"Leak offers look at U.S. efforts to spy on Israel" -- is the headline of a New York Times piece on FBI wiretaps of the Israeli embassy in D.C. The piece relies on Richard Silverstein's account of the facts behind the Shamai Leibowitz case. Leibowitz is the former FBI translator convicted of leaking classified information, including info gathered from FBI eavesdropping.
Silverstein took his own blogposts based on the leaks down, but recalled some of the info to the Times. Naturally the Times doesn't play up the substance of the info. Like, the Israeli embassy gave 'regular written briefings' to president-elect Obama during the Gaza war...
“I see him as an American patriot and a whistle-blower, and I’d like his actions to be seen in that context,” Mr. Silverstein said. “What really concerned Shamai at the time was the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, which he thought would be damaging to both Israel and the United States.” ...
Mr. Silverstein’s account could not be fully corroborated, but it fits the publicly known facts about the case. Spokesmen for the F.B.I., the Justice Department and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment on either eavesdropping on the embassy or Mr. Leibowitz’s crime. He admitted disclosing “classified information concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States,” standard language for the interception of phone calls, e-mails and other messages by the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency, which generally focuses on international communications....
One post reports that the Israeli Embassy provided “regular written briefings” on Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza to President Obama in the weeks between his election and inauguration. Another describes calls involving Israeli officials in Jerusalem, Chicago and Washington to discuss the views of members of Congress on Israel. A third describes a call between an unnamed Jewish activist in Minnesota and the Israeli Embassy about an embassy official’s meeting with Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, who was planning an official trip to Gaza.
Mr. Silverstein said he remembered that embassy officials talked about drafting opinion articles to be published under the names of American supporters. He said the transcripts also included a three-way conversation between a congressman from Texas, an American supporter of the congressman and an embassy official; Mr. Silverstein said he could not recall any of the names.
No word in the piece on the most explosive info rumored to have come from Leibowitz:
Threat Level thinks it’s more likely Leibowitz was behind the leaked news that Representative Jane Harman had allegedly been caught on an NSA wiretap engaging in a quid-pro-quo conversation with an Israeli agent. That information was published in April by Jeff Stein, a writer for Congressional Quarterly, on his SpyTalk blog, which was mirrored at CQ Homeland Security. Stein told Threat Level he never comments on sources.
So I guess betraying America is OK on MW when it is against Israel? You guys are all about Israel firsters, but at the same time you condone this type of action?
WOW!
If an Israel first spies, they are spying for their own interests. Isn’t this guy trying to help stop the march for war?
I’d say we should examine the intentions and reasons behind a leak. It’s literally superficial to lump them all together DBG.
The ability to differentiate seems hopelessly underdeveloped in a lot of zio-apologists. I was having an argument the other day with someone who countered my “Palestinians have the right to return” argument with “OK, if the million Jews banned from various Muslim countries have the right to return”. Differentiation, folks. It’s funny how they don’t see how justifying the horrors committed against one group of people with the fact that people in another country who happen to have the same religion did something that was wrong isn’t like rubbing shit on your teeth and revealing yourself as a complete argumentative failure.
How anyone could get the idea that the Muslim world is one big monolithic mass that needs to assume responsibility for all of each other’s actions, in complete disregard of state and cultural boundaries is forever beyond me. It’s like saying Switzerland is obligated to make amends for American failings. (Both are western, Christian countries after all). Learn to argue beyond the level of a disgruntled 5th grader.
“if the million Jews banned from various Muslim countries”
A million Jews are banned from various Muslim countries?
I know, right? Pulling figures out of your ass adds the icing to the putrid cake of false rhetoric, I’d say it’s mentally deficient, but I worked with mentally deficient people before, and I’m positive quite a few of them could do better than that.
I second your post.
Where do such gaps in reasoning ability first begin to take shape?
In school, in the womb?
Is there a trigger?
I think it’s a sign of despair. After all if they actually had sound, valid arguments they could use, they’d resort to those instead of the pathetic offerings riddled with historical falsities and rhetorical fallacies currently on show.
We can see that “FREE POLLARD” banner sticking out from behind your back. Nice try.
Here it is:
link to theatlanticwire.com
I don’t speak for anyone else, but my banner is a “imprison both for life” banner. Pollard should remain in prison for life and so should Leibowitz. Of course, I don’t have any outrage over the two _countries_ spying on each other, but Pollard and Leibowitz both took an oath to protect America’s secrets and both broke their oaths.
Poort DBG. You’re all upset now because you didn’t get to see Israel bomb Iran.
Poor poor little Zionist sociopath. Go back to drowning puppies.
shingo how many times do I have to say I am against any military action against Iran before you stop lying about it?
What about those nukes in Iraq, DBG? Are you against that invasion after you were for it?
I which case DBG, you should be applauding Leibowitz for sharing your sentiment.
LOL! Kudos, Shingo, for pointing out the big gaping hole in DBG’s logic.
What hole? Just because you agree with someone’s ends doesn’t mean that you can’t be appalled at their means. I think OJ Simpson should have been executed instead of acquitted, but if you murdered him I’d vote to send you to prison if I were on your jury.
So I guess betraying America is OK on MW when it is against Israel?
it’s kind of funny you would say that on a first comment. why not just attack the nyt? maybe your faux shock would be more believable if you had posted it down thread.
Oh that poor man is totally fucked. There’s nothing the Obama administration slams down harder on than whistleblowers who get in the way of their
fundraising effortsforeign policies.I hate it everytime you say it, but I can’t deny it.
US efforts to monitor the Israeli Embassy go back decades, I’m sure.
But the NY Times rarely prints anything that significantly disturbs the “special relationship” between Israel and the US.
The Times really are a-changing.
The Harman wiretap is old news.
Israel spies on the US all the time. Nice to know that the FBI is allowed to return the favour.
LOL. One could easily put that in reverse. “The U.S. spies on Israel all the time…”
Countries spy on each other. Allied countries spy on each other. That’s how it works. Always has. Anyone who says he is shocked that any country is spying on any other country is either hopelessly naive or lying about being shocked.
“A third describes a call between an unnamed Jewish activist in Minnesota and the Israeli Embassy about an embassy official’s meeting with Representative Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, who was planning an official trip to Gaza.”
I must of have missed this on Richard’s blog. I’d be very interested in learning more about it if anyone happens to have a cached version of the Tikum Olam post around, or remembers the details.
(PS. Love how the NYT managed to give the last word to AIPAC!)
Most interesting is NYT chose Douglas Bloomfield to make the response. Few Americans know that back when Israeli minister of economics Dan Halpern passed AIPAC an important, stolen classified document about the US-Israel “free trade” agreement, Bloomfield was the AIPAC employee who made an illegal copy before returning it to the US Trade Representative.
link to irmep.org
That stolen document is only now being declassified so that Americans can see why the Israeli government and AIPAC just had to get their hands on it.
Traffick classified information against the lobby, do time. Traffick for the lobby, become an NYT pundit.
GFS.
This story sounds interesting and draws in pieces of information that I have heard before. However the story is disjointed and it might help if there was some kind of summary. Let us know: what is the major point?
I’m always intrigued by the “special relationship” that is said to exist between the US and Israel. As far as I know it originally was no big deal. President Kennedy, when once welcoming Golda Meir to the United States, casually referred in his opening remarks to a special relationship which the two countries supposedly had. Since then it has morphed (seemingly on its own) into this ironclad, joined-at-the-hip, eternal military and financial bond that neither America’s decline nor its looming bankruptcy can ever dissolve. All without benefit of a formal treaty too.
Yeah, it morphed by itself.
Because the US gov’t and especially the Israeli gov’t, neither of them micromanage anything, neither of them is sensitive to monied interest and neither of them responds to the political wishes of powerful elites. Also, neither country places an emphasis on arming their militaries at the (literal) expense of all else in their societies and both of them shy away from military adventures.
Also, I’m sure that the fact that Jews account for 50-60% of donations to the Democrats and 20% or more to the Republicans doesn’t affect the relationship in any way at all.
End sarcasm.
link to electronicintifada.net
Check out that article, written in 2005 by Shamai Leibowitz.
our justice department sure knows how to go after the big fish, don’t they?
interesting the nyt, unlike ynet, doesn’t mention silverstein’s connection to the kam affair. my guess is they were hot on the trail of whoever was providing him info.
Here is evidence even our awful media can’t ignore, that not all American Jews feel obliged to support anything and everything that Israel does. It’s especially refreshing to know that some of these people are actually in our government.
Not a good dichotomy. Those who support Israel versus a couple of guys who hate Israel so much that they betrayed America’s secrets just to strike at Israel.
Trying to prevent WWIII is not striking at Israel. Even Meir Dagan has spoke out against he lunatic Israeli government’s plans to starta war with Iran.
Leaking something that was nothing more than contingency planning or speculation doesn’t “prevent WWIII”.
At the time, the traitor faced two possibilities, the Israelis were actually going to do it, or not. If they were going to do it, leaking their plan wouldn’t stop them. It might even encourage them to do it. If they weren’t actually going to do it then he embarrassed the U.S. and Israel for no good reason. Israel by exposing some embassy guy venting to another person. The U.S. by publicly airing that we are wiretapping an ally’s phones. Everyone probably assumed that we were, but this drags out into public something that the U.S. doesn’t want or need made public.