Informant38

By STEVE WEIZMAN

Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) - Allegations of Israeli spying in the United States are false and may be the result of internal conflicts between the Pentagon and the CIA, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Sunday, but analysts admitted damage already has been done to crucial ties between the two countries.

American officials said Saturday that the FBI has spent more than a year investigating whether a Pentagon analyst funneled highly classified material to Israel.

The material described White House policy toward Iran. Israel says Iran - and its nuclear ambitions - pose the greatest single threat to the Jewish state.

Natan Sharansky, the first Israeli Cabinet minister to speak in public about the matter, told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. television that Israel enforces a ban on spying in the United States.

``I hope it's all a mistake or misunderstanding of some kind, maybe a rivalry between different bodies,'' he said, singling out ``the Pentagon and the CIA.''
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JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli officials predicted Sunday that allegations the government spied on the Pentagon would prove false, but analysts said damage had already been done the Jewish state's image and that of its lobbying ally in Washington.

American officials said Saturday that the FBI had spent more than a year investigating whether a Pentagon analyst funneled highly classified material to Israel.

The material described White House policy toward Iran. Israel says Iran and its nuclear ambitions pose the greatest single threat to the Jewish state.

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Israel and its supporters flatly deny "dubious" claims of espionage
By israelinsider staff August 29, 2004

Israeli and American Jewish leaders categorically rejected the possibility that Israel was operating a spy in the United States. "Israel is not aware of having received information from this man," a Jerusalem source told Haaretz. "Nobody used him, people hardly knew him, and we don't understand this fantasy," another source said. "Since the Pollard affair, no intelligence man would dare think of gathering information in the U.S."

On Friday, CBS News ran a report claiming that the FBI had been conducting a long investigation into alleged improprieties by a Pentagon staffer, who supposedly passed classified material to representative of AIPAC. The staffer, a non-Jewish analyst named by the Washington Post as Larry Franklin, is a reserve colonel in the U.S. Air Force who has in the past been assigned to Israel.
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Analysis / A cold wind blowing from the CIA

By Ze'ev Schiff

Before former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency head George Tenet retired, he made stinging comments on various occasions to Israeli officials in the intelligence community, especially the Mossad, saying Israel had a spy in America. The accusation was rejected out of hand - Tenet was even loudly challenged to catch any such agent and expose him publicly. The exchange of remarks was passed on to Israel, evoking surprise at the political level over the accusations. On Friday night, the American media revealed that an investigation was proceeding into a suspected Pentagon mole who was transmitting information to AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and from there to Israel about the White House's war plans for Iraq. A person named Larry Franklin was mentioned, who works in the office of undersecretary of defense Douglas Feith. Between Larry Franklin and Doug Feith there are at least three levels of bureaucratic hierarchy. AIPAC insisted last night that it heard Franklin's name for the first time on Friday when investigators came to them. [...] After the Pollard affair, Israel has made very sure that not even the slightest suspicion would arise that it is gathering information contrary to American laws. An extreme example was the claim that Israel passed on secret information to China about the Patriot missiles it bought in the U.S. For that, Israel invited an American investigative team and after great efforts, no proof was found. Nevertheless, U.S. intelligence doggedly refused Israel's demand that it publish a retraction of the charge and that the investigation found the suspicions groundless. The insistence came from American considerations of prestige with regard to its sources and the quality of its information. Over time, Israel came to believe one of the U.S. sources was Taiwanese intelligence, which focuses closely on China.

� Copyright 2004 Haaretz. All rights reserved
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Israel and its supporters flatly deny "dubious" claims of espionage
By israelinsider staff August 29, 2004

Israeli and American Jewish leaders categorically rejected the possibility that Israel was operating a spy in the United States. "Israel is not aware of having received information from this man," a Jerusalem source told Haaretz. "Nobody used him, people hardly knew him, and we don't understand this fantasy," another source said. "Since the Pollard affair, no intelligence man would dare think of gathering information in the U.S."

On Friday, CBS News ran a report claiming that the FBI had been conducting a long investigation into alleged improprieties by a Pentagon staffer, who supposedly passed classified material to representative of AIPAC. The staffer, a non-Jewish analyst named by the Washington Post as Larry Franklin, is a reserve colonel in the U.S. Air Force who has in the past been assigned to Israel.

Israel's defense establishment said it conducted a thorough examination over the weekend with all security and intelligence bodies to verify the reports that a Pentagon employee passed secret information to Israel. "The examination revealed what we expected," said a senior defense official. "There are no sanctioned espionage operations going on against the United States. There is no truth to these reports." Another officials characterized the whole affair as a "lie" -- a charge that showed up in a headline on Israel's leading newspaper.

Knesset Member Yuval Shteinitz, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Israeli Parliament, said: "Speaking as someone who is completely responsible for the supervision of Israel's secret services, this did not happen and never will. There are no spies in the Pentagon and not in the United States."

Likud MK Ehud Yatom, chairman of the Knesset subcommittee on covert intelligence, said he anticipated that the claims against Israeli would be soon withdrawn. "I imagine that within a few days the United States will come out with an announcement that Israel has no connection whatsoever with the supposed spy and his activities," he told Israel Radio.
Despite all the denials, Haaretz reports that senior members of the U.S. intelligence community have repeatedly suspected Israel of spying on the United States.
[...]
Former Mossad head Danny Yatom revealed that former CIA Director George Tenet believed that Israel was engaged in such activity in 1997-98; Yatom flew to the U.S. for a one-on-one meeting with Tenet to prove that the charges were baseless. Tenet dropped his suspicions as a result and wrote Yatom a letter of apology.