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The Mega Spy Scandel Between Washington and Israel
Monkey Wrenches
May 15, 1997 - Metro West Jewish News (N.J.) - Editorial
Israel's latest scandal -- allegations that it is running a spy deep in
the Clinton administration -- is related to its last, the Bar-On Affair,
which almost resulted in the prime minister's indictment.
The connection between the two concerns the Hebron withdrawal, or
more broadly, the future of the Oslo process.
The spy charge that surfaced in a Washington Post story last week
stems from a conversation overheard by the National Security
Agency. The conversation, between two Israeli intelligence officials,
one in Washington and his superior in Israel, went like this -- "The
ambassador wants me to go to Mega to get a copy of this letter";
came the reply -- "This is not something we use Mega for."
Wow, someone in NSA said, who's Mega? An Israeli spy passing
confidential materials to Jerusalem?
The transcript was given to the FBI counter-intelligence boys and
passed around Washington, until someone at the FBI said, wait a
minute, this is too sensitive to be shared, and the copies were
recalled. The bureau opened an investigation, but nobody was the
wiser until someone shared it with The Washington Post.
Not surprisingly, the Israelis denied the inference that they are
running a spy in Washington. Mega is the head of the Israel desk at
the Central Intelligence Agency, reported Yediot Ahronot this week,
and the conversation was a routine one. Before that, Ha'aretz
reported that the NSA decoders misunderstood an Israeli reference
to Elga -- a code name routinely used by Israeli agents for the CIA.
But even if there is no spy or mole, the Mega story still leaves many
questions unanswered and illuminates a complicated and dangerous-
for-Israel landscape in America's capital that is usually concealed
behind a facade of handshakes and celebrations.
Because the Mega story appeared in the Post the same day the
administration's top peace process diplomat, Dennis Ross, was
meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, it is hard to escape
the conclusion that the leak was intended to transmit a message to
the prime minister: Never mind the pro-Israel/reluctant-to-take-on-
the-Jews Clinton White House -- we can still get you.
Or, as the Associated Press quoted an anonymous U.S. official,
someone was trying to "throw a monkey wrench" into Israel's
relations with U.S. intelligence agencies.
The Mega story came the same week a special United Nations
committee condemned as "torture" Israel's legalization of such
interrogation methods as violent shaking and restraining prisoners in
painful positions. (Ironically, the day after The New York Times
carried an Anthony Lewis column criticizing Israeli "torture" --
Lewis was persuaded by Jacobo Timmerman that the use of any
torture sets you out on a slippery slope -- the Times reported that the
African National Congress owned up to having used "torture,
executions and land mines" before taking power. Apparently,
"torture" covers a wide area indeed, applying to both Israeli
"shaking" and ANC "necklacing" -- the practice of putting suspected
collaborators inside a car tire, pouring gasoline over them and
setting the tire on fire.)
Taken together, the Mega and torture stories sent a powerful
message that Israel's position in this country could be undermined.
When the issue is terrorism, or the ambiguity clouding the Arab
position on peace, Israel wins. But when the issue becomes an Israeli
spy, or the use of "torture," Israel loses.
Mega sent another message -- whether or not Israel is spying on
America, America is certainly spying on Israel.
Okay, Israel (without the administered territories) is the size of New
Jersey and has the population of Chicago; the two countries are
hardly equals. But the leak to the Post not only confirms U.S. spying
on Israel, it endangers the Jewish state by offering clues to the
encrypted code that masked sensitive Israeli communications from
Washington.
The Mega conversation was overheard in mid-January. The Post
story included the relevant quotes about Mega and the Christopher
letter. Other intelligence services that recorded the heretofore
indecipherable bursts from the Israeli embassy can match their
recordings with the few sentences from the NSA transcript. Time for
damage control. Israel must work backwards on the assumption that
the Syrians, for example, can now decipher all communication that
used the code and frequency of the Mega conversation.
Netanyahu must also contain the damage to his diplomatic effort.
Ambassador Eliahu Ben-Elissar is seriously compromised, even if
Mega turns out to be the head of the CIA's Israel desk. The prime
minister had already read the Christopher letter and briefed the
cabinet on it. But Bibi had not shared the letter with Foreign
Minister David Levy (Ben-Elissar's boss and political patron) or
with the ambassador. Anyone trying to obtain the letter might have
wanted to see whether, Netanyahu's assurances notwithstanding, it
offered the Palestinians assurances that went beyond official, long-
standing U.S. positions.
Netanyahu isn't the only one who should be worried; Clinton has
grounds for concern. According to Daniel Schorr of National Public
Radio, "No document is more restricted in circulation than the
transcript of a decoded and descrambled communication furnished to
the FBI's Counter-Intelligence Division. And yet, this is the second
time in recent months that word of a NSA intercept has leaked."
The other NSA leak, also to The Washington Post, concerned a
communication between the Chinese embassy and Beijing that
triggered the investigation of a reported $2 million Chinese plan to
funnel money into the U.S. election campaign.
What both leaks have in common -- besides their focus on NSA
spying on foreign embassies in Washington and their publication in
the Post -- is that they are bad for Clinton.
The Mega story hit the P-nerve -- in the nether world of U.S.-Israel
relations, P stands for Pollard.
Ever since Jonathan Pollard was arrested more than a decade ago for
spying for Israel, U.S. intelligence has been looking for a so-called
Mr. X -- a more senior official who told the Israelis what to have
Pollard ferret out. The notion that Mega was Mr. X therefore came
easily to some journalists, like the London Daily Telegraph's
Washington correspondent, who wrote that Mega "may have guided
the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in its handling of the U.S.
Navy spy Jonathan Pollard in the 1980s."
Mega may be another one of the "recycled" Pollard stories, to use
Netanyahu aide David Bar Illan's term. (Bar Illan, by the way,
appears headed to the United Nations as Israeli ambassador.)
Mega may therefore be a further setback for Pollard, whose cause
this week received support in an unusual joint letter to Clinton from
the Orthodox Union and the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations.
The context for Pollard's crime is the same as that for Bar-
On/Hebron, Mega and the "torture" debate.
Pollard worked for Israel in the years following then CIA deputy
director Bobby Ray Inman's decision to cut Israel off from vital
intelligence information, a decision reached after Israel's 1981 air
raid on Iraq's nuclear reactor. Israel needs to know about threats to
its citizens; that need increases as it makes peace, handing over
territory to former enemies. Just as there is no power equivalency
between Israel and America, there is no moral equivalency between
Israel's, and the Arabs', need for such knowledge or for confidence in
America.
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