WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Central Intelligence Agency released 130 pages of reports, memos and other files about the 1960s diversion of weapons-grade uranium to Israel from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation NUMEC formerly headquartered in Apollo, Pennsylvania. (PDF of CIA files and release statement). The August 31 CIA release came in response to a lawsuit (Lawsuit PDF) filed by the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) on February 13, 2015...

...Today the razed NUMEC facilities sites near Apollo will cost $350 to $500 million to toxic waste cleanup over the next decade according to US Army Corps of Engineers estimates. CIA Tel Aviv Station Chief John Hadden, whose findings are redacted from the new release, publicly characterized NUMEC as "an Israeli operation from the beginning..."

IRmep plans to further court actions to obtain full release of CIA operations files that would allow Apollo residents to sue the Israeli government directly for cleanup costs and massive health-related damages caused by the smuggling front, or have the funds deducted from Israel's annual $3.5 billion package of foreign aid from the United States. (See the IRmep Center for Policy and Law Enforcement for the lawsuit, oral argument transcripts and other legal updates.) More

According to formerly top-secret and secret Central Intelligence Agency files (PDF) released August 31 in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (PDF), the agency�s long retention of key information ultimately stymied two FBI investigations into the 1960s diversion of weapons-grade uranium from a Pennsylvania-based government contractor into the Israeli nuclear weapons program.

The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) was a nuclear fuel processing company founded by legendary chemist Zalman Mordecai Shapiro and financed by entrepreneur David Luzer Lowenthal. According to the Department of Energy, during Shapiro�s reign at NUMEC, the company lost more weapons-grade uranium � 337 kilograms after accounting for losses � much of a particularly unique and high enrichment level than any other U.S. facility. Losses only returned to industry norms after Shapiro, who later unsuccessfully tried to get a job working on advanced hydrogen bomb designs, was forced out of NUMEC...

...Unknown to the FBI, every CIA director was complicit in withholding a key clandestine operational finding from investigators. According to a May 11, 1977 report by Shackley, the �CIA has not furnished to the FBI sensitive agent reporting�since the decision was made by Directors Helms, Colby and Bush that this information would not further the investigation of NUMEC but would compromise sources and methods.� More Scott Horton Show interview

WASHINGTON (CN) - A researcher seeking budget records for intelligence support the CIA gave Israel told a federal judge that the agency is improperly claiming ignorance of its own policy.

Grant Smith, who runs the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, says he filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to inspect the CIA's funding for Israel-related intelligence.

The CIA denied the request by claiming it could neither confirm nor deny that such a budget exists, according to a federal complaint Smith filed Wednesday. Smith said he filed the suit after the agency did not respond to his appeal in the time allotted under the law.

The agency's refusal to even acknowledge its support of Israel goes directly counter to public statements President Barack Obama made in August at American University, according to the action.

Smith says Obama touted his administration's "unprecedented" financial commitment to Israel's security through intelligence and military efforts in those remarks.

"We want to know, is it $3 billion a year?" Smith said in an interview Thursday. "Is it $3 million? Has it varied over time?" Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, despite the country's history of spying and the presence of laws that should prevent such assistance to countries with nuclear stockpiles, Smith says in the complaint.

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One of the side effects of the Iran Deal debate is that Israel�s nukes are also being discussed. There are signs of pressure on Israeli nukes inside the US media and government.

In this article, Phil Weiss will summarize the recent news, and Grant Smith, the lead investigator of the Institute for Research Middle East Policy, follows with a report on a gag order affecting disclosure of US federal information about the Israeli nuclear program.

Weiss first. More

Poll: Most Americans oppose compensating Israel for Iran nuclear deal

Retired Gen. (and former CIA Director) David Petraeus � who despite recent scandals is (according to CNN) still advising the White House � was asked at a recent Aspen Institute event about Israel�s nuclear weapons arsenal and replied �I can�t comment.�

This seems to be part of long-standing U.S. and Israeli government policy not to confirm the existence of Israel�s nuclear weapons arsenal. This policy has apparently taken the form of official gag orders on the issue, as Grant F. Smith, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, has noted. More

...Similarly, there has been little coverage of documents from 1969 that were declassified a year ago; these documents show that the United States�at that moment in time�was quietly working to prevent Israel from acquiring nuclear weapons and to steer that country towards joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Instead, Israel offered the United States only an ambiguous description of its plans, saying that Israel would not be the first country to introduce weapons to the Middle East, but pursued nuclear weapons in secret and declined to become a member state of the NPT. Israel still is not a member of the NPT, and its unacknowledged nuclear program angers many countries that are members. In fact, the NPT Review Conference recently collapsed without an agreement on a final document, at least partly because a group of countries wanted to begin a long-promised conference on a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East within a set time frame, and the United States and United Kingdom�supporters of Israel, which opposed such a conference�refused to go along.

And it is surprising how little mainstream media coverage there has been about a 1987 Pentagon report, released this spring in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, that confirms that the Pentagon knew many details of Israel�s nuclear program in 1987 and promptly covered them up. (A notable and praiseworthy exception to this lack of interest has been The Nation)... More

Nearly 65 percent of Americans believe Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program should be officially acknowledged. Almost 55 percent believe the program should be subject to international inspections.

The IRmep poll, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percent, was fielded June 4-6 by Google Consumer Surveys and received 1,518 responses. The poll may be viewed online at:

http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=2mu7fqxjo3sfc&question=1&filter&dataGen=33

In May the US, UK and Canada blocked a United Nations initiative to create a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East in order to avoid any review of Israel, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In contrast, the new poll finds broad popular American support for bringing the region's only existing program out of the shadows.

Israel maintains a "nuclear ambiguity" policy of neither confirming nor denying possession of nuclear weapons. Since the Nixon administration, American presidents have enforced a gag policy in the US. Federal employees are currently banned from discussing Israel's arsenal under threat of losing security clearances, job loss and criminal prosecution. Major news media organizations generally fail to cover Israel's impact on proliferation citing lack of official acknowledgment. In 2009 President Obama refused to answer a direct question about the arsenal. More at Antiwar.com

...The federal government�not to mention Israel�has presumably been content to see NUMEC's diversion secrets bottled up forever. But now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will begin a cleanup of NUMEC's waste dump estimated to cost a half-billion dollars, to be paid by American taxpayers. It is this insult to injury that triggered IRmep's second major lawsuit in federal court.

Based largely on research compiled for the book Divert! (available from AET's Middle East Books and More), the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit asks the court to compel release of sufficient classified CIA material on the diversion to allow subsequent lawsuits against the Israeli government for cleanup and heath-related costs.

Although the initial CIA lawsuit may seem like a long shot, late in February IRmep's separate court action against the Department of Defense (DoD) produced a stunning report that officially confirms�for the very first time�the advanced state of Israel's nuclear weapons program (see Jan./Feb. 2015 Washington Report, p. 28). A major premise of the DoD lawsuit was that U.S. taxpayers were being forced to pay for aid packages to a state that is simply not eligible...  More

...That no AIEF briefing books are publicly available should come as no surprise to the observant. AIEF is not functionally separate from AIPAC, a lobby for the Israeli government ever since it split off from the defunct American Zionist Council in 1962. AIEF is housed in the very same offices as AIPAC , with 66% of its board of directors drawn from AIPAC. (PDF) On annual tax charitable returns, AIEF (which raises $45 million in yearly tax-deductible donations) claims to have no employees. It doesn't need any since according to materials accompanying the briefing book AIPAC employees like the �Grassroots and Missions Director� and �Israel Seminars Assistant� accompany travelers to Israel.

AIEF, like AIPAC, echoes the rhetoric of the Israeli government. Members of Congress on junkets are told by AIEF that �Jerusalem is Israel's largest city � not a �settlement.'� There are no longer any final status issues to be negotiated � despite UN insistence to the contrary � because according to AIEF �Israel later incorporated the eastern half of the city and declared the unified Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel.� AEIF's �case closed� approach to what the rest of the world considers to be open issues probably did at least prepare junket-attendees for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election-time declaration that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch.

The AIEF briefing book is full of flattery to Congress, declaring that �Congress has regularly recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in various resolutions and law.� Yet how representative of America are such �regular� resolutions? More

The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US? Is It Good for Israel? (YouTube playlist)

...ALAS, ALL OF THE SPECULATION is based on falsehoods. Obama had no hand in the release�and the report wasn't classified. In January, Federal Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington ordered the Defense Department to release the report by Feb. 12, in response to the FOIA suit by Grant Smith, head of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, a small policy-research and education organization highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel. The timing of the judge's decision was purely coincidental.

Under the law, the U.S. government had to obey the judge�absent a written objection from Israel. The Israelis were contacted prior to the release and saw no reason to block it, a senior administration official tells me. More

An Israeli-conceived, U.S.-enforced farce masquerading as "grand strategy" is finally dead. For years the Israeli government refused to confirm or deny its nuclear weapons program. The February release of the Israeli section of the Defense Department-commissioned report "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and Nation Nations" (PDF) killed off the policy while setting off an Internet conflagration last week (the most vicious unfolding over Twitter). At one side of the political spectrum, the document's release was evidence of "a shocking breach" by the Obama administration and betrayal of Israel by some media outlets for even reporting it. At the other it revealed a "highly successful partnership of American and military science" despite zero evidence the U.S. intended such "Atoms for Peace" gifts as Israel's Soreq nuclear reactor to be used for anything but peaceful purposes.

The five tragedies of "ambiguity" and benefits to be gained by its demise are only slowly emerging from the rubble.

1. Ambiguity was premised on presidential fear of the Israel lobby. The history of so-called "ambiguity" is sordid, which is why it was classified for decades. Until the very end, JFK waged a two-front battle against Israel going nuclear and the undue influence of the Israel lobby. Both the LBJ and Nixon administrations considered withholding conventional military aid in order to keep Israel from going nuclear. In the end, fear of Israel's US lobby, rather than any legitimate US national security concern, was the linchpin of "ambiguity." As recently declassified administration papers put it, fears of a “Zionist campaign to try to undermine" Nixon encouraged him to sign America on. More

Last month, the United States released documentation from 1987 of its assessment of Israel's nuclear weapons capabilities at the time, required to do so by law after receiving a request filed under the Freedom of Information Act.

The document, formally titled "Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," was written by Leading Technologies Incorporated for the Institute for Defense Analyses, and commissioned by the Department of Defense. Its contents are based on visits by US experts, in coordination with the US embassy in Tel Aviv and with the guidance of the Pentagon, to various facilities and laboratories across Israel.

While Israel has never publicly declared itself a nuclear weapons state, its arsenal is widely acknowledged by the international community. Israel is not a signatory of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

This document, however, summarizes in detail Washington's understanding of the nature and purpose of that program as it stood in the 1980s.

In early February, the Pentagon declassified a 386-page report from 1987, exposing for the first time ever the actual depth of top-secret military cooperation between the United States and Israel — including, amazingly, information about Israel's unacknowledged nuclear program.

In view of the caustic tension that has increased lately between Washington and Jerusalem, the timing of the publication's declassification, after a long legal process, might raise a few eyebrows. I have some knowledge about the build-up process of Israel's nuclear capacity and after reading the report in question I must express my astonishment: I have never seen an official American document disclosing such extensive revelation on subjects that until now were regarded by both administrations as unspeakable secrets. More

While the Washington press corps obsessed over Hillary Clinton's emails at the State Department, reporters were missing a far more important story about government secrets. After five decades of pretending otherwise, the Pentagon has reluctantly confirmed that Israel does indeed possess nuclear bombs, as well as awesome weapons technology similar to America's.

Early last month the Department of Defense released a secret report done in 1987 by the Pentagon funded Institute for Defense Analysis that essentially confirms the existence of Israel's nukes. DOD was responding to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by Grant Smith, an investigative reporter and author who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy. Smith said he thinks this is the first time the US government has ever provided official recognition of the longstanding reality. More

In the depths of the Cold War, a legendary Israeli spy made a visit to a Pennsylvania plant that processed government-supplied U-235 uranium into fuel for the U.S. Navy. Around the same time, hundreds of kilograms of uranium disappeared from the plant.

Traces of uranium were found outside Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in the 1960's and later revealed to carry the unique signature of uranium from the Philadephia [Apollo] plant.

The mystery of how the uranium traveled from one place to the other is what a Washington-based researcher is trying to unravel through a federal court complaint filed Friday.

The complaint asks for CIA files regarding "the unlawful diversion of U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program."

Filed by Grant Smith, who directs the Washington D.C. based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, the complaint follows Smith's victory earlier this month winning release of a 1967 [1987] Defense Department report titled "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Countries." More

The 1987 report's confirmation of Israel's advanced nuclear weapons program should have immediately triggered a cutoff in all U.S. aid to Israel under the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. Although 100 copies of the tightly-controlled report were apparently published, none seem to have made their way into the office of the President in time to cut off any of the $82 billion in aid subsequently delivered to Israel – or publicly issue the required waivers. This is done in the case of other countries with weapons programs operating outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime such as Pakistan.

Similarly, the US did not move to curb as required Israel's weapons-related work using the Soreq reactor, lab and testing facilities – provided by US taxpayers in the late 1950's under Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program under the provision they not be used for weapons programs. More 

Released report

Partial court docket

In the midst of controversy over the Israeli prime minister's plans to address Congress next month, a researcher has won the release of a decades-old Defense Department report detailing the U.S. government's extensive help to Israel in that nation's development of a nuclear bomb.

"I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making devices between Israel and the US," said Roger Mattson, a former member of the Atomic Energy Commission technical staff.

The 1987 report, "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," compares the key Israeli facilities developing nuclear weapons to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the principal U.S. laboratories that developed the bomb for the United States.

The tightly held report notes that the Israelis are "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level."

The release comes after Grant Smith, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy filed filed a FOIA request last year and followed with a lawsuit in September seeking to compel release of the report. More

Congress has never debated or held open hearings on Israel's nuclear weapons program. A 2008 congressional report on nuclear proliferation excludes Israel and simply does “not take a position on the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons.” The penalties for lower level government officials making even passing references to Israel as a nuclear weapons state are swift and harsh. Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear analyst James Doyle wrote candidly about Israel's nuclear weapons for a magazine in 2013. After a congressional staffer read the article, which had passed a classification review, it was referred to classification officials for a second review. Doyle's pay was then cut, his home computer searched, and he was fired.

Two gag rules are known to exist as a result of Doyle's unsuccessful appeals to get his job back. GEN-16 is a “no-comment” policy on “classified information in the public domain” (which President Obama apparently invoked). The other is “DOE Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities,” which is secret but presumably forbids publicly stating that Israel is a nuclear power.

While it is difficult to deny that the “ambiguity” muzzle has greatly benefited Israel and its U.S. lobby, it is an ongoing and costly disaster for American taxpayers. According to a September Google Consumer Survey, 64 percent of Americans believe Israel has nuclear weapons, while 6 in 10 think U.S. foreign aid to Israel is “too much...” Yet because it is official U.S. policy to pretend the existence of Israel's arsenal is unknown, a $3 billion-plus taxpayer giveaway of top-shelf American military aid, cash and intelligence support is delivered annually, despite Israel having long possessed the ultimate military deterrent. And researchers and historians have long been stymied by the withholding of key U.S. government documents locked securely away from the public in National Archives and Records Administration vaults. More

One possible explanation is that Obama had told Zakaria that he did not want to discuss the issue, or Zakaria thought it wiser not to raise the subject since US-Israeli relations have hit rock bottom. Whatever the case, the fact remains that the American president has avoided the issue ever since he and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, failed to bring the two parties any closer, which prompted the Palestinians to successfully approach the United Nations. The obvious reason in the view of many Palestinians is that Israel has strong support within the American establishment.

But a Washington-based think-tank, the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) recently painted a different, and more appealing, picture. A “special report” written by its director, Grant F. Smith, focused on a lawsuit that it has filed challenging “US ‘ambiguity' towards Israel's nuclear arsenal”. More

Defense officials are fighting a three-year-old request under the Freedom of Information Act to release a 1987 report supposedly discussing Israel's nuclear technology.

Grant Smith of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy filed the request in 2012 and raised the issue in court after he said the request “went nowhere” for several years. He has been a critic of many U.S. policies related to Israel and of what he believes to be the inordinate influence of Israel in the American government.

In a seldom-used legal move known as optional review, Pentagon officials have asked the Israeli government to review the report before they consider releasing it.

Smith said the Defense Department has denied being able to locate the report, claimed it contained sensitive Israeli government information and cited FOIA exemptions, non-disclosure agreements and patents to intellectual property rights in its efforts to block the release of the report.

“They've put a lot of obstacles out in front of us,” Smith told the Washington Examiner. More

WASHINGTON (CN) - The U.S. Defense Department is so far refusing to produce a report that discusses nuclear technology issues in Israel, in response to a researcher's request for information. The report at issue is called "Critical Technology Issues in Israel and NATO Countries," written nearly three decades ago. It is not classified. Grant Smith, founder of the Washington-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., filed a request for the report under the Freedom of Information Act three years ago. When the government failed to produce the document, he followed up with a pro se complaint in September. More

PR Newswire - 12/17/2014 - Washington - Register online for "The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US?" today at http://IsraelLobbyUS.org

"The Israel Lobby: Is It Good for the US?" is an all-day conference which will take place April 10 in the National Press Club ballroom in Washington, DC.  Questions will be addressed by experts of all ages and backgrounds from academia, government, independent research organizations and alternative news media shut out of public discourse.  The conference is co-sponsored by the American Educational Trust's publication Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc (IRmep).

Hundreds of organizations lobbying for Israel behind the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) continue to push for U.S. economic warfare and military actions against Iran. Most Americans support negotiations to resolve questions over Iran's civilian nuclear program and oppose efforts to torpedo diplomacy.  Americans also overwhelmingly (63.9%) believe Israel is a Middle East nation with nuclear weapons.

Recent passage of the US-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2014 gives Israel expanded rights to U.S. weapons stockpiles, diplomatic support, additional foreign aid and future visa-free entry, despite Israel's long history of espionage against the United States.  Yet six in ten Americans, advised that the U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion annually (9% of the foreign aid budget and more than any other country), believe such aid is "too much."

Pro-Israel donors and political action committees are working hard to ensure that when Americans head to the polls to choose a president in 2016, both candidates will be Zionists.  Delegates who oppose special pro-Israel planks in conventions are shut down by rigged votes.

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Itzhak (aka Yitzhak) Vardi's intelligence operations for Israel in England put him on an FBI watch list as he traveled throughout New York. As he worked at high levels within the Palestine Economic Corporation and United Jewish Appeal, the FBI tried to determine his status as an intelligence agent.

An operation in Argentina suggests Vardi never retired.

Under a file titled "Espionage - Israeli, New York File #65-15961" the FBI compiled intercepts of Vardi's correspondence with Canadian philanthropist Jacob M. Lowy about the launch of Israel bonds and Alexander Sacks about gold transactions and convertibility of foreign currencies. J. Edgar Hoover notes, "Jacoby Lowy, a British subject who formerly lived in Czechoslovakia, was operating a black market on materials shipped from the United States to the Austrian government under the Marshall Plan...to be used in the manufacture of tanks...it is possible that subject and Lowy were acquainted in Austria in 1949."

Complete FOIA release at the Israel Lobby Archive.

Espionage Allegations Intensify Battle for Israel's Technion Nuke File

Israel's oldest university – Technion – is under an intensifying legal spotlight over stunning new allegations of espionage and a transparency-law fight to reveal its clandestine role in nuclear weapons development. According to information made public in a civil harassment suit filed on November 13, 2014 in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles an Israeli scientist transferred information to Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in violation of the Arms Export Control Act from the Jet Propulsion Lab at the University of California Los Angeles.

According to court filings, Dr. Amir Gat – an Israeli national – executed a Technology Control Plan (TCP) under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) registration in order to participate in the U.S. taxpayer-funded JPL “Electrospray” space propulsion project at UCLA. The TCP obligates signers not to disclose ITAR – restricted technical data to foreign persons or countries without prior approval from the US State Department. Failure to comply is supposed to trigger criminal fines and penalties....

Adding insult to the “failure to prosecute” injury, the Justice Department is also vigorously fighting a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in September in the District of Columbia Federal Court aimed at publicly releasing that “Current Technology Issues in Israel” report on Technion and other Israeli nuclear proliferators. Since 2003, Technion has received tax-exempt funding from US donors averaging $87 million annually, despite the fact that overseas nuclear weapons programs and espionage against US facilities do not fit any IRS definition of a “social welfare” charity. Under the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the US Foreign Aid Act, Israel should have been ineligible to receive any of the $82 billion in US taxpayer-funded foreign aid delivered since 1987 when it was found to be operating a clandestine weapons program outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

On November 19 Justice Department lawyer Laura Jennings revealed defendants will use all available tactics to delay (PDF) and possibly thwart public disclosure including claiming “perpetual non-disclosure agreements” were signed during development of the 1987 report. The legal tactic has been recently employed to prohibit open government law attempts to obtain public release of information about law enforcement agency use of so-called “stingrays” and “dirt boxes” to mass intercept cell phone transmissions. More

The first IRmep question was phrased: “The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion annually (9 percent of the foreign aid budget and more than any other country). The amount is:” Respondents could then select from five options: “much too much,” “too much,” “about right,” “too little,” and “much too little.” To reduce selection bias, the order of response choices was randomly reversed. According to 60.7 percent of Americans polled, the U.S. was giving Israel excessive foreign aid. More than a third, 33.9 percent (the majority response), said Israel received “much too much” U.S. foreign aid, while 26.8 percent felt it was “too much.” This result directly contradicts the Chicago Council on Global Affairs findings based on questions that provided no dollar amounts or shares of U.S. foreign aid.

According to the IRmep survey, those under the age of 35 tended to be more in favor of reducing aid to Israel. However an overall majority across age categories scored current aid as “too much.”

When cross-tabulated by income, only those Americans earning $150,000 or more per year stated such aid was “about right” (47.6 percent), although within that income category, 42.9 percent thought aid was “too much,” while only 9.5 percent scored it as “too little.”

Since aid to Israel is premised on defense—allegedly keeping Israel from being “pushed into the sea” by surrounding hostile states—how can the majority of Americans believe the U.S. provides too much aid? American presidents and politicians are heavily invested in Israel's “ambiguity” policy of never discussing its arsenal of nuclear weapons. However, most Americans (63.9 percent, according to the IRmep survey) openly state they believe Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons. It is plausible that Americans believe the huge flows of aid purportedly maintaining Israel's “qualitative military edge” are unnecessary since it has already long possessed the ultimate deterrent. More.

WASHINGTON, October 28, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A federal lawsuit seeks immediate release of a closely held government report about how American branches of Israeli charitable and educational institutes fund secret nuclear weapons research and development programs.

An unclassified 1987 study conducted for the Department of Defense titled "Current Technology Issues in Israel" discovered Technion University technicians developing nuclear missile re-entry vehicles and working at the Dimona nuclear weapons production facility. Hebrew University computer scientists working at the Soreq nuclear facilities were "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs." Israel's Weizmann Institute "studied high energy physics and hydrodynamics needed for nuclear bomb design, and worked on lasers to enrich uranium, the most advanced method for making the material dropped on Hiroshima in 1945" say sources attributed to the report cited in the lawsuit.

IRmep filed suit for the report in the DC District Court as part of a public-interest drive to obtain long overdue enforcement of the Symington and Glenn Amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act. The laws prohibit U.S. foreign aid to nuclear weapons states such as Israel that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

A recent Google Consumer Survey (PDF) reveals that despite longstanding Israeli and US government gag orders on publicly discussing the arsenal, 63.9 percent of Americans now believe Israel possesses nuclear weapons. 60.7 percent of Americans oppose sending the largest share (9 percent) of the U.S. foreign aid budget to Israel.

Israel's Weizmann Institute, Technion, and Hebrew University raise substantial tax-exempt charitable funding through affiliates in the United States creating a "tax gap" that must be financed by individual American taxpayers. According to their most recent IRS filings, American branches of the three organizations raise a combined $172 million in annual U.S. tax-exempt funding. IRmep's "request for determination" filings with the IRS reveal that secret foreign nuclear weapons development has no recognized U.S. tax-deductible "social welfare" purpose.

Defendants Department of Defense, the DC US Attorney Office and Attorney General have until October 30 to respond to IRmep's public interest lawsuit demanding release of the explosive report. The Center for Policy and Law Enforcement is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington. Inquiries about the lawsuit or opinion poll results may be directed to Grant F. Smith at info@IRmep.org or 202-342-7325.

Download lawsuit (PDF)
Lawsuit news release
Scott Horton Show interview on what's at stake in the lawsuit. New

• ·     33.9 percent of Americans say Israel receives "much too much" U.S. foreign aid, while 26.8 percent feel it is "too much." The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion annually—9 percent of the foreign aid budget and more than any other country.  Only 25.9 percent believe aid is "about right" while 6.1 percent think aid is "too little" and 7.3 percent say it is "much too little."  Since 1970 U.S. foreign aid to Israel has grown on average 30 percent per year.

• ·     Younger Americans are most skeptical about U.S. aid to Israel. Almost 65 percent of adults under the age of 34 said such aid is excessive.

• ·     Only the wealthiest Americans (earning $150k and above) believe aid is "about right" at 47.6 percent.  However 42.9 percent within the same income category think aid is "too much" while only 9.5 percent think it is "too little."

• ·     Most Americans (63.9 percent) believe Israel has an arsenal of nuclear weapons.  This belief may make them resent costly demands to buy weapons to maintain Israel's so-called "qualitative military edge" since Israel has long possessed the ultimate military deterrent.

• A majority of Americans (58.5 percent) mistakenly believe that Iran also has nuclear weapons.  No western government or intelligence agency claims Iran has built a weapon.  However a sustained campaign by anti-Iran groups in the U.S. and news media failures have apparently led most Americans to believe an Iranian bomb already exists.

DOJ demands immunity for Anti-Iran Group UANI

The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge on Friday to throw out a lawsuit against the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc.  More popularly known as United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), Greek shipping magnate Victor Restis sued UANI last year claiming the group's false public allegations he aided Iran's nuclear program had cost him billions in lost revenue.  Mystery surrounds precisely how the U.S. Department of Justice decided to become involved in the civil suit.  Clues may be found in its most court recent filing (PDF) demanding the lawsuit be shut down.  On February 14, 2014 "the Government informed the Court that the United States wished to have an opportunity to determine whether the Government had an interest in this action."   According to the court docket (PDF) through that time UANI was losing a series of key battles to dismiss the Restis lawsuit and evade standard discovery motions that would have revealed its secret sources of funding and clandestine operations to obtain sensitive information.  It is likely UANI called in the government to help get the case dismissed.

UANI clearly has a lot to hide.  Its board of advisors includes the former head of a country's foreign intelligence services in the top tier targeting the United States for economic and military secrets— Israeli Mossad's former General Director Meir Dagan.  The thinly-funded organization has premium office space in Rockefeller Center in New York.  With a budget of only $1.8 million per year, UANI somehow manages to target timely satellite imaging while intercepting internal corporate communications it uses to launch private and public shakedowns of corporations it claims are not sufficiently adhering to the Israel-lobby driven Iran boycott.  UANI resembles yet another in a long line of thinly-veiled Israeli cover entities than a bona fide charity. More  Radio Interview

...The evidence suggested that "something did transpire," said Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mr. Carter's national-security adviser, in a recent interview. "But until you have conclusive evidence you don't want to make an international incident. This is a potentially very explosive, controversial issue." Besides, he added, even if a theft was proved, "What are we going to say to the Israelis, 'Give it back?' "

Israel hasn't ever said whether it has nuclear weapons. A spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to comment for this article.

So did a spokeswoman for the Obama administration, which like past U.S. administrations has declined to say whether it believes Israel has an atomic arsenal. A CIA spokesman also declined to comment.

Mr. Carter, who said at a 2008 gathering in Britain that he believes Israel has nuclear weapons, declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed.

His diplomatic efforts as president, which helped produce a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979, likely wouldn't have been possible "if there was some huge scandal at the time about this," said John Marcum, the staffer who wrote the July 28, 1977, memo, in a recent interview.

The theft suspicions surround events at a now-dismantled facility in Apollo, Pa., owned by a company called Nuclear Materials & Equipment Corp., or Numec. In the mid-1960s, some 200 pounds of bomb-grade uranium--enough possibly for several Hiroshima-sized bombs--couldn't be accounted for there....

Potentially crucial sections of the recently released documents--obtained by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, an organization that has been critical of Israel--remain classified.  More

...UANI's charges that Restis is a "front-man" for Iran are thinly based on UANI's possession of a proposal letter for Restis to meet Iranian officials in Greece and a second "consultancy engagement agreement letter." UANI has refused to publicly release to the public either of the two letters which Restis claims are crude forgeries. On July 3, 2013 lawyers for Restis issued their own "cease and desist" letter to UANI managers which triggered more UANI accusations and adverse publicity, scuttling a planned initial public offering and other large business deals.

Restis has received many death threats as a result of UANI's unrelenting campaign, being called "an evil, greasy, greedy bastard," a "Greek fuck," "animal," "crook" and "Christian pig." Restis is Jewish and claims he supports Israel and is opposed to Iran ever developing nuclear weapons. Visitor comments on UANI's Facebook page urge "hang him,"  "just shoot him" and "lock and load torpedoes."  Mr. Restis was approached by Rami Ungar, an Israeli shipping executive with no visible public connection to UANI according to court filings. Restis claims Ungar was a fixer who mysteriously knew all the details about the UANI situation. Ungar claimed that on behalf of the group's supporters he was “authorized to try to resolve the issues.” Restis is having none of it.  In an April letter to the presiding judge, the Restis legal team claimed they uncovered information that UANI “is being funded by foreign interests” that like Ungar, were presumably also from Israel. Restis filed court documents to compel not only Rami Ungar's sworn testimony but also that of UANI advisor Meir Dagan, the Israeli former Mossad intelligence chief. Restis claims it was Mossad that served as the conduit between the source and UANI... More

Newly declassified postwar Naval Intelligence files shine new light on a little-known chapter of U.S.-Israel relations. Massive supplies of American WWII military surplus under liquidation by the War Assets Administration were an irresistible target for Israel's government-in-waiting the Jewish Agency and nascent military the Haganah in the years immediately preceding Israel's declaration of statehood in 1948. The Jewish Agency was an organization contemplated as a vital actor for achieving that statehood in Theodore Herzl's original Zionist vision. Explosives, advanced fighter, bomber and transport aircraft, and Jewish veterans culled from a list stolen from the U.S. Chaplain all entered a Jewish Agency pipeline stretching from the US to Mexico, Panama, Italy and Czechoslovakia to Palestine. The stories these newly declassified files tell not only foreshadow the institutionalized immunity of crimes committed in the name of Israel, but major challenges the US would later have to confront beyond displaced Palestinian refugees and simmering conflict – ongoing money laundering into US politics and Israel's early desire to build nuclear weapons. More  Declassified Files

Newsweek reporter Jeff Stein's "double-tap" exposé of Israeli espionage in the United States has put Israel and its American lobby on red alert.  Stein's initial salvo "Israel Won't Stop Spying on the U.S." generated howls of outrage over veteran CIA analyst Paul Pillar's accurate assessment that Zionists had been sending spies to appropriate U.S. resources and weapons even before the state was founded.  Pressed for details, Stein's second piece "Israel's Aggressive Spying in the US Mostly Hushed Up" exposed a bumbling Israeli spy's unsuccessful attempt to enter Al Gore's hotel room through an air duct.  According to Stein, the dwindling number of U.S. criminal prosecutions is because the FBI has been directed by the Justice Department to privately chastise, but not expose, Israel's spy networks.  The most recent criminal espionage prosecution, that of former NASA official Stewart Nozette, carefully sealed off his handlers at Israel Aerospace Industries from any consequences.  Nozette had received $225,000 and admitted to passing secrets to Israel, but rather than go after his paymasters, the FBI set up an elaborate sting operation.  According to Stein, other American counterintelligence officials felt instant push-back whenever they tried to warn U.S. elected officials about Israeli espionage.

The new spying allegations come at an inconvenient time since Israel and its U.S. lobby have been ramping up efforts to obtain visa-free Israeli entry to the United States.  Israel's poor record of visa overstays, thousands of young people entering under tourist visas to work in the U.S. and the growing espionage flap appear to make Israel unlikely to enter the visa waiver program any time soon.  But three strategies have proven extremely successful in the past for dampening fallout.  Flood American influencers with cash, send in Israeli government officials to quietly lobby key policymakers and charge opponents with anti-Semitism. More

Despite the fact that there is a large pro-Israeli lobby in the United States — which would make it politically dangerous to talk about condemnation of Israel, particularly in states with a large evangelical Christian base — pushing aside allegations of theft and espionage would further weaken the United States' international credibility, according to many.

“[If] President Obama releases Pollard, it should be preceded by the belated return of the massive trove of classified documents he stole for Israel as well as all purloined nuclear materials and technologies,” said Grant Smith, the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.

Finally, realizations that this theft has been covered up and denied by the federal government for fifty years belies any allusions to transparency in the federal government. More

...Grant W. [F.] Smith, Director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) followed up Gilinsky and Matson's 2011 disclosures with a report based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other documentary evidence including corporate filings, office diaries and unguarded interviews. The report was published in January 2012 as a book titled, Divert! NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro and the diversion of US weapons grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons Program. According to Smith, former CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden claimed that NUMEC was “an Israeli operation from the beginning.” More

...The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is celebrating President Barack Obama's decision to deny a visa to Iran's ambassador to the United Nations. AIPAC declared “The very fact that Iranian leaders would even select such a person to represent them at the United Nations underscores the importance of maintaining vigilance against the duplicitous behavior of this regime – particularly in regard to its nuclear program.” Iran's UN ambassador nominee, Hamid Abutalebi, has been accused of playing a role in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Rushed legislation crafted and promoted by Israel's supporters to block Abutalebi easily passed the House and Senate and await the president's signature. Until now, the United States has automatically granted visas to heads of state and diplomats from around the world to conduct business at the UN headquarters in New York City. That the new policy is yet another targeted measure to derail current negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program is obvious in how the US treats Israeli diplomats and citizens engaged in nuclear-weapons-related espionage against America.

If President Obama signs the Cruz legislation into law, it would allow him to block Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ever addressing the United Nations again...More

Video, audio and segment transcripts at http:NATSummit.org

An FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles would not tell Under the Radar if the bureau planned to interview Milchan or DeNiro in connection with what they said in the Israeli interview.

“As a matter of policy, the FBI neither confirms nor denies investigations. I am unaware of any public information relative to this matter,” she said.

Grant Smith, author of Divert, about the decades-long Israeli operation to funnel U.S. nuclear secrets, uranium and parts to Israel, was not surprised that Milchan was “unconcerned and on stage” at the Oscars. Smith said Milchan has dodged prosecution for more than 30 years, even as a colleague in the smuggling of nuclear triggers, Richard Kelley Smyth, ultimately was arrested and jailed.

What has made Milchan untouchable, according to Smith, is his connections. These include long time associations with Israeli leaders including Shimon Peres and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who worked at Heli Trading, a Milchan front company used for smuggling, according to Smith, who cites Justice Department documents that he acquired through the Freedom of Information Act.

During the interview with Israel's Channel 2, Milchan acknowledged being an arms dealer and that he also used his international connections to advocate for the apartheid government of South Africa in exchange for the regime helping Israel procure uranium. More

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ The March 7 National Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel "Special Relationship" at the National Press Club will present the following experts:

Former Congressman Paul Findley is the author of the groundbreaking book They Dare to Speak out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby. Findley will discuss how the lobby shapes important U.S. foreign policies and influences elections.
 
Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, will deliver an update on what his groundbreaking 2007 book left out.

Historian Geoffrey Wawro will describe surprising findings from his 2010 book Quicksand: America's Pursuit of Power in the Middle East, and how its publication impacted his career.

Lieutenant Colonel Karen U. Kwiatkowski will deliver an insider account about the pre-Iraq invasion environment inside the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. Kwiatkowski will compare similarities and differences with the current neoconservative and Israel lobby drives to attack Syria and Iran.

Brigadier General James J. David will review how "super-sized" U.S. military aid to Israel affects American allies. Former intelligence officers Philip Giraldi, Raymond McGovern, Paul Pillar and Michael Scheuer will provide their insights about how Israel and its lobby influence America's national security and global standing. More

U.S. financial, military, and diplomatic support for Israel has grown significantly and steadily throughout the past 60 years and now dwarfs annual American foreign assistance to all other nations. Research indicates the U.S.-Israel "special relationship" is a major factor in foreign hostility towards Americans. Some experts suggest that Israel has been central to U.S. wars in the Middle East.

However, the huge public backlash against Israel lobby-generated momentum for U.S. attacks on Syria and Iran indicates that Americans are concerned about the direction of U.S. foreign policy, how it is made, and those trying to make it. This historic summit will provide an in-depth, multifaceted inquiry into this critical subject matter. Panelists will include former military and diplomatic personnel, intelligence officers, scholars, economists, researchers and a variety of other subject-matter experts and authors often shut out of key discussions in public forums and news media outlets. Members of the public will be allowed to ask the key questions and network with other attendees.

Interested members of the public may now register for an early-bird discount online at EventsNow (link). Members of the press may request credentials and currently enrolled university or college students may apply for one of the limited number of donor-funded free student tickets by completing and submitting this registration form (PDF link). A complimentary lunch will be provided during mid-day keynotes and panels. More

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Former Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer is the wrong choice for vice chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board. According to an IRmep research report:

1. Fischer supports extreme anti-Iran policies that harm the U.S. economy. During his 2005-2013 stint as governor of Israel's central bank, Fischer lobbied Europe, Russia, and China to isolate Iran through measures that went far beyond the sanctions adopted by the U.N. Security Council.

The US Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable, Coalition for American Trade, National Foreign Trade Council and others rejected such sanctions, provisions they estimated would cost America $25 billion and 210,000 jobs. (PDF) Yet Fischer is on record stating that even sanctions are no longer enough and appears ready to prepare the U.S. financial system for war as he did within Israel's central bank. Americans support 2-1 the current agreement to halt added sanctions during negotiations with Iran.

2. Fischer's fundamental economic aid changes harm U.S. taxpayers. Fischer was appointed by the Reagan administration to the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Discussion Group formed to deal with Israel's 1984-1985 economic crisis. To the detriment of U.S. taxpayers, Fischer helped permanently transform billions in annual aid packages from repayable loans to direct taxpayer subsidies that in 1985 amounted to over $1,650 per Israeli. Despite lip service, Fischer has never applied the austerity measures he became famous for at the IMF to persuade Israel to obey international law or U.S. demands to vacate occupied territories... More Less

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