SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Two Jewish student groups are sponsoring Israeli Occupation Awareness Week at Brandeis University.
Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace are co-hosting four days of speakers and films focusing on what they say is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. The events at the school in Waltham, Mass., a nonsectarian university founded by the American Jewish community, will take place from Nov. 8 to Nov. 11.
Speakers include Noam Chomsky, who will discuss his new book decrying Israel’s policies in Gaza, and Alice Rothchild, who will talk about Jewish support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
In a news release explaining the event — unusual due to its sponsorship by two Jewish groups — organizers said they wanted to show that “the student body does not fall lock step in line with AIPAC, the ADL and other un-nuanced approaches to the State of Israel and the Palestinian people.”
Time has made a stranger of a once-thriving Jewish community in China.
by Zvi Hellman
“WELCOME TO Kaifeng, and thanks for coming all the way here,” says Tzur. Charming, with a warm smile, Tzur is an experienced licensed tour guide running the Jewish China Tours Company, which, as the name implies, specializes in Jewish heritage trips through China. He is fluent in Hebrew and English, and is a walking trove of historical knowledge on China’s Jews.
But Tzur is not a transplanted Israeli or American who came for a visit to China and happened to have stayed. Tzur is the Hebrew name he adopted nearly a decade ago in Israel; he is more commonly known by the name he was born with, Shi Lei. His surname, Shi, means “stone” in Chinese, which is why he translated it to “Tzur” in Hebrew. And not only is he a native of Kaifeng, a city of over four million in China’s Henan province, he is a scion of the family that was among the leaders of the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng.
When people think of historical Jewish connections to China, the cities that come to mind most often are Harbin and Shanghai. Shanghai’s Jewish community dates from the mid-19th century, when Jews from Iraq and Indiaopened trading offices in that city. They were later joined by European Jews, especially immediately prior to and during World War II, when Shanghai was a protective haven for as many as 18,000 Jews fleeing the Holocaust, assisted by sympathetic Chinese diplomats who issued them passports. At its peak, the Jewish community in Shanghai numbered 30,000, with two synagogues, one Sephardi and the other Ashkenazi.
Harbin, in China’s far northeast, was a major hub on the trans-Siberian railway, when Tzarist Russia occupied China’s Manchuria province in the 19th century, and a sizable community of Russian Jews seeking employment found its way there. The community there was further bolstered by a wave of Jews fleeing the Russian revolution, among them the grandparents and parents of former prime minister Ehud Olmert.
After World War II ended, China became the communist People’s Republic of China and virtually all the Jews in the country left. Many made their way to the new State of Israel. The synagogues in Shanghai were shut down permanently, although they were recently temporarily reopened as part of the celebrations associated with the 2010 World Exposition in Shanghai.
Long before Jews built the first synagogue in Harbin or Shanghai, however – a very long time before, in fact – there was a thriving Jewish community in Kaifeng. But it has almost completely gone lost in the pages of time.
“THE JEWISH COMMUNITY here was founded in the 11th century by Jews from Persia, Central Asia and India, according to our communal history,” explains Shi Lei, who is in his early thirties. “The community’s founders were merchants following the Silk Road. They brought cotton cloth from India, which was considered exotic at the time in China, and sold Chinese silk in the West.”
The Silk Road traditionally ended in Xi’an, far to the west of Kaifeng and there was a Jewish community in Xi’an associated with the Silk Road. But as any visitor to Kaifeng is told repeatedly, Kaifeng in the 11th century was the capital of China, under the Northern Song dynasty. At the time, it may have been the world’s largest metropolis, with an estimated 1.5 million inhabitants.
Jews gravitated to the capital city. There was also a Jewish community in Hangzhou at one time, and perhaps several other cities. Only the Kaifeng community, however, lasted for centuries.
“The community must have been quite wealthy,” says Shi Lei. “There used to be a large synagogue in the old Kaifeng downtown, in an area where land prices were very high, attesting to the wealth of the community. At its peak, in the 14th century, the community numbered well over 4,000.”
With such a glorious history, why is Kaifeng not on the well-trod path of visitors to Jewish sites in China? For one thing, there is almost nothing left. The community once had a synagogue with a Torah study hall, a communal kitchen, complete with kosher butchering facilities, and ritual bath. But Kaifeng is situated near the Yellow River, which, until it was tamed in modern times, was notorious for flooding. There are estimated to be at least six layers of flooded-over remnants of Kaifeng underneath its contemporary, somewhat dusty streets. A flood in 1642 buried Kaifeng, devastating the Jewish community and bringing its golden age to an end.
Although the synagogue was eventually rebuilt, it was assimilation that really put an end to the community. “My great-grandfather’s generation would still place red paint on doorposts in the spring, in place of the lamb or chicken blood that was previously used [to mark Passover],” says Shi Lei. “The community also strictly avoided eating pork products. But most Jewish traditions were gradually lost. Even our Torah scrolls were removed over time.”
Of the 13 Torah scrolls the community once had, none remain in Kaifeng. Ten were sold to Western collectors over the years and three were lost entirely. “I did get to see a Torah case belonging to my ancestors,” notes Shi Lei, “but in Canada, in the Royal Ontario Museum.”
By the mid-19th century, the synagogue in Kaifeng was shut down, and today all that remains of it is a well (presumably part of a mikve), hidden in one of the back rooms of a hospital that was constructed on the site where the synagogue once stood.
There is, in fact, very little that is Jewish-related for a visitor to see in Kaifeng today. An exhibit sponsored by American and Canadian organizations of three stone steles telling the Kaifeng community’s history and dating from the 15th and 16th centuries is locked away in the attic of the local museum. The writing on the stones, in classical Chinese, is largely faded, but experts can read rubbings of it, and the steles are visually impressive. Avisitor wishing to see the exhibit, however, needs to know about its existence beforehand, ask the curators for special permission to enter, and pay 50 Chinese yuan (general admission to the museum is free) before the keys to the room are fetched.
Similarly, the Jewish pavilion at Millennium City Park, a theme park in Kaifeng based on the famous Qing Ming scroll painted by Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan, is locked away and its existence is not even revealed to visitors to the park.
About 20 years ago, the remaining Jewish cemetery was vandalized by grave robbers. It has yet to be restored. “My grandfather’s heart was broken seeing the bones of his fathers removed from their graves,” says Shi Lei sadly.
Despite what may appear to be an attempt on the part of local authorities to keep the Jewish history of Kaifeng out of sight, Shi Lei insists that there is no such active agenda. “There is no desire to hide [anything],” he says. “If tourists want to see any of these things, they only need to ask; tourists never have a problem getting to these things in Kaifeng when I show them around here. To China, it is not worthwhile to hiding this part of the history.”
SHI LEI REVEALS A STUBBORN insistence not to let what remains of the Kaifeng Jewish community die away entirely.
He grew up hearing stories about the glory of the community from his grandfather. “After China opened to the West a few decades ago, scholars started coming to Kaifeng to study the history of the community,” he recalls. “They all came to interview my grandfather, to learn as much as they could from his memories, and the rituals he still preserved. He was perhaps the only person 40 years ago who still remembered the traditions.”
When he came of age, Shi Lei was fortunate enough to receive sponsorship for two years of Jewish study in Israel. “I was the first Kaifeng Jew ever sent to study Judaism in Israel,” he recalls proudly. “In 2001, Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, who was living in the Far East at the time, arranged for me to enroll in a one-year Jewish studies program at Bar-Ilan University. After that, I went on to study at Yeshiva Machon Meir in Jerusalem, with the generous assistance of Michael Freund of Shavei Yisrael [an organization that helps lost tribes and wandering Jews reconnect to their roots and return to Israel].”
Shi Lei returned to China, determined to devote himself to reviving the community. He teaches Hebrew and Jewish traditions in Kaifeng as a service to the community, while supporting himself leading Jewish heritage tours.
The effort is an uphill one, facing many odds. Judaism is not recognized as an official religion in China, nor are Jews listed among China’s 55 minority groups. Only about 500 Kaifeng residents today identify themselves as descended in some way from the Jewish community. They live in one of China’s poorest provinces and have little access to any Jewish ritual objects – not even a Torah scroll.
The Orthodox rabbinic leadership in Israel has determined that they must undergo conversion if they officially wish to rejoin Judaism because of centuries of assimilation and the fact thatthe Kaifeng community implemented patrilineal descent of Judaism as opposed to the matrilineal descent of normative Judaism.
Yet, despite all these obstacles, some 18 members of the Kaifeng community recently agreed to be converted and moved to Israel.
“Please do help spread the word about the Kaifeng community,” Shi Lei asks The Report. “Very few in Israel have heard about it. We need to raise awareness, to give opportunities for more young people from our community to get to Israel, and to learn the traditions.”
For more than four decades, Israel has been trying to enjoy the benefits of nuclear deterrence without the costs of being a non-proliferation pariah. But time may be running out.
By Bruce Riedel
The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb, by Avner Cohen Columbia University Press, 416 pages, $35
“The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain with the Bomb” is a brave, provocative and very important book. Avner Cohen has done prodigious research into the development of one of the most important strategic issues in the Middle East: Israel’s nuclear weapons policy. While this policy has cast a tremendous shadow across the region for a half-century, both the Israeli and American governments have regarded it as a taboo subject since 1969. Israeli leaders have in fact never acknowledged whether they have the bomb; rather, they have wrapped the issue in layers of ambiguity and opacity, termed amimut in Hebrew, to keep the reality off-limits to discussion. In this way, Israel has tried to enjoy the benefits of nuclear deterrence without the costs of being a pariah vis-a-vis the global non-proliferation system.
Initially, the United States tried to persuade Israel not to develop nuclear capability. Cohen’s earlier book, “Israel and the Bomb” (1999 ), chronicled Israel’s decision to get the bomb and President John F. Kennedy’s attempt to dissuade it from crossing the nuclear threshold. The new book picks up where the earlier one left off: with the September 1969 meeting in which Golda Meir and Richard Nixon, with no aides present, agreed that Israel would have the bomb but not acknowledge it, and America would go along with the charade. Since that date, Cohen writes, Israel and the United States have had a bilateral commitment to keep Israel’s nuclear arsenal beyond the purview of international scrutiny, while America maintains Israel’s conventional and nuclear qualitative superiority over any possible enemy.
This policy has worked well for both countries for 40 years, but Cohen argues that the cost to Israeli democracy has been considerable and that its time is running out, if only because of the challenge Iran’s nascent nuclear program presents to Israel. Both are provocative and important arguments; the bulk of the book is devoted to the first issue.
Amimut required the creation of secret infrastructures – to build the bomb, preserve its secrecy and keep the media, or anyone else, from unveiling it. “Worst-Kept Secret” examines all three aspects. The Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which runs the weapons program, reports directly to the prime minister; the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment is a top-secret intelligence and counterintelligence agency that protects the secret; and the office of the censor ensures that Israeli media respect the taboo. Cohen reveals how these institutions grew with little or no oversight from the Knesset or the judiciary, and became accepted in Israel as essential to the survival of the state.
As a consequence, he argues, Israeli democracy has never had an open and coherent discussion about the ultimate weapon. No other country has had such an exceptional approach to its own nuclear deterrent. Israel, moreover, has acted to prevent other states in the region from getting the bomb, employing force, diplomacy and sabotage for the purpose. As recently as Operation Orchard, the September 6, 2007 strike on Syria, Israel has demonstrated its determination to be the only nuclear weapons state in the region. Only one Islamic state, Pakistan, has escaped Israel’s reach.
Critical issues of command and control, accountability and the rule of law – as they relate to nuclear matters – have never been openly debated in Israel’s otherwise vibrant democracy, nor has the impact of the bomb on regional stability. What is the command and control structure for Israel’s arsenal, and who decides about its use? What are the authorities and powers of the defense establishment’s director of security and where do they come from? What impact has the bomb had on Arab thinking about Israel? What strategic impact has amimut had on the last 50 years of Middle East history? These and many other important questions are black boxes, due to the taboo.
The Indian model
Cohen convincingly argues that the Israeli public has been an enthusiastic participant in maintaining the taboo. For understandable reasons, having to do with the Holocaust and Israel’s long struggle for survival, Israelis seem comfortable maintaining a level of silence on these issues that would be unthinkable in any other democracy today. In a very real sense, Israelis are complicit in the national refusal to acknowledge and discuss their arsenal.
Cohen argues that it is time for Israel to come out of the closet. Israeli democracy, he says, needs nuclear ambiguity to end and the rising Iranian challenge makes it all the more urgent before a mad scramble for nuclear weapons engulfs the Middle East. A model for how to do so may lie in the U.S. agreement with India that George W. Bush pushed through the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group and a skeptical U.S. Congress in 2008. India became a de facto member of the nuclear weapons club as a result, opening some of its reactors to international inspection while keeping others for military purposes, and in turn gaining access to advanced technology. Can something similar but not identical be created for Israel that would allow it to become a recognized weapons state inside the global proliferation regime, in effect acknowledging what we all know?
The Iranian nuclear question makes this issue all the more timely, and Cohen’s arguments all the more urgent. Israel is the state that feels most threatened by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and with good reason. The Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, was the first to call for Israel to be eliminated from the Middle East, and it was he who sent the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Lebanon in 1982 to establish Hezbollah. Iran’s current president has called for Israel’s destruction often, most alarmingly last month when he toured Lebanon. Today Israel is believed to be considering the wisdom of a strike against Iran.
But if it doesn’t attack Iran, Israel will still maintain military superiority over the Islamic Republic for the foreseeable future. Amimut tends to hide this fact. Cohen notes that even among officers in the Israel Defense Forces, few have access to information about Israel’s bombs and their delivery systems. Estimates by international think tanks of the arsenal’s size generally concur that Israel has about 100 nuclear weapons, maybe even twice that number. Even under a crash program, Iran won’t be able to build that many nuclear weapons for many years, perhaps decades.
Israel also has multiple delivery systems. It has intermediate-range ballistic missiles, like the Jericho, capable of reaching any target in Iran. Its fleet of F-15 long-range strike aircraft can also deliver nuclear payloads. Some analysts have suggested that it can also deliver nuclear weapons via cruise missiles launched from its Dolphin submarines. In sum, Israel will be able to maintain a sizable superiority over Iran for the foreseeable future. This is the reality of the regional balance of power, though it is rarely said in public.
Israel will also continue to have conventional military superiority over Iran and the rest of the region. Its air force is capable of penetrating air defense systems with virtual impunity, as it demonstrated in 2007 when it destroyed Syria’s nascent nuclear capability. The IDF’s intelligence and electronic warfare capabilities are vastly superior to its potential rivals’. Israeli satellites provide it with coverage of Iranian facilities and capabilities every day, which according to several American think tanks is a major advantage in modern warfare.
The 2006 Lebanon war and the 2009 Gaza war demonstrated that there are limits to Israel’s conventional capabilities – some, like those regarding ground operations to reoccupy territories that Israel does not want to try to govern again, are self-imposed – but those limits should not obscure the underlying reality of its conventional military superiority over its enemies.
Iran, on the other hand, has never fully rebuilt its conventional military from the damage suffered in the Iran-Iraq war. It still relies heavily for air power on equipment purchased by the Shah. Moreover, the most recent United Nations sanctions mean that virtually all significant weapons systems – including tanks, aircraft, naval vessels and missiles – are banned from sale or transfer to Iran, as are training and technical assistance for such systems. In other words, even if Iran wants to improve its conventional military capability in the next few years, with the help of foreign suppliers, and has the money to do so, the UN arms ban will make that near impossible. Nor does it have the capability to produce state-of-the-art weapons on its own, despite its occasional claims to self-sufficiency. It certainly cannot build a modern air force that would compete with the IAF. Finally, Israel will continue to enjoy the support of the world’s only superpower for the foreseeable future. U.S. assistance includes roughly $3 billion in aid every year. Dating back to 1973, it is the longest-running financial assistance program in American history. It has never been challenged or cut by Congress, and permits Israeli planners to do multi-year planning for defense acquisitions with great certitude about what they can afford to acquire.
U.S. assistance also goes far beyond mere financial aid. The Pentagon and the IDF constantly exchange technical expertise on virtually all elements of the modern battlefield. Missile defense has been at the center of this exchange for over 20 years now. Officials in Washington and Tel Aviv say the Obama administration has strengthened and expanded the relationship. The two countries also have a robust and dynamic intelligence relationship that helps ensure Israel’s qualitative edge.
American support for Israel comes despite Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Since 1969, the U.S. has implicitly supported Israel’s nuclear deterrent by providing it with high-performance aircraft and not pressing for NPT signature. Every president since Nixon has supported maintaining Israel’s qualitative edge over its potential foes, including U.S. allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Cohen notes that President Barack Obama reaffirmed these commitments to Israel early in his term, even as he has pushed for a world without nuclear weapons. Iran, in contrast, has no major power providing it with financial help. Its arms relationships with Russia and China have been severed by UN Resolution 1929. Its only military ally is Syria, not exactly a powerhouse. Cohen concludes that the amimut issue needs to be put on the table both in Israel and the U.S. The Iranian challenge is a serious danger to regional, and even global, stability, which should be addressed in the full context of the real balance of power in the area. Those engaged in such a discussion cannot pretend Israel is a weak and helpless state. But they must also address Israel’s legitimate concerns about Iranian recklessness.
In the 2008 presidential primaries, then-senator Hillary Clinton suggested extending a nuclear umbrella over Israel to deter Iran. Does that make sense if Israel already has its own strategic deterrent? How can we realistically debate these issues if we don’t acknowledge reality? Isn’t it time to stop pretending that a badly kept secret is still a taboo?
Bruce Riedel is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He served for 30 years in the CIA, negotiated at the Wye River and Camp David summits, and chaired the U.S. president’s interagency review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policy in 2009.
National Security Alert: F-35 Stealth Fighter Spy Cover-Up. Photo: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter now worthless?
(veteranstoday.com)
“WIKI” STYLE ESPIONAGE LANDS $300 BILLION DOLLAR SUPER-PLANE PLANS
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
“Another spy disaster like Pollard, shoved under the rug too long due to pressure from the powerful Israeli lobby.”
On April 21, 2009, the Department of Defense announced the theft of 1.5 terabytes of data on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the platform meant give the United States and her allies air superiority for the next 40 years. In a flash, all that was gone, $300 billion dollars of funding down the drain, every system, defense, offense, stealth, everything needed to build one or shoot it down, all gone. Day one, China was accused but it wasn’t China, it wasn’t Iran, it wasn’t Pakistan. The theft left a clear signature, one identical to the data Wikileaks has been receiving, sources inside the Pentagon repeating the actions of Israeli-Soviet spy, Jonathan Pollard. As vital as the F-35 is to America’s defense, Pollard’s triumph on behalf of Soviet Russia and Israel dwarfs the current espionage coup.
Since the 2009 announcement, there has been nothing but silence.
When the theft was announced, Pentagon “damage control” went into action immediately branding the disaster as “unimportant” while scrambling to look for any possible way to “put the toothpaste back into the tube.” What Secretary Gates came up with was a simple denial and to pretend it never happened. With the continual efforts by the Israeli government to secure the release of master spy Jonathan Pollard, a “witch hunt” for another Israeli spy would endanger America’s hopes of winning a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
There was no real question, this was another Israeli operation, their “signature” was all over it.
“AN UNPRECEDENTED DISASTER”
What did America lose? 15 years of research and development? That doesn’t come close. Key components of the F-35, from stealth materials, flight and weapons systems, to tens of thousands of man-hours of systems programming are now “out there,” available to any potential rival, military or commercial. At best, it could be considered a $300 billion dollar bank robbery, by American standards, nothing new in today’s financial world.
At worst, nations whose defense capabilities were decades behind the US can now be at par, as the F-35 was estimated to be “air superiority capable” until at least 2040. Data stolen could make production of a comparable aircraft possible in as little as 36 months, particularly with several projects in the offing, Russia/India and in China, each of which are capable of quickly adapting upgraded systems.
The JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) in its three variants, conventional takeoff/landing (CTOL), carrier variant (CV) and short takeoff/vertical landing (STOLV), are scheduled for production through 2026 with estimates of service life until 2060 and beyond. Export versions of the F-35, “detuned” are available for American allies, NATO and Israel. The F-35 delivers more “punch” per dollar than any current “legacy” fighter by a margin of as much as 8 to 1. The economics of “stealing” the F-35 and auctioning it off, system at a time, is tremendous.
Any nation with a substantial defense industry will have immediately gained a decade or more in, not just stealth fighter/bomber design, but hundreds of areas of science applicable to UAV drones, missiles, including nuclear ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles), and smaller missile systems, not only air defense but against helicopters and armour as well. Every advanced technology America has is in the F-35 somewhere.
Stealth technology from the F-35 can be adapted to the guidance systems stolen and transferred to China, believed by Israel also, technology that threatens America’s ability to project air superiority through use of its aircraft carriers. Conventional missiles, not believed capable of “taking out” America’s carriers can be upgraded to defeat air defense systems years from being off the drawing boards.
AIR DEFENSE VULNERABILITY
In March, 1999, on the 4th day of American involvement in the Bosnian war, Serbian forces shot down an F-117 stealth bomber using a Soviet SA 300 air defense system with radar modifications based on data secured through espionage.
Data on the resonant frequencies of the materials and surfaces of the F-117 made it possible for radar to, not only detect a plane previously believed “invisible’ at a range of 13 kilometers, but to successfully destroy one, an embarrassment the US feels the sting of even today.
The stolen data on the F-35 covers more than simple materials but all jamming and other defensive systems and performance characteristics. Air defense systems can now be tuned specifically to find only the F-35 if so required.
INITIAL SECURITY BREACHES IGNORED
In 2008, British based BAE Systems, a subcontractor for Lockheed Martin, was discovered to have allowed access to highly classified F-35 technologies through, not only physical access to its facilities but lack of normal computer safeguards. POGO (Project On Government Oversight), a whistleblower/watchdog group, learned of the Pentagon’s lack of normal project security safeguards and requested a copy of the Inspector General’s security report. Though documents showed the Pentagon was aware that key weapons systems had been compromised in Britain, well before 2008, security at project facilities in the United States was not brought up to required standards.
Defense Security Service audits from as early as 2001 had not been filed and the agreement with British contractors allowed them to refuse to report to the Department of Defense on an “at will” basis. In fact, the agreement with Britain contained no guarantees of any kind for security and no functioning authority to limit spying.
THE TRAIL OF THE SNAIL
Wikileaks are called “leaks.” Julian Assange darts from country to country, hotel to TV studio, always ahead of the security forces hunting him down, a veritable “Nordic” bin Laden. Newspapers are peppered with photographs of a boyish face in the uniform of the American army, identified as the potential “leaker.” The 46,000 intelligence/counter-intelligence officers of the Department of Defense, supplemented by the FBI and 16 other agencies and 40 other departments, more “bodies” than currently serve in Afghanistan, we are told, are unable to rein in this “dangerous duo.”
Documents by the hundreds of thousands are leaked, upon qualified examination, showing careful screening with many documents edited and more selected out of series with careful gaps and omissions. A single non-commissioned officer, watched 24 hours a day by tens of thousands of security officers and threatened with life in prison, is an unlikely suspect. However, there has been no mention of any others nor has there been a mention of an investigation of any kind. In fact, there seems to me no attempt whatsoever to curtail these current leaks.
What does this tell us?
WHEN IS A LEAK “HACKING” AND WHEN IS HACKING A “LEAK” AND WHAT IS “ESPIONAGE?”
It was never announced when, exactly, the theft of the F-35 data occurred. The press release was April 21. 2009, long enough after President Bush left office for the blame to evade his administration, one infamous for “leaks” such as the “Scooter” Libby (Liebowitz) “outing” of CIA nuclear proliferation specialist Valerie Plame.
Israeli citizen, Jonathan Pollard, convicted for spying on America and sentenced to life in prison in 1987, is, we believe but can never be sure of, the most successful spy in world history. As with the F-35, the “cover story” is always carefully deceptive as to not panic the public or cause a lack of confidence, perhaps rightly so, in America’s ability to secure secrets. Pollard had two primary targets, our nuclear response capability and NATO’s defense capabilities against the Soviet Union. Both were destroyed by Pollard whose materials were passed through Israel directly to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.
Every weapon design, yes, our stealth aircraft capabilities and our NATO battle plans were among the truckload of papers Pollard sold to Israel, a country where he is considered a national hero. Pollard may have been our last “paper” spy. Everything today is electronic and spies who steal American secrets can be compared to unruly chatroom members or video game enthusiasts.
Despite the “cute” attempt by the Department of Defense and Secretary Gates to refer to espionage as “hacking,” there is nothing either innocent or harmless about it. As all data is formatted for electronic media and secured by firewalls and passwords, all espionage is “hacking.”
The difference between “leaking” and “spying” is semantics. The goal is the same, destruction of the defense capabilities of the United States, except “spying” pays better.
The people responsible for each, particularly when they access the same systems and overcome the same roadblocks, all requiring the same physical access, are one in the same. Those who “leak” perform an identical task to those who spy. Those who leak, those who have leaked appear to be, to any reasonable person, exactly the same people who are spying now and who were supporting Pollard.
The first place we look, before new Russian, Indian, Iranian or Chinese version of the F-35 take flight or our first F-35 meets a fiery end is Israel. No Chinese or Pakistani’s or Iranians have gained by the F-35 espionage “clone” operations styled after “Wikileaks.” Wikileaks has proven one thing, there is a major spy operation in the Pentagon with broad access. It is immune to investigation. Only political power can generate this kind of protection.
Assange is a recipient of information he likely believes is real. Our investigations prove different. The Pentagon leaks were carefully edited, thousands of reports were reconstructed and falsified and hundreds of thousands were removed as inconsistent with an unknown political agenda. This requires full access to Pentagon computer systems, PROMIS software and hundreds of man hours.
It requires, in fact, a broad spy operation inside the Pentagon that enjoys its ability to operate with impunity. Wikileaks carries an Israeli signature, the leaks damn only Israeli enemies, shield Israeli operations and are time to serve Israeli interests. Hundreds of Israeli citizens work in the Pentagon. None of this should be a surprise to anyone.
The F-35 debacle is exactly the same. Where there was some cursory discussion of investigation Wikileaks, the F-35 thefts were, can we say “forgiven?”
Jia Qinglin (front), chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, visits the Golan Heights and plants a tree symbolising friendship during a formal friendly visit to Syria on Nov. 1, 2010. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)
DAMASCUS, Nov. 1 (Xinhua) — Top Chinese political advisor Jia Qinglin visited the Golan Heights on Monday, pledging support for Syria’s efforts to resume the exercise of sovereignty over the mountainous region partially occupied by Israel.
“China unswervingly supports the just cause of the Syrian government and people to safeguard their national sovereignty and territorial integrity, backs Syria to resume the exercise of sovereignty there, and supports Syria’s long-time efforts for peace in the Middle East,” said Jia after visiting the ruins of Quneitra city, the Syrian headquarters for the heights.
China will, as always, play a positive and constructive role, and work along with Syria and the international community to strive for a comprehensive, fair and lasting peace in the Middle East at an early date, said Jia, chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee.
He planted an olive tree there to signify peace and friendship.
The Golan Heights, with its major part under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, remains a highly contested land straddling the borders of Syria and Israel.
During an interview with Syrian media on Sunday, Jia hailed the traditional friendship between China and Arab nations, highlighting political mutual trust, mutually beneficial economic cooperation, frequent cultural exchanges and well-organized coordination on international affairs.
“China always firmly supports the Arab states’ just strive for resuming legitimate national rights and interests, appreciates their support to China on issues concerning China’s core interests,” Jia said.
Labeling Arab nations as “good friends, brothers and partners” of China, Jia called for more cooperation between China and them to further boost their strategic cooperation.
Jia arrived here on Friday for a five-day visit to the country.
The Israel Police’s track record of hiring unqualified Chinese interpreters is a lengthy one. Yandong Wang, a Chinese construction worker, was arrested in Rishon Letzion this past February after he engaged in an altercation with other workers. For eight months he was placed under house arrest without any indictment being filed against him. He was also not summoned to any court hearing.
The delay in his case was due to police negligence in hiring a Chinese interpreter with inadequate knowledge of Hebrew. After a court ruled that the investigation suffered from poor translation, another translator was hired.
A few months later, an Israeli translator with experience in teaching martial arts and who lived in the Far East was brought in, but he too was disqualified by the court.
Ultimately, an indictment was issued a full eight months after the initial arrest of Yandong. This was made possible only after his lawyer, Nachmi Finblat, provided an interpreter. The evidence stage of the trial is expected to begin this coming March.
