"Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel, asked about the arrest, said: "We know nothing about it. We heard it from the media."
Kadish’s lawyer, Bruce Goldstein, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Pollard, accused of passing on large quantities of classified materials, pleaded guilty in 1986. Israel granted him citizenship in 1996 and acknowledged in 1998 the former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst was one of its spies. Israel has unsuccessfully sought Pollard’s release.
Kadish is a Connecticut-born U.S. citizen who worked as a mechanical engineer at the U.S. Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Centre at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey.
His spying lasted roughly from 1979 to 1985, and his contact with the unidentified Israeli handler continued until March of this year, the federal complaint against him said. Based on circumstances of the case, DiGenova identified Kadish’s contact as Yosef Yagur, who has been linked in court documents to the Pollard case. A Justice Department spokesman said he could not confirm that." Swissinfo
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OK. There was more than one Israeli spy working in the US at the time of the Pollard case. Is this supposed to be a surprise? People who were knowledgable have known for decades that the FBI has been working on espionage cases involving Jewish Americans spying for Israel. It takes a long time to assemble court worthy cases for charges like that, especially against political resistance from administrations of both parties. What you have seen in the last few years is the maturation of some of these cases in the presence of some sort of leverage whichthe FBI has developed that allows them to get the Department of Justice to prosecute. There may well be more.
Americans (and others) should understand that all (grown up) countries spy on each other. Information is the coin of international relations. Spying is better than warring. One should not assume that any country is "innocent" of such things. If it is, the citizens of that country should be unhappy. Their government is not meeting its security obligations to them.
The Mossad or whichever Israeli agency was involved have long and tragic histories of using Jewish citizens of other countries to spy on their governments. That is a most irresponsible thing to do. The practise has led to the deaths or imprisonment of many Jews around the world.
What is their problem? They can’t recruit Gentiles? pl
Larry Franklin is a gentile, isn’t he?
Indeed, Israel has an obligation to its citizens to spy on any country, friend or foe, that impacts its security. And we have an obligation to prevent such spying and prosecute as a deterent. It was always so.
I suspect its not a matter of ability to recruit, but a matter of trust.
“Britain has no permanent friends, only permanent interests.”
Lord Palmerston
Actually, Pollard wasn’t recruited, he was a “walk in,” in intelligence parlance–someone who spontaneously volunteers without being cultivated. The trouble is that these volunteers can UNvolunteer if they grow disenchanted, so Pollard’s handlers induced him to take money for his services in order to keep him on the hook. This told against him at his trial when he attempted the pure-intentions defense.
But Israel wasn’t always so open minded about spies. On June 30, 1948, a Hagannah Captain named Meir Toubianski was executed the same day he was convicted of passing information to Great Britain. OOPSIE! A year later he was given a posthumous pardon and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion apologized to his widow. This is Israel’s Dreyfus Case, with some hard-liners contending that his rehabilitation was political in nature. One could say that Dreyfus was lucky to be persecuted by the French, who managed to rehabilitate him before they buried him.
They can’t recruit Gentiles?
Who typically is a better spy – the ideologue or the materialistic opportunist?
Seems like the ideological one would be better.
These guys come to mind:
Cambridge Five
Does it matter in the end what their motivation is, though?
I don’t think so.
CWZ
Ideological spies are far more dependable and trustworthy.
All
Larry Franklin is not an Israeli spy. He is merely a dummy who over-stepped the bounds. pl
We spy on most nations, but do we spy on Britain’s and Canada’s defense secrets in the same way we spy on Russia’s or Iran’s? No. And presumably Britain and Canada don’t spy on us in the same way they spy on others. Thus, the question is, “Does our close ally Israel treat us the same way Britain does?” If not, is Israel really our close ally?
But why, aren’t Israeli and US national interests identical? In fact, Israeli Spies in the US are heroes who are being politically prosecuted!
/snark
It is just a matter of time until the first US Christian Zionist is be caught for spying for Israel. And he won’t do it for Israel, but to be raptured faster. Israel intelligence won’t bother, thinking along Podhoretz line: “It is their theology; but it is our Israel.”
Ironically, Israel should have an easier time finding Christian ideological spies nowadays than it did 40-50 years ago, but a worse time with Muslims.
You have to wonder how damaging the last seven years have been on the American ability to recruit ideological spies, particularly in the Muslim world.
There’s a pertinent passage in Eric Ambler’s “A Coffin For Dimitrios,” (1937) where the crime novelist Latimer is interviewing the retired spymaster Grodek. Latimer expresses sympathy for Bulic, a Yugoslav government clerk whom Grodek entrapped into selling government secrets and who was given a long prison term for it:
“My dear Monsieur Latimer,” he retorted stiffly, “Bulic was a traitor and he was rewarded according to his deserts. One cannot sentimentalise over him. In war there are always casualties. Bulic was very lucky. I should certainly have used him again, and he might ultimately have been shot. As it was, he went to prison. For all I know he is still in prison…”
The problem for Israel is that with ideological traitors they don’t have the luxury of Grodek’s common sense attitude. After all, these “victims” have made sacrifices for “the cause”–certainly they can’t be abandoned! The Israeli public are totally incapable of accepting that from the U.S. government’s perspective Grodek was right. Each successive Israeli government must therefore in its turn be taught the salutary lesson that possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Here’s an interesting and recent study at the problem of espionage (pdf file):
“What is their problem? They can’t recruit Gentiles?
Doesn’t seem they really need to to date. Further, I suspect there’s more wiggle/blackmail/barter room for Israel in the case of an exposed Jewish American spy than for a Gentile American.
“all grown up countries spy on each other”. But do they undermine National Security?
So will the Aipac espionage trial be dismissed?
The investigation and trial that dare not speak its name in the MSM or the so called “progressive” blogosphere may just be swept under the rug?
What do you think?
And then there is this from the JP:
and,
This is from the Jerusalem Post account:
Amid much speculation that the announcement of the arrest was not coincidental and was timed either to throw a wrench into US President George W. Bush’s upcoming visit to Israel or to quell any possibility of Bush granting Pollard clemency before he leaves office in January 2009, one official pointed out that the timing was fortuitous on one account: The issue was completely overshadowed in the US news cycle by the Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania.
The story was relegated to the Metro section of The New York Times, to page 19 of The Washington Post and well down the blotter on the evening news programs, the official said with some satisfaction.
No doubt. Speculation by whom – the vast anti-Israel apparatus that managed to get the story buried on p.19 of the Times Metro section?
They even spin themselves.
PL: “Americans (and others) should understand that all (grown up) countries spy on each other.”
But how many “allies” trade the list of your spies to your number one enemy as Israel did with our spies in the Soviet Union? That’s the rub.
The fact that the spying occurred at Picatinny Arsenal in the early 80’s sends an interesting message to countries with sophisticated intelligence services and may explain timing of arrest. For other middle-Eastern opponents of Israeli with knowledge of past US Special Weapons processes and procedures, a guess of course, but could be in the nature of a warning round to some country.
The quote from the JP
Obviously, it isn’t so that a spy working for a foreign nation is by itself reason enough for prosecution. If it is an Israeli spy it is certainly about ulterior motives – it is a politically motivated prosecution!
I think the prosecution is certainly about the services having a profound dislike for espionage, and want to see spies, traitors, prosecuted. Spies break the law, so generally the Justice Department has an interest to see them prosecuted.
The question for timing is interesting, but it is a s separate issue. It doesn’t affect the question about the criminality of Kadish one iota: He is a criminal. He deserves going to jail.
It is absurd to suggest by asking the question for timing that now (the godless, America- and Israel hating, liberal, realist, whatever) sleepers in the intelligence services, the Pentagon and … err … especially in Mukasey’s thoroughly politicised Justice Department have eventually succeeded in firing this shot at Israel and Pollard’s prospects for pardon.
So I think this is already part of the damage control. I imagine a suave Richard Perle like character, lowering his voice, and telling the reporter, sub rosa, of course: “… but of course that’s not the whole picture. Let’s forget about that spy for a sec and ask: ‘cui bono?’ …” True intrigue! Exciting! And so distracting.
Why would Israel need to recruit Americans to spy for them?
Consider the following list…..
Attorney General – Michael Mukasey
Head of Homeland Security – Michael Chertoff
Chairman Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Richard Perle
Deputy Defense Secretary (Former) – Paul Wolfowitz
Under Secretary of Defense – Douglas Feith
National Security Council Advisor – Elliott Abrams
Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff (Former) – “Scooter” Libby
White House Deputy Chief of Staff – Joshua Bolten
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – Marc Grossman
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department – Richard Haass
U.S. Trade Representative (Cabinet-level Position) – Robert Zoellick
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – James Schlesinger
UN Representative (Former) – John Bolton
Under Secretary for Arms Control – David Wurmser
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Eliot Cohen
Senior Advisor to the President – Steve Goldsmith
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Christopher Gersten
Assistant Secretary of State – Lincoln Bloomfield
Deputy Assistant to the President – Jay Lefkowitz
White House Political Director – Ken Melman
National Security Study Group – Edward Luttwak
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Kenneth Adelman
Defense Intelligence Agency Analyst (Former) – Lawrence (Larry) Franklin
National Security Council Advisor – Robert Satloff
President Export-Import Bank U.S. – Mel Sembler
Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families – Christopher Gersten
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs – Mark Weinberger
White House Speechwriter – David Frum
White House Spokesman (Former) – Ari Fleischer
Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board – Henry Kissinger
Deputy Secretary of Commerce – Samuel Bodman
Under Secretary of State for Management – Bonnie Cohen
Director of Foreign Service Institute – Ruth Davis
Apart from all being current or former appointees to high government Office by GWB… anyone spot the common factor that unites all of them?
They all hold dual Israeli\American citizenship.
DaveGood
I also thought..how do we
know Israel is not recruiting gentile spies? If our spying detection/prevention people are primed to expect any spies for Israel to be Jewish, then Gentile spies might completely escape their attention.
In the same way, if our spying detection/prevention people think the average spy
for China is going to be ethnic Chinese, then non-Chinese spies might be the most effective spies China could recruit.
I hope our spying detectors/preventors have “fishy behavior” profiles and are able to detect possible spying from whatever source it comes, however thought-to-be unlikely. Also, I hope all our worth-protecting information is or will be guarded by spying-resistance protocols which would be designed to make highly visible any attempt to get around those protocols. Any attempt would therefor be scrutinized. And if the attempted get-around was simply due to selfish laziness about tedious protocols, then there should
be consequences for laziness ranging from far-short-of to just-short-of spy-level punishments depending on whether it was one-time or serial laziness, what was or could-have-been compromised, etc.
Wasn’t Mr. Ames left free
to spy for decades against the CIA from within, because
his fellow CIAgents considered him ethno-culturally “one of us”, and therefor protected from scrutiny by the unthinkability of suspiciousness? Didn’t that
spy-for-decades within the FBI have that same “he’s one of us” cloak of anti-scrutiny ethno-cultural teflon? I think his name was Mr. Hansen? It goes to show that spy-type behavior as such should be looked for, I should think.
And yes, just as other countries have a right to try spying here, we have a right to prevent spying here, and stamp it out wherever we find it. And we
even have a right to tighten
up our protocols and behavior-based search filters to the point where other countries find it impossible to spy here, if we can do that without destroying our own freedom and inter-ethnocultural respect within our own society.
Interesting take from Philip Giraldi in the American Conservative:
The leak of the information at the present time is believed to be linked to proposed closed congressional hearings at the end of this month in which the White House had planned to use several Israeli intelligence officers to provide evidence on the alleged Syrian nuclear program that was bombed on September 6, 2007. It is now unlikely that Israeli intelligence officers will allow themselves to be questioned because they would almost certainly be asked about Israeli spying on the US. Vice President Dick Cheney and Olmert had apparently planned on using the congressional briefings as a launch pad to intensify diplomatic and military pressure against both Syria and Iran. It is believed that the “doves” in the Olmert administration who leaked the information are seeking to make a military confrontation more difficult and are hoping that negotiations, particularly with Syria, will instead take place.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/04/23/israeli-spy-case-will-name-more-spies/
Anyone know of any indications that Israelis were testifying at these hearings, or were due to do so?
Col. Lang, the Israeli ambassador to the UN says that you’re wrong. That or Israel isn’t all grown up:
“In the wake of the Pollard case, the ambassador said Israel had made a pledge not to spy on the United States, “and that is something which I know that we have honored completely.””
http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Israel_s_UN_ambassador_calls_Jimmy__04242008.html
But then, he also said this:
“”Basically, Syria and Iran, together with Hamas and Hezbollah, are the main axes of terror and evil in the world,” the Israeli ambassador said.”
Which seems to be an opinion held by one person. Perhaps I could also interest you in a lightly used industrial facility in Syria? Minor smoke damage, but a great fixer-upper.
About DaveGood’s list of dual Israeli/American citizens: All of the people on this list are Jews and fervent or sometime supporters of Israel (talk to Israelis, though, about Kissinger’s role in the Six-Day War). None of them, I’m pretty sure, is an actual citizen of both countries, unless you believe that all Jews are automatically Israeli citizens, which would be news to me. Is DaveGood referring to the so-called Law of Return? That’s not the same thing as citizenship; it gives non-Israeli Jews the right to become Israeli citizens if they wish to exercise that right.
Actually, there was one famous Gentile Spy for Israel. When the French cut off Israel from Mirage jets after 1967 the Israelis were desperate to get their hands on the plans for the plane, so they could do the manufacturing themselves. They found a sympathetic Swiss Catholic who worked in the relevent department. He came up with an ingenious plan. Since he periodically took classified papers to an incinerator to be burned by the bale he took unneeded copies of the Mirage plans as per usual, but substituted bales of waste paper for the plans when they were supposedly burned–passing the real plans on to the Israelis for money. When he was caught he did time and at last report was designing refrigerators.
He insisted on being paid because despite his sympathy for Israel he felt he was entitled to be compensated for the risk he was taking in case he got caught, since he had no desire to live in Israel!
In the docudrama about the case I saw his Israeli handler told the joke: “What is the difference between a Swiss and a Romanian Jew? They’ll both sell you their own Grandmother, but the Swiss will deliver.”
There was an infamous American memorandum that was pieced together from shredded documents in the seized American embassy in Tehran, that advocated the recruitment of Jews in Iran to spy on various elements of Iranian government and society. Needless to say, this American document inflamed Iran’s revolutionary passions. For his part, Imam Khomeini issued a fatwa basically protecting Iran’s jews from unjust persecution.
Col. Lang wrote:
“The Mossad or whichever Israeli agency was involved have long and tragic histories of using Jewish citizens of other countries to spy on their governments. That is a most irresponsible thing to do.”
You know, given the clear long-time truth of this, including especially the obvious lesson learned early in Israel’s history with the Lavon affair exposing so many Egyptian jews to terrible repercussions, you have to wonder if it’s “irresponsibility” at work at all.
That is, I have read that right from the inception of zionism there has been a very strong strain amongst some of its most ardent folks that very much looks down on diaspora jews for not moving to Israel. “To be a ‘true’ jew you should be here, sharing our risks” and etc., etc.
So maybe to these folks it’s not an entirely undesirable thing if one of their spies has to be discovered that the spy be jewish. Maybe it’s just a terrible cynicism at work on their part toward diaspora jews.
After all, what’s the reaction when it’s found out that some diaspora jew has spied against their home country? Almost certainly at least some of it is going to be genuinely anti-semitic in that home country, and regardless of what precise portion isn’t none of it is going to make jews in that country feel especially comfortable.
So look at it from the standpoint of the “fundamentalists”: They get the result of the spying, and then even if the spy is caught they get the reaction in those countries which can only tend to estrange that country’s jews from their society of choice given that they have no choice really. Since they can’t hardly renounce their jewishness, how else are they supposed to feel?
So if the revelations about such spying harms the diaspora folks, well it might be thought, it’s just showing the true anti-semitic nature of these other countries and is just the price the diaspora folks pay for not joining the “true-blue” who have stepped up to the plate and moved to Israel.
Perfect in a deeply cynical way, but as I said I have read some very very bare-knuckle statements allegedly made by ardent zionists about jews who won’t move to Israel. And I seem to remember Ariel Sharon not that long ago rather blatantly saying to French jews that all of ’em damn well should be moving to Israel.
Good reason to be intellectually careful when thinking about this it seems to me. The vast majority of our fellow jewish-American countrymen would never spy against us for Israel. And it may well be that when does, anyone going overboard about it only plays into the hands of those “fundamentalists” who don’t mind at all if we are making those countrymen feel uncomfortable.
Of course the trouble is defining what is “going overboard,” and I certainly don’t think that promiscuous charges of anti-semitism ought to determine the answer, nor that questioning the wisdom of allowing dual citizenship goes over that line either. (Although I would be interested if DaveGood could cite some authority for the list of supposed dual-citizens he posted above.) I’m just trying to think through the dynamics of the situation.
Cheers,
http://judicial-inc.biz/84vmossad_in_america.htm
on another note….
http://www.jewishquarterly.org/article.asp?articleid=38
“Some porn stars viewed themselves as frontline fighters in the spiritual battle between Christian America and secular humanism. According to Ford, Jewish X-rated actors often brag about their ‘joy in being anarchic, sexual gadflies to the puritanical beast’. Jewish involvement in porn, by this argument, is the result of an atavistic hatred of Christian authority: they are trying to weaken the dominant culture in America by moral subversion. Astyr remembers having ‘to run or fight for it in grammar school because I was a Jew. It could very well be that part of my porn career is an “up yours” to these people’. Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw, said (on lukeford.net), ‘The only reason that Jews are in pornography is that we think that Christ sucks. Catholicism sucks. We don’t believe in authoritarianism.’ Pornography thus becomes a way of defiling Christian culture and, as it penetrates to the very heart of the American mainstream (and is no doubt consumed by those very same WASPs), its subversive character becomes more charged.”
😉
Larry K.
Sir,
Am I certain that if a search was done of everyone on that list homes you’d find an Israeli passport?
No, I’m not.
But then search every Americans home and you’d find only one in five hold an American passport.
They are still American citizens, and think of themselves as such.
People named on that list have lived in Israel, done work for and been paid by the Israeli Right wing Likud Party.
If any of them wanted to obtain a formal Israeli passport do you doubt it would not be granted instantly?
DaveGood
Thank you, again, Col. Lang, for presenting some simple truths that illuminate the picture. Yes, the Israelis have abused Jewish citizens of many countries, first of all, the United States, for spying. Mr. Kadish was born in the United States, but spent some considerable time living in Palestine, fought in the Jewish legion of the British Army during World War II and then joined the Haganah. If he was only first recruited in 1970 to spy for Israel, that is about the only surprising thing in the published story to date. How many more such people were recruited over the decades?
I take heart that there is a cumulative educational process unfolding on this issue. We had the Pollard affair and then, as you indicate, a long dry spell, while investigators from various U.S. intelligence services quietly did their work, ultimately reaching a point where they could move against some other points in the network. We saw the Larry Franklin case, the arrests of the two AIPAC officials, Rosen and Weissman, who were scheduled to start their trial this week, but it has been delayed. Now we have the Kadish case, and the prospect seems to be bright that more of the “Mega” or “X Committee” network is going to be rolled up. Hopefully, some of the more prominent figures will be identified and prosecuted. We also have the Walt and Miersheim book, which would have never come out of Harvard and the University of Chicago hallowed halls just a few years ago. There is clearly a learning curve here, and I think it bodes well over time, that US foreign and national security policy will be restored to some sovereignty. I sometimes wonder whether the demons are in Israel, or in the United States, where a whole lot of people have developed a real expertise for using the threat of Israeli clout to shape the U.S. political process to their advantage–which often works at cross-purposes to the interests of Israel. I remember Yitzhak Rabin’s visit to AIPAC when he first became prime minister in 1992. He scolded them for functioning as a lobby for the Likud crowd in Israel and the neocons in the United States. Rabin saw that apparatus as at odds with Israeli interests, and he battled them. You know the rest of that story.