretaps. The network said the Pentagon analyst has ties to two senior Pentagon officials: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. A spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington denied in August that the country had spied on the United States."

[We suggest that these AIPAC guys be handed over as "terrorists" to Osama Bin Laden in exchange for world peace or something. Even a can of sardines.]
Subpoenas issued for officials of pro-Israel lobby group,
By Warren P. Strobel and Shannon McCaffrey, Knight Ridder Newspapers, December 1, 2004
"FBI agents executed search warrants Wednesday at the headquarters of a leading pro-Israel lobby and delivered grand jury subpoenas in an ongoing probe of alleged espionage for Israel, federal officials and the lobby group said. The search and the subpoenas for four top officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee indicate that the politically charged investigation remains active. No criminal charges have been filed in the case. AIPAC, one of Washington's most influential lobbies, said in a statement that neither the group nor its employees have broken any law. "We are fully cooperating with the governmental authorities. We believe any court of law or grand jury will conclude that AIPAC employees have always acted legally, properly and appropriately," it said. The lobby group said that the FBI, which in August obtained computer files related to two AIPAC employees, returned Wednesday "and requested and obtained additional files relating to the same two AIPAC staff members and delivered subpoenas requiring the appearance of four senior AIPAC staff before a grand jury." U.S. officials previously have identified the two staff members as Steven Rosen, AIPAC's director of foreign policy issues, and Keith Weissman, his deputy and an Iran expert. The two men have hired prominent Washington lawyer Abbe Lowell to represent them. Lowell's firm, Chadbourne & Park, had no comment."

More Spies here.