WILL they or won’t they let him go? And no, this isn’t about Musharraf, as I’m sure you’ve had your fill of the whole ‘if we say he’s leaving every single day, one day we’ll be right’ mantra that you’ve been subjected to by the media. This is about Jonathan Pollard.
An American citizen of Jewish extraction, Pollard was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in 1987 for the crime of selling state secrets to Israel. Despite massive pressure from Israel, where he’s considered to be something of a national hero, and much lobbying by Israel’s allies in the US political system he has remained behind bars.
Now, Pollard is back in the news, amid speculation he could be released as an incentive for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue with what is charmingly referred to as the Israel-Palestine peace process.
What’s interesting from a Pakistani perspective is the fact that Israel has spied, and continues to spy in and on the US. After all, we tend to look at these two countries as two halves of the same whole. But do a little digging and names like Ben-ami Kadish and Stewart Nozette pop up, along with one person whose work you may be familiar with.
That’s Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan (Fight Club, Pretty Woman) who confessed to having spied for Israel since 1973. Along with helping procure nuclear triggers, he also aided South Africa’s apartheid regime with its public relations, as a quid pro quo for their supplying Israel with uranium. If that’s not surreal enough, take a look at BBC’s documentary: The Secret Life of Uri Gellar.
This claims that the famous spoon-bending mentalist worked as a ‘psychic spy’ for Mossad and the CIA alike, using his abilities to locate Syrian nuclear facilities and influence Soviet leaders. Apparently, he drew the line at using his powers to stop a pig’s heart. Thankfully, this means that model Bar Refaeli remains the only bona fide Israeli heart-stopper.
But onto more serious stuff. In August 2012, Edward Snowden provided The Washington Post with a secret congressional budget request calling for “increased investment in … offensive counterintelligence against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba”.
That’s quite a ‘wow’ moment, seeing Israel in the same category as Pakistan and China. But then, one should refer to an Associated Press story from 2012, which quotes US intelligence officials as saying that Israel is the number one counterintelligence threat to the United States in the Middle East.
Essentially, this means that US secrets in that region are safer from Iran and other ‘enemies’ than they are from its most allied of allies. The same piece claims that at least two CIA station chiefs in Israel have reported break-ins and that their communication equipment had been tampered with by Mossad agents.
To those who like looking into such things, it’s no surprise. After all the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, had in 1996 declassified a report stating that Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operation against the United States of any US ally” — including, but not limited to, stealing military technology.
And then there’s a detailed four-part series by Fox News in 2001 on Israeli espionage in the US. It still exists on the internet, even though Fox removed it from its website. Still, to have something like this run on what is considered a pro-Israel news channel is similar to having an anti-Taliban oped print in daily Ummat.
You tend to sit up and take notice of such a thing.
But why would Israel, which receives unstinting US support, spy on its greatest benefactor? For one thing, it’s because that’s what nations, especially obsessively paranoid ones like Israel, do. Because what you don’t know can in fact hurt you and because, simply put, it’s easy. Given the kind of access Israel has on Capitol Hill, what would be remarkable is if it didn’t go the extra mile and keep tabs on the US itself.
It is, in fact, the US’s importance to Israel that makes it a prime espionage target. Tel Aviv needs to know what Washington is thinking, and needs to know what the US knows about those Israel considers enemies. Naturally, this doesn’t always sit well with the US. A few years back, a report in Foreign Policy claimed Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit anti-Iran rebels in Balochistan. To quote a US official: “They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”
This should be food for thought both for those who scoff at the possibility of foreign involvement in Pakistan and also for those who view the US and Israel as one entity. Reality is rarely that simple.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @ZarrarKhuhro
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