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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 9/14/12

The Separate Security Interests of the United States and Israel

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Israel granted citizenship to Pollard in 1995 and has acknowledged that he spied for the country.   He was visited by Benjamin Netanyahu in prison in 2002.   Pollard's request for presidential clemency is presently being considered by the Obama administration.

Following Pollard's conviction, Israel swore to the U.S. that it would cease its espionage activities against the United States.   Since then, the spying has continued unabated, as has been the flow of U.S. assistance in the amount of $60 billion, mostly in military hardware.

Stewart Nozette, a former White House National Space Council planetary scientist, pled guilty to attempted espionage against the United States in 2011, after attempting to sell missile defense and nuclear secrets to an undercover FBI agent pretending to be a Mossad agent.   Nozette bragged that the material he had for sale had cost the United States between $200 million and $1 billion to develop."

Nozette later admitted he had already received $225,000 in "consulting fees" between 1998 and 2008 from (state-owned) Israel Aerospace Industries for obtaining and turning over secret "technical data."   Nozette was sentenced to 13 years in prison; however, the Israeli government and its company were shielded from the investigation.

An employee of the U.S. Department of Defense pled guilty in 2005 to passing classified documents to two officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).   In the plea negotiation, he stated he handed over classified information because he thought U.S. policy was not sufficiently pro-Israel.

The two AIPAC employees were indicted for illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to Israel.   After almost five years of court proceedings, the case against the two was dismissed as a result of "graymail" in which the defense would require the disclosure of classified information and because of doubts the government would be able to prevail at trial.

A CIA report confirms that U.S. officials in Israel assume that all of their political conversations are monitored.   The report stated that in addition to political espionage, Israel targets "a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence."

Since 9-11, the U.S. National Security Agency sweeps up massive amounts of electronic communications within the United States, including email messages, Internet activity and telephone conversations.   The telecommunication companies Verizon and AT&T handle 90 percent of U.S. electronic communications.

Inasmuch as they are required by law to allow access to the government, these companies have formed business relationships with Israeli companies, such as Narius Inc. and Verint, to filter and organize the communications.   These connections provide Israeli with a real-time mirror of all such communications.

Verint is a subsidiary of Comverse Technology, which is an extension of the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade, which provides 50 percent of its research and development costs.   Both Comverse and Narius have close connections with Israeli intelligence agencies.   These connections allow Israel to have direct, or "trojan horse" access to most U.S. communications, and U.S. companies are too dependent upon the technology to deny access.

Today, the CIA considers Israel to be the primary counterintelligence threat to its operations in the Middle East.   In other words, U.S. secrets are more vulnerable to Israeli spying, than any other government in the area, including Iran.

In its annual report to Congress on "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage,"   Israel shares top billing with China as maintaining "an active program to gather proprietary information in the United States."

A ranking of foreign intelligence agencies by the CIA during the Bush administration, placed Israel below Libya in its willingness to help the United States to fight terrorism.

Celebrating 9-11.   The most disturbing example of policy differences between the United States and Israel took place during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

There is a convincing body of circumstantial evidence that Israel was aware of the impending attacks and allowed them to go forth in order to achieve solidarity with the United States.

Shortly before the 9-11 attacks, then former, and present, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was secretly videotaped while making "candid" observations about United States' support of and world opinion about Israel's policies.   Speaking about the "war of terror," he says that Israel should hit the "Arabs": "Not just one hit, so many painful hits that the price will be too heavy to be borne."   A woman said, "but then the world will say, 'how come you're conquering again?'"   Netanyahu responds, "The world won't say a thing.   The world will say we're defending."   The woman asks if he is afraid of the world, and Netanyahu replies, "Especially today with America.   I know what America is.   America is something that can easily be moved.   Moved to the right correction....They won't get in our way."

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William John Cox authored the Policy Manual of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Role of the Police in America for a National Advisory Commission during the Nixon administration. As a public interest, pro bono, attorney, he filed a class action lawsuit in 1979 petitioning the Supreme Court to order a National Policy Referendum; he investigated and successfully sued a group of radical (more...)
 
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