SHIT: Israel's New Terror Weapon Against Palestinians

Israel withholds fuel supplies, so electricity is cut off, and a sewage flood results. This is Israel's terror campaign trying to force Hamas to surrender, but the Palestinian people are the victims. READ THIS, IT'S HORRIBLE.

Following our Gaza Situation Report on the Sewage Crisis in the Gaza Strip:

http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/Gaza_Situation_Report_2008_April.pdf

Hebrew report attached

Please be informed of the following:

Sewage yesterday flooded the Ascoolah area of Zeitoun neighborhood near Gaza city.

From 7 am to noon yesterday (during 6 hours ) there was no power to operate the pumps and sewage first flooded the station and then burst manholes and seeped from the pumping station building into surrounding fields, reaching some houses. The sewage has mostly evaporated leaving sludge and some puddles. The area is full of flies.

According to an engineer, the pumping station can hold sewage for three hours before it floods the surrounding area. The longer the power cut, the more likely the sewage will reach nearby houses which are 20 metres away.

The flooding has damaged the machinery which separates solid waste from liquid waste and it cannot be repaired until spare parts are located. So far there has been no additional flooding today. There are three other pumping stations in Gaza City which have no overflow and no fuel to power generators but so far there has been no flooding.

Sewage is also being directed into two storm water lagoons in open areas in Sheik Redwan in Gaza City and at the centre of Jabalia camp.

According to WHO the main health risk is diarrhoea which is spread by flies which proliferate near sewage. This particularly affects young children and the elderly.

Water situation remains the same with 30 per cent receiving running water once a week, 40 per cent once every four days and 30 per cent once every other day.

Power cuts remain at three-four hours per day.

Fuel update The Gas Station Owner Association has emptied the tanks at Nahal Oz and are storing the fuel at seven locations in Gaza Strip. They say they will continue to take fuel from Nahal Oz but will not sell it to the public until Israel guarantees an adequate supply. A committee of the association will meet over the week end to decide what to do with the fuel they now have.

Cooking Gas, the association says they have received 290 tonnes of cooking gas (daily need 350 tonnes). The bulk has been distributed to bakeries and institutions and the rest is now being distributed to the public who are allowed to buy only 6kg per family. A standard canister is 12 kg.

Industrial Gas: 1,000,000 litres expected to be delivered today.

For more information please contact Judith Harel, OCHA harel@un.org, 054 6600528

Judith Harel

Communication and Media Analyst

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OCHAoPt

Jerusalem

Tel:02-582-9962 / 5853

Mobile: 0546-600528

Web-site: www.ochaopt.org

Jewish "Settlers" Attack US Envoy in Hebron

This is no surprise: after all, many "settlers" are from New York City.

U.S. envoy cuts short Hebron trip after clash with settlers

By Haaretz Service

The American bodyguards of a Bush administration envoy who was dispatched to the region to monitor the implementation of the road map engaged in a violent confrontation with right-wing Israelis who sought to disturb a visit to Hebron on Friday, Israel Radio reported.

One of the rightists is reported to have driven his jeep into the convoy accompanying General William Fraser. Subsequently, one of the vehicles in the convoy heavily collided with the jeep, according to Israel Radio.

A fracas ensued between the guards and the rightists before the Americans decided to cut the visit short, Israel Radio reported.

Last update - 18:22 02/05/2008

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/980193.html

Canadian Union Supports Israel Boycott

Canadian postal workers urge divestment of 'apartheid' Israel

By ABE SELIG

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers passed a resolution at its national convention in April supporting the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, labeling it an "apartheid state" and calling on the Canadian government to increase humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

"It's time to push for a fair and just settlement so that both Palestinians and Israelis can live in peace," said Denis Lemelin, the CUPW national president. "There can't be a solution while settlements exist on Palestinian land and while a security barrier restricts the movement of Palestinian workers."

The move, praised by anti-Israel groups such as The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, is the first time a national union in North American history has passed such a resolution against Israel.

The resolution by the CUPW, which represents more than 50,000 postal workers in Canada, states that the union will work "with Palestinian solidarity and human rights organizations to develop an educational campaign about the apartheid nature of the Israeli state and the political and economic support of Canada for these practices."

Using UN resolutions as its basis, the resolution also calls on Israel to "immediately withdraw from the occupied territories" and "tear down the Israeli-West Bank barrier."

Expressing support for a condition the Israeli government has repeatedly refused to agree to, the CUPW resolution also calls on Israel to recognize the Palestinian people's "right to return to their homes as stipulated in UN Resolution 194" - a demand by Palestinian negotiators that would virtually erase the Jewish state.

But the resolution was dismissed by Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber. "CUPW has a very well-established, almost iconic reputation as a radical organization on the far extremes of the Canadian labor movement," he said. "[The resolution] was a foregone conclusion almost from the outset."

Farber also said that the fact the resolution was largely ignored by the mainstream media suggested that people did not take the CUPW resolutions seriously.

"The vast majority of men and women working for the postal service have no clue about such resolutions," Farber said. "Very few pay any attention to them."

Still, the call for a global campaign of boycott and divestment from Israel by over 170 Palestinian political parties, unions and other organizations issued in July 2005 has been heeded internationally. And while the CUPW's resolution may be marginal in North America, it remains to be seen whether other labor unions will follow.

Apr 30, 2008 22:28

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208870533968&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Bush Faking Syria Nuclear Pictures?

More likely faked by Israel, the most likely source of the pictures. In Bosnia there were pictures of alleged mass graves shown to be fakes, and of course the infamous "mobile biological weapons labs" of Saddam Hussein, which were fakes, so why not fakes in Syria?

Are these Syrian nuclear pictures faked?

The CIA published three aerial photographs last week purporting to show a Syrian nuclear reactor, bombed by Israel last September. But are the pictures all that they seem? Doubts about their authenticity have been raised by Professor William Beeman, head of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, who has had a long involvement with the Middle East.

He posted on a Los Angeles Times website a note received from a "colleague with US security clearance" pointing out "irregularities". The unnamed colleague said a picture taken before the bombing looked as if it had been digitally enhanced, noting that the lower part of the building, the annexe and the windows pointing south appeared much sharper than the rest.

He also questioned why the alleged reactor had no air defences, no military checkpoints and no powerlines. Turning to two shots of the bombed building, he noted that the first showed a rectangular building and the second a square one. Were they the same building?

His note has produced lively and detailed exchanges, involving photo technicians, graphic artists and military analysts past and present, including a specialist in aerial reconnaissance. The basic divide is between those who think it is unpatriotic to question the Bush administration and those suspicious that it is a rerun of 2003, when the administration put out misleading intelligence before the Iraq invasion.

Bloggers supportive of the CIA acknowledge that the first picture was digitally enhanced but say that the CIA never claimed last week that it was untouched. As for the discrepancies between pictures two and three, they suggest that the differences between the rectangular shape and the square can be explained by having been taken at different angles.

Beeman told the Guardian he did not know one way or another whether there had been a nuclear reactor in the desert, but he had been concerned last week when the administration put out the pictures. "It was so sloppy and obviously doctored," he said.

"My friend who watches this material carefully in his capacity as an analyst said, 'This does not add up.'"

This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday May 01 2008 on p3 of the Comment & features section. It was last updated at 00:10 on May 01 2008.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/01/syria.nuclear

Obama's Pastor Endorses Israel

Will this help stop the Zionist smear of Obama that has been going on for months?

QUOTE: "My position on Israel is that Israel has a right to exist; that Israelis have a right to exist, as I said, reconciled one to another," he said during his address. "Palestinians and Israelis need to sit down and talk to each other and work out a solution where their children can grow in a world together and not be talking about killing each other; that is not God's will," he said.

Obama's pastor: Israel has right to exist

Reverend Jeremiah Wright says Israelis, Palestinians need to talk to each other

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON - Controversial Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who has been making headlines due to his ties with presidential candidate Barack Obama, spoke out on Monday as part of an attempt to clear his name, following the criticism roused by some of his statements.

During his talk, Wright denied comparing Israel's policies to apartheid, saying that former US President Jimmy Carter had made the connection, not him

"My position on Israel is that Israel has a right to exist; that Israelis have a right to exist, as I said, reconciled one to another," he said during his address. "Palestinians and Israelis need to sit down and talk to each other and work out a solution where their children can grow in a world together and not be talking about killing each other; that is not God's will," he said.

With his remarks, Wright attempted to minimize the damage he was perceived to be causing to Obama's campaign as the democratic candidate fights his rival, Hilary Clinton, for the vote of the white middle class.

"So my position is that Israel and the people of Israel be the people of God who are worrying about reconciliation and who are trying to do what God wants for God's people, which is reconciliation," the reverend stated.

Obama's campaign has been harmed by Wright's past anti-American statements, which were broadcast throughout the US. His outbursts were seen to alienate the working classes, which are viewed as the life blood of the Democratic Party and without whom the party has a slim chance of leading the White House.

The issue has also been a cause for concern among the 300 Democratic superdelegates who remain undecided on their vote.

Published: 04.29.08, 00:04 / Israel News

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3537156,00.html

Is an Israeli "Mega Mole" Stealing US Secrets?

QUOTE: One probable answer is "Mega" - reportedly the code-name of what some US law enforcement and counterintelligence officials believe is an Israeli mole placed somewhere in the upper reaches of the American government during the time that Pollard was active.

Analyze This: Through the looking glass of the Kadish affair

By CALEV BEN-DAVID

Master spy novelist John Le Carré once said, "We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy." In some cases though, the converse may be equally true; we must learn to read conspiracies in terms of politics.

'Kadish is just a regular retiree in the community'

So it is with the arrest of Ben-Ami Kadish, the 84-year-old former US army engineer arrested in New York City on Tuesday on charges of passing classified information to Israel. Even assuming the charges have substance, the circumstances, and especially the timing of his arrest - 23 years after he allegedly last committed an act of espionage on behalf of Israel - raises puzzling and troubling questions.

To make sense of this affair, one must look beyond the details of the case, and speculate as to how they may be connected to broader and longer-standing political issues connected to the Israel-US relationship. The following examines some of these strands and their possible links to the Ben-Ami arrest - and while some of these connections may indeed sound conspiratorial, even something out a Le Carré novel or an Oliver Stone movie, none is without some basis in fact.

The Pollard affair and the search for "Mega" - How did the FBI finally catch on to Ben-Ami's alleged espionage after more than two decades? Accord to a senior US intelligence officer quoted yesterday by Newsweek, Kadish's spying activities on behalf of Israel were only "first discovered within the last few years... The official said the information that identified Kadish came from supersecret intelligence monitoring related to ongoing inquiries about the Pollard case."

Although Kadish's espionage activity was concurrent with that of Pollard, the only known link between the two is that they shared the same "handler" - Yosef Yagur, formerly the consul for scientific affairs at the Israeli consulate in New York in the early 1980s, who returned to Israel following Pollard's arrest in 1985 and the subsequent closure of the Lekem intelligence branch under which he worked.

If the Newsweek source is correct, this likely means that Kadish was detected by the US intelligence monitoring not of him, but of Yagur (believed to be an alias). Other reports have cited a meeting between Yagur and Kadish in Israel four years ago as the possible tip-off for the FBI as to the latter's spying role.

This is hugely significant - for it means that the US, having identified and located Yagur somewhere in Israel, was still monitoring his communications and movements two decades after the Pollard affair.

The US National Security Agency certainly has that capability - but why would they make such a significant investment in an Israeli spy handler who presumably long ago came in from the cold and is no longer active?

One probable answer is "Mega" - reportedly the code-name of what some US law enforcement and counterintelligence officials believe is an Israeli mole placed somewhere in the upper reaches of the American government during the time that Pollard was active.

This notion is based on what US intelligence sources have said was very specific requests for classified information made to Pollard by Yagur and his other Israeli handlers, as well as a reference to such an individual in an intercepted conversation between two Israeli officials. Israel has steadfastly denied it ever ran such an agent, a claim that reportedly has never convinced certain key intelligence officials, in particular David Szady, the former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence.

Thus the search for big fish Mega - focused on Yagur - eventually turned up the relatively small fish Kadish (in terms of the information he delivered). But Kadish's exposure will only serve to justify the views of those in the US intelligence community that Israel has never come clean on Mega's existence or identity - and will also provide them with additional ammunition to argue the case that Pollard should not be released until Israel fully cooperates as to the extent of Yagur's activities in the US.

The AIPAC case and blowback from the intelligence wars over Iraq - If the Mega-Yagur connection explains the delay in Kadish's exposure, what about the timing and manner of his arrest? Such matters can certainly be handled more quietly, and the FBI and Justice Department also seem to have moved extremely quickly with the arrest of Kadish after intercepting a conversation he allegedly had on March 20 in which Yagur told him to lie to investigators. After all, it is not as if the long-retired Kadish posed any form of imminent threat.

One possibility is that the FBI and Justice Department wanted the arrest to hit the headlines before the start of trial in the US government's case against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, scheduled after many delays to get underway in Washington on Tuesday.

The charges in the AIPAC case are similar to that of the Kadish affair - that two senior AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, improperly received classified material from Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin and passed it on to Israeli diplomatic officials.

But the government has encountered many pre-trial setbacks in making its case. Unlike Kadish, Rosen and Weissman were not themselves government employees, and violated no loyalty oaths. Indeed, the prosecution of such civilians on this charge is unprecedented, and the trial judge has already agreed to a series of defense motions that are likely to make this case a tough sell, if not an embarrassment, for the FBI and Justice Department.

How convenient, then, to have the Kadish case break big in the media right before the trial begins, helping to create the impression for judge, jury and public that AIPAC's activities took place in a context of past Israeli efforts to spy on US secrets.

There is a correlating factor here, connected to the policy conflict that began in the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war and afterwards, between the "neoconservative" officials who very much wanted intelligence information that would support an invasion - most of them also identified as strong supporters of Israel - and veteran defense and intelligence officials of the "realist" foreign policy school that opposed them. Larry Franklin belonged to the former camp, and members of the latter believed AIPAC and other Israel-backers were too influential in the Bush administration's decision-making. The AIPAC case has been seen in part as blowback from this Washington bureaucracy battle.

Likewise, the timing and manner of Kadish's exposure might be read as another indication that with most of the most prominent neo-cons now gone from the Bush administration, officials less supportive of Israel are in the driver's seat.

'Kadish is just a regular retiree in the community'

Almost all the Israeli and American officials who have thus commented on the Kadish arrest have asserted that it is unlikely to have any influence on US-Israel security cooperation.

That may well be true, but it is equally improbable to claim that an incident like this would have no impact whatsoever.

In this regard, it is perhaps useful to draw a comparison between the context of US-Israel security cooperation at the time that both Pollard and, allegedly, Kadish were passing on American secrets to Israel, and the current situation.

Pollard has admitted that part of his motivation was a growing concern over the fact that Washington was increasing its security cooperation and assistance with parts of the Arab world back in the early 1980s (especially with Saudi Arabia, which received AWACs for the first time), while holding back valuable intelligence information from Israel.

Jerusalem is always looking to upgrade its security cooperation and assistance from the US, but that need has become even more pressing in recent years because of the Iranian threat. There are powerful voices in Washington who believe Israel already gets enough, or too much, or even asks for too much - for example, the F-22 stealth jet fighter that Jerusalem has been pressing to be allowed to purchase. The controversy a few years ago over Israeli arms sales to China in the face of Pentagon objections only exacerbated these differences.

The exposure of Kadish, a former US army engineer who allegedly delivered classified information about the then-fledgling Patriot missile system to Israel (and about advanced weapons systems sold to Arab states) certainly makes it less comfortable, at least in the short term, for Jerusalem and Israel supporters in Washington to press their case, especially in public.

This element of the Kadish affair goes together with the weakening of AIPAC via the Rosen-Weissman prosecution, as part of an overall agenda by certain US governmental elements who believe it necessary to clip the wings of the so-called Israel lobby.

All of the above theories focus on the possible role played in the Kadish arrest by members of Washington's "permanent establishment" in such agencies and departments as the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Pentagon and the Justice Department.

But what about the White House? Surely such officials as President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were informed about the pending Kadish arrest. Though the White House would not have impacted the course of this investigation, it surely could have influenced the timing and circumstances of the arrest, if it had wanted to.

Is it problematic for Bush to have this incident occur only weeks before he is scheduled to return here to help celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary? Or could it actually have been in some ways convenient for him and Rice to have this break now? One thing supporting the latter supposition is that the Bush administration is currently pressing the Olmert government to be more forthcoming in the peace process, especially to move forward on agreement with the Palestinians on a "declaration of principles" for a final-status agreement. This kind of embarrassing incident for Jerusalem could be interpreted as a way to soften up Olmert as Bush and Rice try to turn the screws on him.

Admittedly, it sounds far-fetched that this kind of sensitive intelligence issue would be as a blunt policy instrument. Except that it may have happened before, in a way very connected to this case.

In May 1997, a Clinton administration source leaked to The Washington Post the contents of a conversation between Israeli diplomats, monitored by US intelligence agencies, in which the mysterious Mega mole was supposedly mentioned. As Time magazine subsequently noted: "The leak came at a tindery time for US diplomacy in the Middle East. The Clinton administration has had testy relations with [then-prime minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, whom Washington blames for the gridlock in the Palestinian talks. Israeli officials complained that if their embassy phone calls were tapped, Washington also is guilty of spying." The leak was interpreted by some informed observers at the time as a means of turning the heat up on Netanyahu, to get him to be flexible in advancing the Oslo process.

And now, at this sensitive juncture in the peace process, we get the Kadish affair - and presumably, a desire on Jerusalem's part to make an extra effort in Washington's direction in order to avoid heavier fall-out from it.

Sound a little too... conspiratorial? Perhaps. But to quote the mother of all conspiracy movies, JFK, in the matter of Ben-Ami Kadish it may be wise to "Forget what you know. We are through the looking glass, people; and sometimes black is white, and white is black."

Apr 24, 2008 0:14 | Updated Apr 24, 2008 18:04

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1208870478406&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Rice Lying About Jimmy Carter?

Few doubt that the Bush Administration lies about almost everything, but Jimmy Carter is gracious enough to give the benefit of the doubt.

QUOTE: However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true," the statement said.

Carter: I wasn't told to shun Hamas

Former president says State Department did not warn him to stay away from Hamas leaders

Reuters

Former US President Jimmy Carter denied on Wednesday that the State Department warned him not to meet with leaders of Hamas before he made a recent trip to the Middle East.

The State Department has said earlier that US Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top US Diplomat for the Middle East, urged Carter not to meet with Hamas, a position restated by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, but Carter denied this.

"No one in the State Department or any other department of the US government ever asked him (Carter) to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President (Bashar) Assad or leaders of Hamas," said a statement released by the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which speaks on the former president's behalf.

'Very pleasant conversation'

The Carter Center statement said the former president attempted to call Rice before making the trip and a deputy returned his call since Rice was in Europe.

"They had a very pleasant discussion for about 15 minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments described above. He never talked to anyone else," the Carter Center statement said.

"President Carter has the greatest respect for ... Rice and believes her to be a truthful person. However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true," the statement said.

Published: 04.23.08, 18:08 / Israel News

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3535149,00.html

More Lies: Once Again, Israel Proves It Can't Be Trusted

Two stories here:

Ex-prosecutor: Israel lied about extent of anti-U.S. spying in '80s

By The Associated Press

New charges that an Army veteran passed military secrets to the same Israeli handler as convicted spy Jonathan Pollard confirms the espionage ring reached further than initially thought, and that the Israelis lied about it, a former prosecutor said Wednesday.

"The similarities are quite eerie," said Joseph E. diGenova, who as U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia oversaw the 1980s-era Pentagon spy scandal that ensnared Pollard, an ex-Navy analyst serving a life sentence for revealing defense secrets to Israel.

A criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court "clearly indicates there were other Americans being asked at other military installations to do the same things the same way," diGenova said. "This was a much larger espionage operation ... than we understood or could have known at the time."

Ben-Ami Kadish, an 84-year-old from New Jersey, was arrested Tuesday and charged with four conspiracy counts. Prosecutors said he confessed to FBI agents that in order to help Israel, he gave his Israeli contact 50 to 100 classified documents between 1979 and 1985, including information about America's nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles.

Kadish worked then as a mechanical engineer at the Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in Dover, N.J.

Kadish, released Tuesday on $300,000 bail, could face a death sentence if convicted on the top conspiracy charge. He and his lawyer, Bruce Goldstein, declined to comment Wednesday.

Alon Pinkas, Israel's former New York consul, said the charges against Kadish might have been announced to prevent the release of Pollard, whose case remains a blot on otherwise close relations between the countries.

The link between Pollard and Kadish is a now-defunct Israeli intelligence agency known as the Scientific Relations Office, Israeli intelligence expert Yossi Melman said Wednesday. The office was run by Rafi Eitan, a former agent with Israel's Mossad spy agency who is now an Israeli Cabinet minister.

According to court documents, Kadish and Pollard shared the same handler ? Yosef Yagur, who Melman said is now retired and living in Tel Aviv. His telephone number is unlisted.

During the period outlined in the complaint against Kadish, Yagur was working in the Israeli consulate in Manhattan.

"For years, Israel was involved in technological espionage in the U.S.," Melman said. "Kadish and Pollard were not the only ones."

Israel offered its first response Wednesday to the new arrest, a vague statement that did not deny the charges.

"The events in question date to the early 1980s," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said. "To remove any doubt, since 1985 there has been much care taken to observe the directives of the prime ministers not to engage in any activities of this type in the U.S."

Citing court papers, diGenova said Yagur used the same methods with Kadish that he did with Pollard, finding a U.S. citizen with security clearance to take classified materials from the workplace and letting him copy them.

DiGenova said his own probe was stymied by the Israelis when at least four individuals, including Yagur, were flown out of the country despite assurances by Israel that they would remain in the United States during the investigation.

"The Israelis, of course, lied to us. They said there were no other spies and they had destroyed all the documents they got at the time," he said.

DiGenova, now in private practice in Washington, said he and other investigators in the 1980s were so convinced there were other Americans involved in the espionage that they nicknamed the phantom individuals "Mr. X." He noted that Yagur knew exactly what documents he was seeking from Pollard and Kadish.

"It was obvious they had other people supplying the information so they could target the finds," he said. "You want to protect your ultimate source. You don't want someone who deals with these documents every day being your source."

Charles S. Leeper, who was the lead prosecutor under diGenova in the Pollard case, called the Kadish case fascinating.

"I am not aware of any other case where the government has brought espionage charges more than 25 years after the conduct in question," he said.

Leeper and diGenova agreed that it did not matter that classified materials were provided to a U.S. ally. Investigators in the Pollard case suspected his information was traded by the Israelis to South Africa, which then provided it to the Soviet Union in return for helping Israel get Jews out of the then-Communist superpower, diGenova said.

"I would say espionage is a zero-tolerance offense," Leeper said. "It's irrelevant that the recipient of the offense is an ally rather than an enemy."

Last update - 05:14 24/04/2008

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977680.html

=====

U.S. to demand Jerusalem acknowledge Kadish was an Israeli agent

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

The United States' demands of Israel following the arrest and subsequent indictment Tuesday in the U.S. of Ben-Ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel recalled similar demands following the 1985 arrest of Jonathan Pollard, American sources familiar with the case have told Haaretz. At that time, Israel announced its full cooperation and handed over information to the American investigators, in effect greatly aiding the case against Pollard.

According to the American sources, Israel is currently refusing to repeat this mistake but it eventually will have to admit, to the U.S. government and perhaps also to the public, that Kadish was indeed working for official agents of the State of Israel.

Wednesday's Foreign Ministry statement, according to which Israel halted its espionage activities against the United States on U.S. soil in 1985, also hints at this. Its language leaves the door open for Israel's admission that Kadish was an Israeli agent but ceased these activities in 1985, as stated in his indictment. Pollard was arrested that year.

According to the charge sheet, it was Kadish's brother Ehud, who lives in Israel, who made the initial contact between Ben-Ami and his Israeli handler, Yossi Yagur, when Ehud and Yagur worked together at Israel Aircraft Industries (now known as Israel Aerospace Industries).

Another interesting question, which remains to be answered, is the issue of who will pay for Kadish's legal fees. At the beginning of the Pollard affair, a public committee was founded that was supposedly composed of volunteers who collected money to pay for the defense of Pollard and his wife at the time, Anne Pollard. It later became clear that the public committee was actually a front for the Israeli government and intelligence community.

Jerusalem responds

Barak Ravid adds: "The events date back to the early 1980s," Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said Wednesday. "Since 1985, great care has been taken to observe the directives of the prime ministers not to conduct activities of this kind in the U.S."

"Relations between the United States and Israel have always been based on true friendship and mutual values and interests," Mekel added.

According to U.S. court documents, Kadish confessed to the crimes of which he is accused and told the FBI he had sought to aid Israel. The information he allegedly passed to Israel dealt with nuclear weapons, fighter aircraft and defensive missiles.

Kadish, 84, was released on $300,000 bail Tuesday following a brief appearance in a Manhattan federal court.

The Foreign Ministry announcement was one of two exceptions to the official silence that prevailed in Jerusalem Wednesday on the story.

The other was a statement made by Environmental Protection Minister Gideon Ezra, who in an interview to Israel Radio said he did not believe the affair would damage Israel-U.S. relations. He said that Kadish was not another Pollard.

Last update - 05:27 24/04/2008

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/977681.html

Hamas Still Very Strong Among Students

An outright win for Hamas over Fatah at Hebron University and, if one adds in other Hamas-type groups Hamas and company tied Fatah at Biezeit University. This doesn't really sound like a situation Fatah should breathe "a sigh of relief" over, as the story below puts it. It also points up the importance of bringing Hamas into any negotiations for a peace settlement.

20080423 Ynet story on Hebron University student elections:

Hamas wins Hebron student association elections

Published: 04.23.08, 20:12 / Israel News

The Hamas movement won the elections for the student association in Hebron University. Hamas won 15 seats, compared to Fatah's 14. (Ali Waked)

20080423 story on Birzeit University student elections:

QUOTE: The election turned violent as Hamas claimed that the PA's security forces intervened in favor of Fatah with a raid performed by security personnel on Hamas' student faction offices. Hamas claimed they confiscated election documents and lists of students' names in order to improve Fatah's chances.

Birzeit students vote Fatah over Hamas

Fatah breathes sigh of relief as student union of university near Ramallah gives them majority of votes. Hamas claims PA security forces assisted victorious party

Ali Waked

Following a tense and violent vote that took over two weeks, Fatah emerged victorious on Tuesday, turning the tables on Hamas to win the student election in the Palestinian Birzeit University near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Fatah representatives took hold of 25 seats, Hamas took 19, Popular Front won five, and Islamic Jihad won one seat together with the leftist parties.

Fatah breathed a sigh of relief after the results were announced, as they dodged the blow they had absorbed during the previous year, in which Hamas had received the majority of votes. Though the election was performed by a student union, Fatah seniors feared that another loss would harm the movement and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, and they invested large funds in the election in order to win.

Hamas blames PA

The election turned violent as Hamas claimed that the PA's security forces intervened in favor of Fatah with a raid performed by security personnel on Hamas' student faction offices. Hamas claimed they confiscated election documents and lists of students' names in order to improve Fatah's chances.

Hamas also claimed that PA security arrested and interrogated dozens of the group's activists in the university, and threatened them and their families in order to keep them from the participating in the election.

Fatah had feared that the split within the movement, which was evident during the election, would sway the students' opinions against them, but the fears turned out to be unfounded as Fatah gained control of the most influential student union in the Palestinian territories.

Hamas was also hoping for victory, which would have enabled them to claim that they had emerged victorious despite the persecution of their activists in the West Bank.

Despite the victory, Fatah has expressed concerns about the possible formation of a coalition made up of Popular Front and Islamic Jihad, following the violent clashes between supporters of Fatah and those of Popular Front, but the chances for this are estimated as low.

Published: 04.23.08, 00:38 / Israel News

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3534835,00.html

More on New US Traitor Who Spied for Israel

A very interesting aspect of this is that it came to light because of US eavesdropping. That should be investigated more thoroughly. Was the US eavesdropping on the spy because of his past government employment, or does the US routinely eavesdrop on Israel?

The Kadish-Pollard link

Prominent US magazine Newsweek reports arrest of suspected spy Ben-Ami Kadish was made possible after secret intelligence monitoring of ongoing inquiries regarding Jonathan Pollard case revealed

News agencies

The FBI arrest of 85-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish on suspicion of espionage Tuesday lends an unexpected twist to another, somewhat stale, espionage case in Israel-US relations' history – the Pollard case, a senior intelligence source told Newsweek Magazine Wednesday.

According to the report, the US intelligence services intercepted a telephone conversation between Kadish and his handler, referred to in the investigation as CC1 – in which he instructs Kadish to "say nothing. Let them do all the talking. You haven't done anything. You can't remember something that happened 25 years ago."

According to intelligence sources quoted in Newsweek, Kadish's arrest may indicate the long-term fallout from the Pollard case is not necessarily a thing of the past; since his alleged activities, which were only recently discovered – more than 20 years after they occurred – surfaced as part of secret intelligence monitoring related to ongoing inquiries about the Pollard case.

Jonathan Pollard was convicted for spying for Israel in 1986 and is serving a life term.

The information obtained by Kadish, however, is believed to be slightly less sensitive than the one provided by Pollard. The latte has access to top secret document, while the former only has access to documents classified as "secret."

'There's no doubt it's him'

The FBI maintains that among the classified documents provided by Kadish to Israel were items containing restricted data regarding nuclear weapons, modified version of F-15 fighter jets supposedly sold by the US to Saudi Arabia, as well as materials pertaining to the Patriot antimissile system.

Ron Olive, the Navy Criminal Investigative Service investigator who was in charge of the Pollard inquiry told the magazine he believed CC-1 could be only one person: Yosef Yagur, a former official who served as science adviser at the Israeli consulate in New York from 1980 to 1985.

Olive said the person described in the new FBI documents as Kadish's handler "has got to be" Yagur. "There's no doubt it's him." In 1986 Yagur was also identified as one of Pollard's Israeli handlers in a US Justice Department sentencing memorandum.

Ironically, Kadish's arrest came just as federal prosecutors are preparing to begin the long-delayed trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, which are accused of violating the US Espionage Act for allegedly sharing classified information they received from US officials, with both the media and the Israeli government. Both men entered a plea of not guilty.

Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the US attorney's office in Manhattan declined comment on the origins of the case. Kadish's defense lawyer, Bruce Goldstein, declined comment as well.

Published: 04.23.08, 10:10 / Israel News

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