Israeli Spying on United States

Neither the United States’ nor Israel’s drawing up of its skirts in horror over the Jonathan J. Pollard affair should blind us to the reality that in the game of national life and death, which is foreign relations and military defense, it is standard practice for nations to maintain covert intelligence on each other, including between allies.

It is well known to Israel, as it is to the U.S. government, that the United States does covert intelligence on “Israel.” And if Israel did not do covert intelligence on the United States it would have to have its national head examined--bearing in mind that the United States, which aids and supplies Israel, insists as a matter of claimed national self-interest on being among the largest suppliers of the most sophisticated offensive weapons to Israel’s mortal enemies, including Saudi Arabia, the only slightly less hostile King Hussein, and only slightly less hostile (and supposed Camp David treaty partner of Israel) Egypt, whose Hosni Mubarak barely bothers to conceal his intentions to be on the Arab side in any future “Yom Kippur” strike against Israel, notwithstanding Israel traded lands and the most essential defenses for Egypt’s paper promise of peace.

Nevertheless, the foregoing should not blind us also to the fact that Israel and the United States have the deepest reasons for alliance; Israel for the reason that the United States is the main bastion of the free world on which Israel’s future ultimately depends, and in the case of the United States, Israel is the only reliable ally of the United States in the Middle East, a built-in aircraft carrier in the event of trouble, a reliable supplier of vital military intelligence to the United States, including performance of Russian weapons furnished the Arabs, the only authentic democracy in the Middle East, and the source of America’s own biblical antecedents.

LEONARD HORWIN

Beverly Hills