WHAT
TIGER?
Al-Ahram Weekly Online (Cairo, Egypt)
January
24-30, 2002 -- Issue No. 570
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/570/in1.htm
For years, Israel has been busy
collecting sensitive information about
the US. Why has it been above
suspicion, wonders Mohamed Hakki in Washington.
There is an old
Russian joke about Russia's frustration in its negotiations with China. Former
Prime Minister Nikita Krushchev goes hunting with Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung
during his visit to China. Both see a tiger. Mao takes aim at the tiger, but
misses. Krushchev then shoots and kills the tiger. The two leaders' aides then
carry the tiger back to the guest house. When the party arrives back in Beijing,
Krushchev turns to Mao and asks, "Where's the tiger?" Mao says, "What tiger?"
Frustrated, Krushchev recaps the day's events. "You remember we went out
hunting?" Yes. "And you shot at the tiger we saw, and missed?" Yes. "And I took
a shot and got him?" Yes. "Then, where's the tiger?" To which the same answer
came back: "What tiger?"
Something very similar is happening between
Israel and its benefactor, the United States. In December, several reports on
the Fox news network
covered the sensitive issue of Israel spying on America.
One question loomed large: did Israel know anything about 11 September that it
did not share with the US?
More than 60 Israelis have reportedly been
arrested or detained in the US, either under the new anti-terrorism law or for
immigration violations. Some were active Israeli military; some failed polygraph
questions when asked about surveillance activities in the US. It may be
that there is no reason to believe that Israel was involved in the 11
September attacks, but investigators are leaving open the
possibility
that Israeli Intelligence might have gathered information about the attacks that
was not shared with the US. A highly-placed investigator said there are
"tie-ins", but refused to elaborate, saying that evidence linking detained
Israelis to 11 September is classified.
Numerous classified documents
obtained by Fox news indicate that even prior to 11 September, more than 140
Israelis had been arrested in a secret and extensive investigation into
suspected espionage by Israelis in the US. The documents reveal that
investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that
has been compiling evidence on Israeli espionage since the mid-1990s. These
documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country
that investigators say, "may well be an organised intelligence gathering
activity."
Part of these investigations focus on a group of Israeli art
students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. The documents
obtained by Fox news indicate that these students are thought to have "targeted
and penetrated military bases." The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and dozens of government facilities may also have
been breached, as well as "secret offices" and the unlisted private homes of law
enforcement and intelligence personnel. The documents show that the majority of
suspects questioned stated they had served in military intelligence and
were
familiar with electronic surveillance intercepts and explosive ordinance
units.
Another part of the investigation has resulted in the detention
and arrests of dozens of Israelis selling toys at American mall kiosks. The
detentions were reported in the New York Times and the Washington Post last
month and the carts vanished.
Yet another report focuses on the
Israeli-based private communications
company, Amdocs, where a number of those
60 detained suspects worked.
Most directory assistance calls and virtually
all call records and billing in the US are done for the telephone companies by
Amdocs Ltd, which has contracts with the 25 largest phone companies in the US --
and more worldwide. It is virtually impossible to make a call on a land line
without generating an Amdocs record. Through Amdocs, it would be possible to
keep ahead of investigators by knowing who they are calling.
In 1999, the
Maryland-headquartered National Security Agency issued a
top-secret report
warning that records of calls in the United States were ending up in foreign
hands -- Israel, in particular. Investigators do not believe calls are being
bugged, but the data about who is calling whom and when is very valuable in
itself.
One well-known spy scandal centred on foreign intelligence
penetrating the Clinton White House in early 1997. The story re-emerged in late
1998, when the Monica Lewinsky tapes indicated that President Clinton had told
her that their private telephone conversations are "monitored" by a foreign
embassy. It is stunning that the president of the only superpower knows that he
is being spied on without taking any measures either to declare it or stop it.
This in itself speaks volumes about the nature of Clinton's relationship with
Israel. The story returned yet again in May 2000, when it was claimed that
Israeli telecommunications companies had penetrated the White House
communications system. The companies named were the leading Israeli
telecommunications company, Telrad, and -- you guessed it --
Amdocs.
Perhaps the more interesting thing about all of these Israeli
espionage cases is the reaction of the media, which seems to be complicit in the
suppression of this information. Stories run on Fox about Israeli espionage have
even been taken off the network's Web site. Carl Cameron, the investigative
reporter who broke the story, is nearly losing his mind. On a C-span television
programme, he lamented: "The biggest story of our time, of Israel spying on all
branches of the
government, on all our intelligence agencies -- in the CIA
[Central Intelligence Agency], the DEA and the White House itself, is not picked
up by the leading newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post."
Buried. Gone.
But this is not the first time that stories of Israeli
spying on the US have been buried. In her excellent, brief and unparalleled
study entitled "Spy, Steal and Smuggle," Claudia Wright detailed an unnerving
record of Israel's spying on the US for years. This was in 1986, after the whole
affair about Jonathan Pollard had erupted. Pollard, an American Jew, was
convicted of spying for Israel.
In her report, Wright names names,
incidents, history and contacts, in the most detailed and damning study of this
subject so far. She also puts her finger on an important point: "To government
investigators, who have been ordered by their superiors to drop or close cases
involving Israel, the lesson of the Pollard case seemed to be that if the
television cameras were invited to photograph the arrest, then there would have
been a chance -- a slim one perhaps -- that a public
prosecution and trial
might result."
People forget that the whole essence of the Pollard case
is that the guilty pleas ended any prospect of a trial and public exposure of
the extent of the damage incurred by Pollard's espionage. Without a trial,
Pollard's contacts in Israel and the high-ranking Americans who may have been
involved in recruiting him -- and protecting him in his job at Navy intelligence
-- remain unknown. A trial and subsequent media focus might even have led to the
identification of "Mr X", an administration insider who is said to have given
Pollard crucial information on where and how to find the ultra-secret
information he provided the Israelis with.
Claudia Wright's words 16
years ago are even more relevant today: "Eight
weeks after Pollard's arrest,
the US media was preoccupied with Arab terrorism, not Israeli espionage,against
America. The investigative reporters of the New York Times, the Washington Post,
the Boston Globe and other newspapers were reassigned, their stories unwritten
or unpublished."
Espionage? What
espionage?
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