The Israeli "art student" mystery

Salon ^

[tsomer]

I picked up a gorgeous Elvis on black velvet, and another also on black velvet of these two kids with big round heads and eyes that look like cigarette burns on paramecia. (What can I say, I'm into black velvet. )

Anyway the artist said he was Israeli, but I kinda wonder if maybe he wasn't albanian or something.

Not that I'm any expert; I'm Presbyterian. Come to think of it, maybe that explains the black velvet thing too.

[MississippiMan]

Who did you make your check out to? What company was behind these "art students"?

I paid green cash. Got some kind of receipt from him but I don't remember where it is. I didn't do it as any show of support for anything; I did it because he had two paintings I thought would look good in our home. Maybe I will indeed shoot some digipix of them and show them to Freepers here. :-)

MM

[MickMan51]

One is that these were spies in training, newly minted Mossad graduates on test runs to see how they would operate in field conditions.

I like this one best.

Me too. Rookie training. Real world scenario without much real risk. But they list it last. In any event, the feds got burned bad nationwide on this one. Visiting agents' homes? In the military, this kind of stuff would get people relieved of duty.

[IsItTimeYet]

These guys, spies or not, were deported. What more do you want?

Well, they could have at least given us the art :)

[Tennessee_Bob]

No, galt-jw, it sounds a lot more far-fetched than the hijacking of three airliners. However, that's only in my world.

[Senator Pardek]

A bmp.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #63

It is not a good idea to have agents or potential agent's faces known to other intelligence services, whether they are allies or not. US must have compiled information on those who rounded up, including physical traits.

[MeekOneGOP]

bump!

[eno_]

The training scenario also makes the DEA as a target more plausible. DEA is probably considered bufoonville, a first-semester spying project before they move to other targets. People who flunk this have to give a mall cop a wedgie as a remedial exercise. The valedictorians are the ones taking photos on our military bases.

[LarryLied]

Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth

Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage

By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF

Despite angry denials by Israel and its American supporters, reports that Israel was conducting spying activities in the United States may have a grain of truth, the Forward has learned.

However, far from pointing to Israeli spying against U.S. government and military facilities, as reported in Europe last week, the incidents in question appear to represent a case of Israelis in the United States spying on a common enemy, radical Islamic networks suspected of links to Middle East terrorism.

In particular, a group of five Israelis arrested in New Jersey shortly after the September 11 attacks and held for more than two months was subjected to an unusual number of polygraph tests and interrogated by a series of government agencies including the FBI's counterintelligence division, which by some reports remains convinced that Israel was conducting an intelligence operation. The five Israelis worked for a moving company with few discernable assets that closed up shop immediately afterward and whose owner fled to Israel. . . .more:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/646491/posts?page=26

[atafak]

The two French journals came to conclusions that the memo itself clearly did not. And yet they had unearthed some intriguing material. Six of the "students" were apparently carrying cell phones purchased by a former Israeli vice consul to the United States. According to Le Monde, two of the "students" had traveled from Hamburg to Miami to visit an FBI agent in his home, then boarded a flight to Chicago and visited the home of a Justice Dept. agent, then hopped a direct flight to Toronto -- all in one day. According to Intelligence Online, more than one-third of the students, who were spread out in 42 cities, lived in Florida, several in Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. -- one-time home to at least 10 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers. In at least one case, the students lived just a stone's throw from homes and apartments where the Sept. 11 terrorists resided: In Hollywood, several students lived at 4220 Sheridan St., just down the block from the 3389 Sheridan St. apartment where terrorist mastermind Mohammed Atta holed up with three other Sept. 11 plotters. Many of the students, the DEA report noted, had backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence and/or electronics surveillance; one was the son of a two-star Israeli general, and another had served as a bodyguard to the head of the Israeli army.

some odd data here, but i become immediately suspicious of its accuracy when the one address on sheridan is called "just down the block" from the other...the addresses seem to belie that...in fact, yahoo mapping places them over a half mile away from each other...

[ladyjane]

Like Clinton's denial of sex with Monica. Any fool could see he was lying.

Didn't Clinton tell Monica that his telephone calls were being monitored by the Mossad?

[SauronOfMordor]

Me too. Rookie training. Real world scenario without much real risk. But they list it last. In any event, the feds got burned bad nationwide on this one. Visiting agents' homes? In the military, this kind of stuff would get people relieved of duty.

Or how about this variation: rookies sent in to explore various techniques on how to get into US federal facilities. Successful techniques get put into the books for the "pros" to use at whatever point they deem necessary. If the rookies get caught, no big deal, and they'll be sprung quickly (well, more quickly than Pollard)

[scratchgolfer]

No I think lots of folks were deported for visa violations after 9-11, including these kids. Then again I am not paranoid by nature.

[LarryLied]

This source is paranoid?

Allies and Espionage

Jane's Intelligence Review

It is rather strange that the US media, with one notable exception, seems to be ignoring what may well prove to be the most explosive story since the 11 September attacks - the alleged break-up of a major Israeli espionage operation in the United States which aimed to infiltrate both the justice and defence departments and which may also have been tracking Al-Qaeda terrorists before the aircraft hijackings took place. . . .more: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/649000/posts

[eno_]

Jane's ain't no tinfoil shop.

[bok]

They can spy all they want, what worries me is their theft of military secrets and hardware and selling it to china.

[rmlew]

I have no doubt that Israel has and is spying on the US, just as the US spies on Israel.
However, the art student thing really is in the catagory of strange. The Mossad is not a featherweight org. In the 1960's, they got a spy so deep that he became the Defense Minister of Syria. (If you wondered how the Israeli's took teh Golan hieghts so quickly, the reason is that they knew everything about teh Syrian positions).

Compared to that, this is sophmoric. It is possible that there were some agents posing as art students. However, it is not odd that most Israeli art students served in the IDF or that some served in military intell. This is a common positng for connected draftees who don't want to risk their lives in the Territories. Amazingly enough, these leftists are more likely to be artists.

I buy a cup of coffee from one of these every day. He is no spy.

[rmlew]

They can spy all they want, what worries me is their theft of military secrets and hardware and selling it to china.

Secrets? Do you have evidence here?