- WASHINGTON -- For the second
time in four months, the US has accused Israel of spying against Washington.
This week, the FBI charged the Israeli Defense Ministry of industrial espionage,
and accused it's defense officials of trying to access US top secret technological
and intelligence data.
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- Washington allegedly is so furious over the spying allegations
that it has demanded the resignation of Amos Yaron, director general of
Israel's Defense Ministry, according several news sources.
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- The report comes just days after the FBI raided the pro-Israel
lobbying group, AIPAC, in Washington and interrogated AIPAC officials,
resulting in four of AIPAC's top officials being subpoenaed by a federal
grand jury. The US has accused a Defense Department analyst, Lawrence Franklin,
of passing classified US information on Iran to Israel.
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- Additionally, FBI officials say that Israeli officials
who visited US military sites have tried to steal confidential US technology
information. FBI agents have interrogated a number of Israeli officials
over the past few months, including IDF officers, diplomats, and military
industry officials.
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- Israel has called the US accusations that Tel Aviv's
defense officials were engaged in industrial espionage "a misunderstanding
based on chutzpah and general nosiness," according to yesterday's
Jerusalem Post.
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- "High-ranking political sources in Israel reiterated
that all the tension is the result of cultural differences, such as the
Israeli practice of cutting corners or pressuring officials to give up
information. The Americans interpret these in a completely different way,
they said," notes the Post.
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- Knesset Member Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset's
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee denied Israel was involved in industrial
or any other kind of espionage in the United States.
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- "There is no Israeli espionage in the US. Period,"
he told Israel Army radio. "There is a lot of very good cooperation,
including military and security industrial cooperation. There is also a
mutual exchange of information. Both sides contribute information. Perhaps
it is this to which (the Americans) are referring."
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- But a US defense expert disagrees. He told Arab News
yesterday the Israelis have been spying on US military systems for years
- this, he said is "well-known" within the defense community.
"They took our Arrow, our Patriot missile system, and a knock-off
of our F-16, the Davi and made their versions of it," said the source,
who insisted on anonymity.
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- "The irony is that they copy our weapons and then
turn around and sell them to countries where we don't want them to go."
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- "In this case, Pakistan now has a spin-off of the
F-16 and is using US technology that came via Israel and China."
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- "During Gulf War I, the US stationed their Patriot
missiles in Israel and their experts crawled all over it. They helped themselves
to whatever they could to make a similar weapon, and several of our Patriots
disappeared while there," he said.
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- Copyright: Arab News © 2004 All rights reserved.
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- http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=
56174&d=17&m=12&y=2004
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