April 22, 2008

Pollard revisited

It seems another American has been arrested for spying for America's number one ally, Israel. The news seems to have first broken at Reuters but a quick google search on the name "Ben Ami Kadish" yields 2,130 sites including including Ha'aretz at the time of writing. Here's what Reuters had to say:
U.S. authorities arrested an 84-year-old American on Tuesday suspected of giving Israel secrets on nuclear weapons, fighter jets and missiles in the 1980s in a case with links to imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard.

Ben-Ami Kadish acknowledged his spying in FBI interviews and said he acted out of a belief he was helping Israel, according to court documents.

Kadish was accused of reporting to an Israeli government handler who was also a main contact for Pollard, an American citizen serving a life term on a 1985 charge of spying for Israel.

Kadish's arrest indicates that spying revealed by the Pollard case, still an irritant in the close U.S. alliance with Israel, may have spread wider than previously acknowledged. "It was bigger than we thought, and they hid it well," said former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who prosecuted the Pollard case.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said, "We will be informing the Israelis of this action ... 20-plus years ago during the Pollard case we noted that this was not the kind of behavior we would expect from friends and allies and that would remain the case today."
Kadish was arrested in New Jersey on a four-count complaint of conspiracy and espionage and was scheduled to make an initial appearance on Tuesday afternoon at U.S. District Court in New York, authorities said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel, asked about the arrest, said: "We know nothing about it. We heard it from the media."

Kadish's lawyer, Bruce Goldstein, did not immediately return a call for comment.
Sorry I don't have the link to the Reuters page.

Did you see that stuff about Pollard? I mean the first time around. They said Pollard was off the wall, a one-off. They even tried to get the yanks to release him as part of the "peace" shenanigans with the Palestinians on that basis.

It'll all blow over of course. Oh, the guy might go down, or he won't, but don't get excited that this will harm American-Israeli relations. This terrible two (that's Israel and America, not Pollard and Kadish) are going to need each other for some time to come yet.

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