Summary of the Isreali Spy Ring Scandal

You have to ask yourself, why the deafening silence on this?

Here is an extract from Janes Intelligence Digest

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid020313_1_n.shtml

"13 March 2002
Allies and espionage

It is rather strange that the US media seems to be ignoring what may well be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks — the alleged break-up of a major Israeli espionage operation in the USA.

The FBI was quick to dismiss a 4 March report by Intelligence Online . . . but has agreed that an undisclosed number of Israeli students have been expelled for “immigration violations”.

If the reports from Paris are correct, it would be the largest known Israeli espionage operation in the USA, Israel’s closest ally and one on which it depends for its survival.\"


Here is the extract from the front page of Intelligence Online

 who have received a copy of the US calssified report linking the spies to 9-11

www.intelligenceonline.com

SPOTLIGHT
Israeli Spy Operation Confirmed
14/03/02 - Intelligence Online is now in possession of new evidence that the \"Israeli spy ring affair\" was examined at the highest levels of the Bush administration, in the form of a letter from the Attorney General\'s office.

Here is a diagram from their report showing the Texan element of the spyring.

And here is an overview from www.whatreallyhappened.com

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/spyring.html


\"Israel does not spy on the United States of America.\"
-- Mark Regev, a spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington

Prior to 9/11, the FBI had discovered the presence of a massive spy ring inside the United States run by the government of Israel. This seems a harsh gratitude from a nation which obtains 10% of its annual budget from the American taxpayer, $3+ billion a year. Over the years, American taxpayers have been required to send Israel more than four times what the US spent to go to the moon.

What Israel has done in return was to set up government subsidized telecommunications companies which operate here in the United States. One of these companies is Amdocs, which provides billing and directory assistance for 90% of the phone companies in the USA. Amdocs\' main computer center for billing is actually in Israel and allows those with access to do what intelligence agencies call \"traffic analysis\"; a picture of someone\'s activities based on a pattern of who they are calling and when. Another Israeli telecom company is Comverse Infosys, which subcontracts the installation of the automatic tapping equipment now built into every phone system in America. Comverse maintains its own connections to all this phone tapping equipment, insisting that it is for maintenance purposes only. However, Converse has been named as the most likely source for leaked information regarding telephone calls by law enforcement that derailed several investigations into not only espionage, but drug running as well. Yet another Israeli telecom company is Odigo, which provides the core message passing system for all the \"Instant Message\" services. Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees received a warning. Odigo has an office 2 blocks from the former location of the World Trade Towers.

Let us be clear here. There is nothing benign about Israel spying on the United States. When Jonathan Pollard stole our nuclear secrets (which your taxes paid to develop) and sent them to Israel, Israel did not hesitate to trade those secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas.

The implication of these facts is that the billions of our tax dollars sent to Israel (while women and children sleep in America\'s alleys and eat out of trash bins) have bought and paid for a monstrous phone tracking and phone tapping system that can eavesdrop on almost any phone call in America. Even the White House phones were open to such tapping by listening in on the other end outside the White House itself.

This actually happened. The Ken Starr report on Whitewater describes how Bill Clinton informed Monica Lewinsky that their phone sex conversations had been recorded. At the same time, Clinton ordered the FBI to cease the hunt for an Israeli mole known to be operating inside the White House itself!

So here we have a foreign nation able to listen in on most phones at will, using taps that cannot be found because they are built into the phone system itself, and willing to use the information gleaned from those calls to blackmail Americans into any desired course of action. This may well be what Ariel Sharon meant when he stated that the Jewish people control America.

That the information gleaned from these phone taps is being used to coerce the behavior of key individuals in the US Government and media is illustrated by the manner in which the government and the media have handled this scandal of the largest spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, and of phone taps on all of our phones. They are downplaying it. Actually, burying it is a better word.

Fox News, alone of all the media, actually ran the story as a four part broadcast, and put the story up on its web site. Then, without explanation, Fox News erased the story from their web site and have never mentioned it again. CNN followed by \"Orwellizing\" their report of the two hour advance warning of the WTC attacks sent to Odigo employees. But far more telling is the admission made by a US Official in part one of the Fox News report that hard evidence existed linking the events of 9/11 not to Arab Muslims, but to some of the more than 200 Israeli spies arrested both before and after 9/11, but that this evidence had been CLASSIFIED.

Since then, any and all mention of the Israeli spy ring and phone tapping scandal has resulted in a barrage of shrill screams of \"hate\" and \"anti-Semite\", two well worn and frankly over used devices to try to silence discussion on any topic unfavorable to the nation which owns the spy ring in question.

The story of the uncovering of the largest spy ring ever discovered inside the United States should be the story of the century, if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people. That this spy ring helped drug smugglers evade investigators should be a major scandal, if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people. That the spy ring includes companies able to track and tap into any phone in America, including the White House, should be a cause celebre\', if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people.

But they are not. The media is trying to bury this story. They are spiking it, erasing it from their web sites in a chilling real-life Orwellian rewriting of history.

The actions of the US media are those of people trying to protect this spy ring and those that the spy ring worked for.

The actions of the US media are those of traitors to the American people.\"



And finally, this from a US regional newspaper

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/fishwrapper.html

The spies who came in from the art sale
Some reporters have said what U.S. and Israeli officials don\'t want to hear


Good advice for journalists is to take note of where the rest of your colleagues are staring, then turn 180 degrees and see what your pals have missed. Often it\'s a story. Sometimes a scary one.

A major international espionage saga has many of its roots right here in Atlanta. Incredibly, you haven\'t read about it in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution even though that paper\'s Washington bureau last week reported the seething scandal.

It\'s a touchy subject, to be sure, because it isn\'t Saddam, Fidel, Osama or even what passes nowadays for the KGB spying on America -- but our \"friend\" in the war against \"evil,\" Israel.

In an era where CNN CEO Walter Issacson says it would be \"perverse\" to televise Afghan babies killed by U.S. bombs, it\'s not surprising some stories go unnoticed by a press that embraces \"patriotism\" by ignoring sacred cows.

One of those cattle is what\'s happening in Israel and Palestine. Reporters know that to criticize Israel -- to point out, for example, that wanton killing of innocents is equally devilish whether committed by Ariel Sharon\'s soldiers flying U.S.-made helicopters, or by a Hamas suicide bomber who pushes the button -- is to risk being called an anti-Semite.

Even with that background, however, it\'s a little hard to understand the media\'s avoidance of the spy story I\'m going to tell you.

In 1999, word began spreading among intelligence agencies about bands of Israeli \"students\" doing veeeerrrrry strange things, such as popping up around federal buildings and military establishments marketing artwork.

According to intelligence sources, low-level alerts began being flashed around to offices of the FBI, DEA, federal prosecutors and others. By March 2001, counterintelligence officials had issued a bulletin to be on the watch for Israelis masquerading as \"art students.\"

At the same time, American intelligence services were increasingly worried by the dominance of many highly sensitive areas of telecommunications by Israeli companies. Comverse Infosys (now called Verint) provides U.S. lawmen with computer equipment for wiretapping. Speculation is that \"catch gates\" in the system allowed listeners to be listened to. Other software called Amdocs provided extensive records of virtually all calls placed by the 25 largest U.S. telephone companies.

Often the Israeli \"students\" sold their artwork on street locations near federal buildings. In one incident in Atlanta, they showed up outside an unlisted FBI office and began taking photos, according to sources. Agents collared them and sent them on their way.

Also in our town, a DEA agent recalled seeing the \"students\" selling art around his offices. Later, when he spied the same artwork (Chinese made, as it turned out) at the Mall of Georgia, he became suspicious. The DEA is the lead U.S. agency in monitoring money laundering -- which would explain a spy\'s interest.

Similarly, a former federal prosecutor was visited at his home by the Israeli \"art salesmen\" -- and, according to sources, concluded that, wow, this was exactly what the alerts had been about.

Then came Sept. 11. While America was mesmerized by the \"War on Terrorism,\" the media went out to a four-martini lunch when it came to skeptical reporting.

With a few commendable exceptions. One of those is Carl Cameron, a gutsy reporter for Fox News. On Dec. 12, Cameron broke the blockbuster spy story. He said at the time: \"Since Sept. 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new PATRIOT anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.\"

That was enough of a gut-kick. Then Cameron threw this incendiary bomb: \"There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it.\"

Fox also reported the Israeli \"students\" \"targeted and penetrated\" U.S. military bases.

In the rest of the world -- Europe, Arab countries and Israel, especially -- the story made headlines. Even the official Chinese news agency perked up. Not in our well-defended (against disturbing news) homeland, however.

Cameron, in an interview, said he doesn\'t believe the conspiracy theories about why the story was ignored here. An honest scribe, he points to a shortcoming in his own work -- one hammered on by Israeli critics at the time -- conceding \"there were no [on-the-record] interviews. I didn\'t tell other reporters where to find the documents. They couldn\'t do instant journalism.\"

Others at Fox confirm there was intense pressure on the network by pro-Israeli lobbying groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the misnamed Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA).

\"These charges are arrant nonsense unworthy of the usually reliable Fox News,\" CAMERA huffed in a Dec. 12 release.

Cameron reported Dec. 13 that federal agents were afraid to criticize Israel. \"Investigators within the DEA, INS and FBI have all told Fox News that to pursue or even suggest Israeli spying ... is considered career suicide.\"

Cameron told me in similar language that\'s what journalists also can face. And, what\'s clear is that Fox quickly removed the story from its website. (Fox reposted the story last week after other media finally picked it up.)

The story pretty much fell asleep before Christmas. Then, all hell broke loose in the last 10 days. A French Web-based service, Intelligence Online, obtained the same 61-page June 2001 federal report that Cameron had. The website reported that 120 Israelis had by now been detained or deported by U.S. authorities.

Let me repeat that: 120 potential spies. This isn\'t worth press curiosity?

Few papers have given the story significant space. Many, like the AJC, haven\'t uttered a peep.

Some of what has seeped out is disturbing. The Oklahoman reported last week that 10 months ago four Israelis peddling artwork (but carrying military IDs) were detained near Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Le Monde in Paris recounted that six intercepted \"students\" had cell phones purchased by an Israeli vice consul in the United States. Sources told CL that many of the phones had a walkie-talkie feature that was virtually impossible to intercept.

Intelligence Online connected many dots, naming which Israelis were employed by the tech companies, and what military specialties they had (\"special forces,\" \"intelligence officer,\" \"explosive ordnance/combat engineer,\" \"electronic intercept operator\" -- even \"son of Israeli army general\").

Many of the apparent operatives had set up shop at addresses only stones\' throws from Arabs in San Diego, Little Rock, Irving, Texas, and in South Florida. Especially in Florida, where 10 of the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists lived, the French report bolsters speculation that the Israelis might have gained advanced knowledge of the attack -- and not passed on that critical intelligence to the United States.

Bush administration shills were quick to try and spin the story. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Susan Dryden, called the Intelligence Online report an \"urban myth,\" and other federal flaks trumpeted that no Israeli had been charged with or deported for spying. Of course, in the Great Game, \"friendly\" spies are seldom embarrassed by being called by their true colors.

Predictably, Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Reguev derided the Intelligence Online report as \"nonsense.\" Israel in the past has stridently denied wrongdoing until long after the truth was obvious. Israel claimed Jonathan Pollard -- a super spy who did horrendous, deadly damage to the United States until arrested in 1985 -- wasn\'t an agent. And, Israel has stubbornly contended its 1967 attack on the USS Liberty, in which 35 American sailors were killed, was an accident -- a lie exposed in recent reports including one that aired last fall on the History Channel. A recent authoritative book, Body of Secrets, by James Bamford, concludes that National Security Agency officials \"were virtually unanimous in their belief that the attack was deliberate.\"

Following U.S. denials of the recent spy story, Intelligence Online editor Guillaume Dasquie threatened to post the sensitive report online. He commented: \"The document we have in our possession details not only the identities of the members of this network, but also their activities in the Israeli army, and even their serial numbers in the intelligence services, their passport numbers and their validity, and their visas and their validity.\"

There\'s more to this story to come -- but you might have to move to Paris to read it (or keep your eyes on CL).

Senior Editor John Sugg can be reached at 404-614-1241.