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Pentagon Memo Tells of Israel's 'Spy Aggression' —The Daily Telegraph (London)
A secret Pentagon memo on the depth of Israeli spying within the United States has warned defence contractors to beware of Israel's "aggressive" methods in stealing American secrets. It said that Israel was hunting for military and industrial technology, from spy satellite data to missile defence information. Espionage directed by the Israeli Mossad intelligence service against its key ally has always been a touchy issue because the Israeli government receives $3 billion (pounds 1.9 billion) a year in US aid. The memo, written by an industrial security specialist at the Defence Investigative Service in Syracuse, New York, has infuriated the powerful Jewish lobby, particularly as it warns 250 firms involved in classified work to look out for the "ethnic targeting" of US citizens. [click here to continue] |
Defense Memo Warned of Israeli Spying —The Washington Post
A Defense Department security office issued a confidential warning to many military contractors in October that the Israeli government was "aggressively" trying to steal U.S. military and intelligence secrets, partly by using its "strong ethnic ties" to the United States to recruit spies. The warning, which described Israel as a "non-traditional adversary" in the world of espionage, was circulated by the Defense Investigative Service with a memo noting similar intelligence "threats" from other close U.S. allies. The warning about Israel was "canceled" and withdrawn by the Pentagon in December after senior officials decided its author had improperly singled out Jewish "ethnicity" as a specific counterintelligence concern. [click here to continue] |
40-Year History of Espionage Against the United States —The Christian Science Monitor
The pattern of Israeli spying on the United States may be shown by a review of selected cases going back to the founding of the state of Israel. To the best of my knowledge, with one exception none of the cases below have previously been publicized. They are based on either documents released under the Freedom of Information Act or interviews with current counterintelligence agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or with retired FBI and Justice Department officials. 1940s - The first Israeli military attache sent to Washington in June 1948, Efraim Ben-Artzi, set up a four-man board to conduct espionage in the US. The board was composed of Ben-Artzi himself, a member of the Israeli US delegation in New York, a US citizen who was a New York lawyer, and a professional intelligence agent who came and went from Tel Aviv, operating as a case officer. [click here to continue] |
When Allies Spy, Should We Look Other Way? —The Phoenix Gazette
The recent revelation in the Washington Post of a Defense Department employee's warning to military contractors that the Israeli government was "aggressively" trying to steal U.S. military and intelligence secrets has jarred sensitive nerves. The confidential warning was forwarded to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith by a military contractor, and the ADL then sent a copy of the warning to Secretary of Defense William Perry, whose assistant for command, control, communicationsand intelligence, Emmett Paige, then sent a letter to the ADL saying the warning had no basis in policy. "I want to stress that the content of this document does not reflect the official position of the Defense Department," Mr. Paige said. As the Post article put it: "The government memo, and the ADL's angryreaction to it, highlight a particularly delicate issue for the Defense Department. Many military counterintelligence officials remain scarred by the1985 revelation that Navy intelligence
analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard stole what the memo refers to as 'vast quantities of classified information' on Israel's behalf over a 17-month period." [click here to continue] |
U.S. Jewish Groups On Wrong Side In Israeli Spy Case —The Houston Chronicle
Several major American Jewish organizations are urging President Clinton to free Jonathan Pollard, the former naval intelligence specialist who in 1987 was sentenced to life in prison for passing classified documents to Israel. Only in an era virtually devoid of insinuations of dual loyalty would Jewish leaders risk lobbying publicly on behalf of a Jew who spied for Israel against the United States. So it is perhaps heartening that groups like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, B'nai B'rith and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations feel free to advocate Pollard's release; but it is nonetheless baffling that they should choose to do so. Pollard's supporters make three arguments - two are disingenuous and the third is genuinely troubling. The first, as offered by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, is that Pollard should be released on humanitarian grounds. Malcolm Hoenlein, the conference's executive vice chairman, noted that Pollard's "health has deteriorated" and that it is "time to let him go rebuild his life." This makes no sense. [click here to continue]
Misguided Support for Spy With Misguided Loyalties —The Christian Science Monitor
It's time for the Israelis to stop whining about Jonathan Jay Pollard, the United States Navy civilian intelligence analyst who was caught spying for them 10 years ago. Mr. Pollard was arrested Nov. 21, 1985 outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, where he had gone in an unsuccessful quest for asylum. He pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The United States was angry, and Israel was embarrassed, but that's not unusual when friends spy on each other, as they do, despite protestations to the contrary. If everyone had shut up, that would have been the end of it. But after an initial period of confusion, the Israelis have refused to shut up. One prime minister after another has badgered American presidents (both Bush and Clinton) for clemency. Members of the Israeli parliament have signed petitions for clemency. Members of the Israeli parliament have signed petitions for clemency. [click here to continue] |
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'LA Times': FBI suspects Israel of industrial espionage —The Jerusalem Post
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has accused Israel of being one of the major players in industrial espionage that cost the US $ 300 billion last year, according to a report in yesterday's Los Angeles Times. Despite passage of the 1996 Economic Espionage Act, the FBI says foreign spies have stepped up their attacks on US-based companies. Governments of at least 23 countries, ranging from Germany to China, are targeting US firms, according to the FBI. Urging US firms to notify the FBI if they suspect espionage, Larry Torrence, deputy assistant director for national security, said: "The odds are not favorable for any American company when it is targeted for clandestine action by some country's intelligence service." [click here to continue]
Israel Calling A Halt To Software Piracy —The Boston Globe
Ask an Israeli how to say "intellectual property theft," and you'll probably be met with a blank stare. Hebrew has no word for the illegal appropriation of ideas, and the lack of recognition itself may contribute to the high rate of piracy in Israel. Software, CDs, video cassettes - none of them are sacred. More than half of Israeli businesses use pirated software, according to the Business Software Alliance, a US-based organization that tracks piracy. Last year, the proliferation of counterfeit CD manufacturing plants deprived music distributors of $ 67 million from Israel. But the loss to software companies, estimated at $ 57 million, is what most irks American business. [click here to continue]
Israel's Growing Piracy Threat —Los Angeles Times
On one side of the small, smoky office sat a former Tel Aviv police officer, now working in copyright enforcement for the Israeli music industry. On the other, the owners of a Palestinian factory reputed to be churning out thousands of bootleg compact discs a day. Across a steel desk cluttered with overflowing ashtrays, tiny cups of sweet coffee and plates of baklava, the men spent nearly three hours one recent evening trading accusations. Then the Palestinians made a startling offer. "We said: 'We are doing nothing wrong. But if this factory bothers you so much, why don't you buy it?' " said Nour abu Maizur, Palestinian attorney for Lazer CD Co., recalling the Feb. 24 meeting at a military coordination office in this divided city. " 'Or bring us the same amount of work we do now. [click here to continue]
Soft Talk Masks A Harder Line Against High-Tech Piracy —Financial Times (London)
When Edward Walker, US ambassador to Israel, addressed a crowd of leading Israeli businessmen at an annual dinner last week, he made no mention of the stalled peace process. However, he had plenty to say about the country's business ethics. In diplomatic language, Mr Walker urged Israel to crack down on intellectual property rights offenders. Behind the soft talk, the businessmen knew the US was serious. At least one large Israeli company has already been disqualified from a US government tender for intellectual property rights violations. In early May - and in far less diplomatic terms - the US
trade representative upgraded Israel to its "priority watch list" for copyright offenders, especially in audio CD, video and software counterfeiting. [click here to continue]
US Embassy: Israeli Piracy Costs US Firms $ 170m —The Jerusalem Post
The US Embassy and local business and entertainment officials launched an attack yesterday on the government for what they described as its failure to stop piracy in the software and entertainment industries. The embassy, which warned that trade sanctions against Israel could result if action is not taken soon, announced at a pressconference in Herzliya that copyright infringement in Israel is costing US companies an annual $ 170 million in lost profits. In April last year the US placed Israel on a priority watch list, because of the high level of counterfeiting in the software, music,and video industries. Israel is the only country presently on this list. [click here to continue]
36 Arrested In Extensive Video Piracy Ring —The New York Times
Saying they had uncovered the largest video piracy operation yet seen in the United States, officials in Manhattan yesterday announced the arrests of 36 people on charges of producing and distributing hundreds of thousands of videotapes of American first-run movies and Asian karate and pornographic films. The sophisticated nationwide operation, led by two related families of Israeli immigrants, the Halalis and the Sudrys of Brooklyn, produced over 100,000 videos and grossed over $500,000 a week, District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of Manhattan said yesterday. It made its own blank tapes, copied stolen videos in round-the-clock "factories," distributed the pirated tapes, and even franchised its operation for a fee. Some of the videos recovered in a large-scale seizure by the police last Thursday were of movies that had not yet been released in theaters. [click here to continue]
Economic Espionage —The Times-Picayune
With the end of the Cold War, the task of intelligence and counterintelligence agencies has had to be revised. The emphasis has been shifted to a considerable degree to terrorism and counterterrorism. Now, as far as domestic counterintelligence goes, an urgent interest is to protect our economy and high-tech industries from economic espionage. The world is no longer sorted out according to nuclear-weapons capability. Competition and cooperation now order international relationships, and there are far more players in that game than there were in the game of nuclear threat and deterrence. An FBI analysis of 173 nations found that 57 were covertly trying to obtain advanced technological proprietary information from American corporations. The Soviets were always at this, of course, but the current adversaries are not old enemies but many old friends. [click here to continue]
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The Pollard Case And Israel - The Last Straw? —The Christian Science Monitor
The Pollard affair has made a difference in the American reaction to Israeli behavior when such behavior is contrary to United States interests. In this case the guilty person, Jonathan Jay Pollard, has been given life imprisonment for spying on the United States. The Israeli official who had ''handled Pollard'' and was later promoted has been indicted by a federal grand jury. He would be arrested if US authorities could get their hands on him. The deed has been branded officially as having damaged the US. The secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, stated in an affidavit to the court that tried and sentenced Pollard that it isdifficult ''to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant.'' [click here to continue]
Israeli Statement on Pollard Spy Case Questioned —The Washington Post
From the moment Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested last Nov. 21 outside the Israeli Embassy here, a central question has been whether Pollard's spying was authorized by the Israeli government or was a "renegade" operation that functioned without the knowledge of top Israeli leaders. The government of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres has steadfastly maintained that the Pollard case was a "deviation" from Israel's long-standing policy of not spying on the United States and that the operation functioned without the knowledge of Peres or other top Israeli leaders. However, U.S. law enforcement officials familiar with the Pollard investigation said this week that evidence developed in the case raises serious questions about the credibility of the official Israel position. [click here to continue]
Shultz Rebukes Israel For Not Punishing Spy Figures —Los Angeles Times
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said today that he was "deeply distressed" by Israeli spying on the United States and rebuked Jerusalem for not punishing two key officials involved in the Jonathan Jay Pollard case. Shultz told a House appropriations subcommittee that he had ordered American diplomats to shun Israeli Gen. Aviem Sella, who was indicted last week by a federal grand jury here, and the air force base he commands. "I think it is very disheartening to find that Israel has been spying on the United States,"Shultz said. "I am deeply distressed about the spying on the United States by any country, and perhaps it hurts especially when it's Israel." Shultz said Israel had cooperated in the U.S. investigation only "to a degree" and that Sella and Rafael Eitan, who was named a co-conspirator, "seemed to us to have been treated in a way that is not warranted." Sella was promoted to take charge of the Tel-nof Air Base after the Pollard case broke. Eitan, who headed the now-disbanded espionage unit in the Israeli Defense Ministry, became chairman of Israel Chemicals Co., the largest state-owned firm. [click here to continue]
'Shocked' Israel Investigates Charge by U.S. of Espionage —The New York Times
Israeli officials said today that the Government was investigating whether its intelligence agents had spied on the United States, but they said the country's top political leaders had no prior knowledge of such operations. The statement followed the arrest Thursday of Jonathan Jay Pollard, 31 years old, a civilian employee of the Naval Intelligence Service in Suitland, Md., who has been accused of selling classified code information to Israel over the past 18 months. He was taken into custody near the Israeli Embassy in Washington. In its first detailed statement since the arrest, the Foreign Ministry today did not rule out the possibility that an Israeli intelligence agency might have been involved in spying on the United States. [click here to continue]
Israel Now Admits Pollard Was Its Agent —The New York Times
Israel today officially recognized Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew jailed in the United States for spying for Israel, as its agent -- 13 years after he was denied sanctuary in its Washington Embassy. Israeli officials said they hoped the move would make it easier for Israel to negotiate for the early release of Mr. Pollard, a former United States Navy intelligence analyst, who is serving a life sentence. "The state has announced that Jonathan Pollard acted as an Israeli agent handled by those serving as senior officials of the Bureau for Scientific Relations," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman said in a statement. Mr. Pollard was caught in 1985 after passing Israel information on Arab countries that he said the United States should not have withheld from an ally. [click here to continue]
U.S. Now Tells of Much Deeper Damage by Pollard Than Thought —The New York Times
Adamant that President Clinton refuse requests that he grant clemency to Jonathan J. Pollard, an American spy for Israel, United States military and intelligence officials say Mr. Pollard did more damage to national security than the public has been told. An article to be published in The New Yorker on Monday cites those officials as saying that Mr. Pollard, who was arrested in 1985 and is now serving a life sentence, gave Israel invaluable American intelligence secrets in exchange for payments of $50,000 and promises of $540,000 more. Intelligence officials today confirmed the gist of the magazine article, written by the investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh. United States intelligence officials have long suspected that information delivered to Israel by Mr. Pollard was subsequently obtained by the Soviet intelligence services -- either deliberately handed over by Israel in exchange for freedom for Soviet Jews or surreptitiously obtained by Moscow's spies in Israel. Mr. Pollard and his supporters have contended that he did not do real damage to American national security and should be pardoned or paroled. [click here to continue] |
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