Aipac Spying Case Heats Up Richard

AIPAC Spying Case Heats up

Richard Sales, veteran UPI terrorism correspondent, reveals the explosive information that

‘ In 2001, the FBI discovered new, “massive” Israeli spying operations in the East Coast, including New York and New Jersey, said one former senior U.S. government official. ‘

It was the uncovering of these spy rings that led the FBI to put Naor Gilon, the chief of political affairs at the Israeli embassy in Washington, under videotape surveillance. They were “floored” when Larry Franklin walked in and sat down and began offering Gilon a confidential document. Franklin was one of two Iran desk officers for the Near East and South Asia bureau at the Pentagon.

Franklin reported to Bill Luti, who in turn reported to Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Department of Defense. Feith is a long-time activist in the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, which mobilized throughout the 1990s to destroy the Oslo peace process and ensure continued Israeli land grabs in the West Bank. Karen Kwiatkowski reported that a phalanx of Israeli generals marched into Feith’s office before the Iraq war, without signing in as regulations required. Feith organized the “Office of Special Plans,” also staffed largely with JINSA and other rightwing Zionist activists, which cherry-picked intelligence so as to make a (false) case for the Iraq war.

Sale reports more on what exactly suspected Pentagon spy Lawrence Franklin was passing to the Israeli embassy concerning US plans for Iran:

‘ Larry Franklin, a Pentagon analyst in the Near East and South Asia office who worked for the Defense Department’s Office of Special Plans confessed last August to federal agents he had held meetings with a contact from the Israeli government during which he passed a highly classified document on U.S. policy toward Iran, these sources said. The document advocated support for Iranian dissidents, covert actions to destabilize the Iranian government, arming opponents of the Islamic regime, propaganda broadcasts into Iran, and other programs, these sources said. The FBI was also interested in finding out if Franklin was involved or could name any Pentagon colleagues who were involved in passing to Israel certain data about National Security Agency intercepts, these sources said. ‘

The FBI is looking hard at a number of high-ranking officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a high-powered coordinator of donations to congressional races by pro-Israel lobbies. AIPAC is so successful that virtually no speeches critical of Israeli policy are ever given Congress, even though such speeches are given in most democratic parliaments in the world, and representatives and congressmen are afraid to sign letters in support of the Palestinians or even of a genuine peace process.

In fact, AIPAC can arrange for representatives and senators to sign the most outrageous and one-sided letters to the president demanding support for virtually all Israeli military and foreign policy goals. That is how a boycott of Syria, a country that had been extremely valuable to the US in the war on terror, was passed. The congress was induced to give up Syrian help and expertise in fighting radical Muslim terrorists for the sake of a minor gesture to make Israel’s ruling Likud Party happy. This level of the control of congress by what is essentially the agent of a foreign government has deeply distorted US foreign policy and made the US a dishonest broker. US knee-jerk support of Israel’s crackdown on Palestinians was cited by Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, the top al-Qaeda planner of 9/11, as his prime motivation for hitting the United States.

Sale summarizes recent actions in the case, which involve the FBI looking very hard at some top AIPAC officials:

‘ On Dec. 1, FBI agents visited the AIPAC offices in Washington and seized the hard drives and files of Steven Rosen, director of research, and Keith Weissman, deputy director of foreign policy issues. The FBI also served subpoenas on AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr, Managing Director Richard Fishman, Communications Director Renee Rothstein, and Research Director Raphael Danziger. All are suspected of having acted as “cut outs” or intermediaries who passed highly sensitive U.S. data from high-level Pentagon and administration officials to Israel, said one former federal law enforcement official. One current FBI consultant said Rosen’s name had first been given to the FBI in 1986, along with 70 possible incidents of Israeli espionage against the United States. No action was taken against him, this source said. Rosen’s attorney did not return phone calls. ‘

Reporter Laura Rozen interprets a recent article in The Forward to indicate that indictments are likely in the case.

AIPAC denies any wrongdoing, and Lawrence Franklin has mysteriously been provided with a high-powered attorney with long experience defending spies, as a result of which he has ceased cooperating with the FBI.

Many past alleged cases of spying for the Israelis on the part of AIPAC and similar organizations have been dropped because of political pressure from their American patrons (/clients?)