Israel, Iran Trade Threats As FBI Investigates Spying

[ Does anyone else here know anything else about this?  This article
finishes up right on.  I'm imagining the conservative bashing will not
stop even if given hard facts that are leading us up to WWIII.  I
would never put it past Iran to attack Israel if provoked with
destruction of property and crossing a border with malicious intent.=20
This pre-emptive strikism has given some of our "allies" a chance to
use us.  Wow!  Who here on this list would be surprised?  I would say
not many.  Ever since I started paying attention to Israel I have
realized it is not your normal story.  Interesting. -j ]

Israel, Iran Trade Threats As FBI Investigates Spying
U.S. Ally Said to Have Received Documents on Tehran

By Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 30, 2004; Page A18

JERUSALEM, Aug. 29 -- Israel and Iran traded significantly escalated
threats of military attacks in recent months as the FBI investigated
allegations that a Pentagon official passed secret U.S. policy
information about Iran to Israeli authorities.

Israel has warned that it could launch strikes against Iranian nuclear
facilities to thwart the country's advancing weapons program. In
response, Iranian Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander of the
Revolutionary Guards, said earlier this month: "If Israel should dare
to attack our nuclear installations, we will come down on its head
like a heavy hammer crushing its skull."
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Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Israeli officials have expressed more
concern about the danger Iran poses and have been more emboldened in
their threats to quash it. But the espionage allegations, which
surfaced Friday, prompted a wave of vehement denials, political angst
and disbelief among Israeli officials, intelligence experts, diplomats
and other political analysts.

"It's hard to see this as such an issue of controversy or disagreement
that Israel would say, 'Break all the rules because we have to find
out what they're doing,' " said Yossi Alpher, a former official in the
Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.

The FBI is investigating whether Lawrence A. Franklin, a career
analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency who specializes in Iran,
gave classified information to two lobbyists for the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, according to sources. U.S.
officials said the information, which included the draft of a
presidential directive on U.S. policies toward Iran, was then given to
Israeli officials. AIPAC has denied any wrongdoing and said its
employees were cooperating with the inquiry.

Newsweek magazine reported on its Web site Sunday that FBI agents had
monitored a conversation between an Israeli Embassy official and an
AIPAC lobbyist at lunch nearly 18 months ago. Another American, later
identified as Franklin, "walked in" during the session, according to
the report. At the time the FBI was looking into possible Israeli
espionage, Newsweek said.

The investigation is the second in recent months involving allegations
of Israeli espionage against an ally. In July, a New Zealand court
found two Israeli men, accused of being agents for the Mossad, guilty
of attempting to forge New Zealand passports. Israeli officials denied
that the men were members of the Mossad, but New Zealand's prime
minister announced diplomatic sanctions against Israel and demanded an
apology.

Michael Oren, an Israeli historian, said Israel would have very little
to gain by spying on the United States "because the relationship is so
open and giving."

"Israel and the United States see very much eye to eye on the Iran
threat, and the intelligence cooperation is extremely close -- it's on
an unprecedented level," Oren said. "Both countries perceive Iran's
future acquisition of nuclear weapons as a grave threat to the region
and the world, and both are committed to trying to prevent Iran from
going nuclear."

For months, Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz,
have warned Iran that Israel was prepared to take what Mofaz called
"the necessary steps" to eliminate its nuclear capability. In 1981,
Israeli bombers destroyed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in an effort
to curtail then-President Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program.

In recent weeks, Israel and Iran have stepped up their rhetoric.
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told al-Jazeera Arab television
network this month that "Iran is not Iraq -- we will not sit by idly
if our nuclear reactor's installations are attacked."

Israeli defense and intelligence officials have said Iran's nuclear
weapons development program, coupled with its Shihab-3 missile, which
is capable of striking Israel, represent the most significant threat
to Israel.

In a simulated test last Friday off the Californian coast, Israel's
Arrow anti-ballistic missile system, which is designed to destroy or
intercept short- and medium-range missiles, failed to stop a Shihab-3
and a Syrian Scud D, according to Israeli defense officials.

Analysts also said that because of AIPAC's alleged involvement, the
Franklin case, if proved, could have a more damaging impact on
U.S.-Israeli relations than the case of Jonathan J. Pollard, a U.S.
Navy intelligence analyst who admitted to spying for Israel in 1987.
Analysts said the case could also have a major impact on AIPAC. The
group has 65,000 members "at the forefront of the most vexing issues
facing Israel today: stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,
fighting terrorism and achieving peace," according to its Web site.

"The insinuation that AIPAC, an American Jewish lobby, is engaged in
espionage is in some ways worse than Pollard, who as a single
individual could be described as off-balance," said Alpher, the former
Mossad official.

Equally damaging could be the perception that Israeli and American
Jews are wielding disproportionate influence on U.S. foreign policy,
said Oren, the historian.

"There's a convention going on in New York," he said, referring to the
Republican National Convention, "and the canard has been out there for
a long time that Israel and Israel's supporters and the
neo-conservatives in the Defense Department have manipulated U.S.
foreign policy, especially on Iraq, to serve Israeli purposes, and
this would tend to substantiate that canard."
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