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in "hundreds of incidents and towns across the country." Indeed,
there had been so many news reports in local media, concentrated
especially in Texas and Florida, detailing this activity that
the National Counterintellligence Center (a dot-gov site)
issued the
following alert:
"In the past six weeks, employees in federal office buildings located throughout the United States have reported suspicious activities connected with individuals representing themselves as foreign students selling or delivering artwork. Employees have observed both males and females attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings."
WANNA SEE MY ETCHINGS?
These "students," the NCC observed, who "have been described as aggressive," didn't seem too interested in selling anybody anything, and instead seemed intent on simply gaining access. Two were arrested (in Texas) and, lo and behold, it was discovered that their work visas and green cards were counterfeit. One particularly eerie aspect of all this is these "students" turning up at "the private residences of senior federal officials under the guise of selling art." On October 2, KHOU-TV of Houston, Texas, reported that, earlier in the year, these guys were caught sneaking into "federal buildings and defense sites," and, in Dallas,
"The so-called students hit early this year at the city's FBI building, the Drug Enforcement Administration and at the Earle Cabell Federal building, where guards found one student wandering the halls with a floor plan of the building."
THE MARRIAGE OF ART AND HI-TECH
The Fox News exposé also reported on the near-total penetration of US communications facilities by Israel, through two "private" Israeli telecommunications companies, Amdocs, Ltd., and Comverse Infosys, which, together, handle virtually all the billing records and government wiretaps in the US. Indeed, many of the "art students" not only had "intelligence expertise," but also worked for Amdocs "or other companies in Israel that specialize in wiretapping."
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
Cameron's report, which was immediately denied by the Israelis, spread pandemonium throughout the government, and official spokesmen stonewalled. Ari Fleischer was unusually laconic, referring questions from reporters to an unresponsive Justice Department and other equally uncooperative government agencies. As for the rest of the American media – a stunning silence. You could hear a pin drop. As Cameron put it in an interview with CSPAN:
"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."
BREAKTHROUGH
Ah, but the Post, at least, would eventually be forced to pick up the story, if only to serve as a conduit for official government denials. In the meantime, for months, the only place you could read about this story was on Antiwar.com, and specifically right here in this space: that is, here, and here, and here, and here – and also here, and here. Not to mention here. (And don't forget here.) Until, finally, the story was picked up overseas, by LeMonde, a major French newspaper, which based its story [go here for the French version] on a report published in the Online Intelligence newsletter. The editor of the newsletter, Guillaume Dasquié – co-author of Bin Laden: The Hidden Truth – was recently taken to task in this space for positing the 9/11 conspiracy as being part of a plot by Saudi Arabia, which, after all, "since the 18th century … has been focused on conquering the world." I am glad to see, however, that the direction of his investigation has now taken a radically different turn….
STUMBLING ON A RATTLESNAKE
This turn was helped along, it seems, by yet another "leak" from a US government agency, this time the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Dasquié had somehow gotten his hands on a classified 61-page report drafted by an interagency task force charged with summarizing information gleaned from the nearly 120 Israelis rounded up in the wake of 9/11. The DEA, it seems, took the lead in the investigation because its Office of Security Programs – responsible for internal security – first stumbled on "unusual behavior of young Israeli nationals who had gained access to DEA circles." As it turned out, nearly all these "art students" belonged to a particular school of art – that is, if espionage and spying in general can be considered an art, albeit a black one.
NAMING NAMES
What I like best about Online Intelligence is that it names names,
"A few of the operatives are well known in the Israeli intelligence community. The report cited the names of Peer Segalovitz (military registration number 5087989) and Aran Ofek, son of a renowned two-star general in the Israeli army. The network targeted some of the most sensitive sites in the U.S., such as Tanker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City. Indeed, the U.S. Air Force's Office of Special Investigation sent a letter to the Justice Department on May 16 of last year to ask for assistance in a case against four Israelis suspected of spying: Yaron Ohana, Ronen Kalfon, Zeev Cohen and Naor Topaz."
ISRAEL'S UNDERGROUND ARMY
According to the DEA, Israel's underground army in the US consisted of "around 20 units composed of between four and eight members each." More names are named: Michael Calmanovic headed up the team in Irving, Texas, while Florida was the domain of Hanan Serfaty. Legum Yochai had charge of the Miami operation. Online Intelligence also notes the Amdocs connection: it seems these "art students" "cultivated contacts with Israeli information technology companies based in the US and serving as regular suppliers to various U.S. federal agencies, such as Amdocs" and others. The Fox News series is cited, by Online Intelligence and Le Monde, and the former even provides a convenient map of the Texas chapter of the "art students" underground apparatus, complete with not only names, but arrival dates, corporate connections, when and where they were arrested, and their specific functions in the Israeli military-intelligence apparatus. How much more evidence do we need before the editorialists and the pundits start calling government officials on their lies – and Congress begins an investigation?
TRUTH WILL OUT
As I said in my first column on this subject, written before Fox News expanded on the story and introduced it to a wider public, "truth will out" in spite of government stonewalling and obsessive secrecy:
"In these days of the Internet, and the instant dissemination of information, the gatekeepers have to resort to quasi-legal means to keep the truth from coming out. But it will come out, sooner rather than later – in which case, the question, 'Haven't we had enough of Israel?' may be definitively answered."
This story was really too big to keep under wraps for long, which is why I kept flailing it week after week, certain that sooner or later it would find its way into the major media and have a decisive impact on the public debate over this war, and our relations with the rest of the world in general. It is a nice feeling to be vindicated, and, if you'll permit me to indulge myself for a moment, let me just remind my regular readers: you read it here first!
AN 'URBAN MYTH' – MY EYE!
As the embargo on the Israeli spy story began to break down, with reports from the British media filtering into the US and Canada, the Washington Post – the original source of the news that 60 Israelis had been detained – ran what is fated to become the prototypical denial coming from the US and Israeli governments:
"'This seems to be an urban myth that has been circulating for months,' said Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden. 'The department has no information at this time to substantiate these widespread reports about Israeli art students involved in espionage.'"