Did Anyone See that the Suspected CIA Mole's "Sister-in-Law" Was a U.S. Military Officer?

It seems that the arrested FBI/CIA agent Nada Nadim Prouty (pictured) only interests the press in the Detroit area. They reported this week that her two Lebanese sisters and roommate were also involved in citizenship frauds. Her roommate, Samar Khalil Nabbou Spinelli, was also in effect Prouty's sister-in-law. [The two woman married two brothers in their sham marriages.]

But wait, it gets better -- or worse as the case may be. Samar Khalil Nabbou Spinelli is a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and served two tours in Iraq, according to the Freep. Was her vow of semper fidelis actually a spy's efforts to stamp out the infidels?

One sister is sitting in jail already, and she and her fugitive husband were apparently Hizbullah fundraisers. The reporters haven't yet disclosed what the other sister, Dr. Rula Nadim El Aouar, did for a living. Let's just hope that her doctorate was not in nuclear physics, chemistry or immunology.

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The Truth about Abbas' Soleful Pictures

A retired senior Middle East intel official provided the best answer for Mahmoud Abbas' crossed legs and the showing of his sole: The poor guy is squirming because of a prostate problem.

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Is There a Hidden Abbas Message in These Annapolis Pictures?

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I was taught in “diplomat school” never to show the sole of the foot to someone from the Arab world since it is considered insulting. So what does it mean that Mahmoud Abbas is “giving the sole” to Olmert and to Bush? Probably nothing and his posture is probably innocent, but do Palestinians understand something else? Let me know your opinions, please.

Here are some references on etiquette in the Arab world:

European Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation:
This is very important. It is unwise to cross one leg over the other with the sole of the foot pointing to one side, as it may be pointing to another guest, which is regarded as very impolite. … Make sure you feet are always pointing downwards and the soles of your shoes are never visible.


New York Times:
It's impolite to show others the soles of your feet or shoes. If you're sitting with your legs crossed, always make sure your soles are facing down.


Wikipedia: Displaying the sole of one's foot or touching somebody with one's shoe is often considered rude.

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Georgia on My Mind

The Jerusalem Post published an article of mine today. Space limitations meant that sections had to be cut out. The full article appears below.

News item: The president of Georgia introduced a 15-day state of emergency last week after riot troops used clubs and tear gas against opposition protesters in the capital, Tbilisi. Demonstrations were banned, as were all television news broadcasts except on state television.

Walking down the broad Rustaveli Boulevard in Georgia’s capital city of Tbilisi, I sensed a political upheaval in the winter air. Groups of energized young people were moving hurriedly and with purpose to demonstrations; there was excitement in their conversations and actions. I went back to my hotel on Freedom Square and told my partners, “I think it’s time we met with some people in the opposition.”

The incident did not take place last week. It took place four years ago, after the Georgian population rejected the results of rigged parliamentary elections. Within months, the government of President Eduard Shevardnadze would be replaced in the “Rose Revolution” with a new generation of government officials, led by the newly-elected President Mikheil Saakashvili.

In the first month of Saakashvili’s presidency my partner and I set up meetings for him with Washington opinion-makers and with the leadership of the national Jewish organizations in New York. For the next two years we worked – all pro bono -- to warn American and NATO officials of major radiological stores and conventional weapons stockpiled in Georgia that had been abandoned by the Soviet Union.

My team and I had been invited one evening to dinner in Tbilisi with the minister of defense, a tough general and veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Demonstrations were taking place a few blocks away, and I told my colleagues that I thought our dinner would be cancelled. No, the Georgian minister insisted. Throughout the sumptuous dinner, the general was taking phone calls and barking orders, which we did not understand. After one call, he sighed heavily and with tears in his eyes, he said, “I was just asked if I’ll call out the army to put down the demonstrations. I said, ‘By no means. Our army serves to protect our people, not attack them.’” The peaceful course of the Rose Revolution was set that night.

At that dinner and at subsequent ones with Georgian military officials and officers we followed Georgian customs. Throughout the multi-course dinners, toasts were made to peace, country, hosts, armies, fallen friends, wives and children, etc. Every toast by the Tamada toastmaster had to be answered, and that task usually fell to me. Not fair, I insisted. I drank only kosher wine, and while everyone toasted on the excellent (I am told) Georgian wine, I had to resort to responding with the much stronger vodka. But I persevered, not that I remembered much.

But this I do remember: in vino veritas, and my antennae were always alert for signs of anti-Semitism. There were none. Nothing, not even among the coarse and inebriated military men. In fact, when I raised my glass to toast Georgian tolerance, the comfort with which I wore my kippa throughout Georgia and the lack of anti-Semitism that I sensed, my hosts had no idea what I was talking about. They admired and respected Israel, its army and the Jewish people.

The Jewish community of Georgia has dwindled to some 10,000-15,000, with perhaps 80,000 moving to Israel in the last 25 years. But Jews of Georgia make their mark, and without much fanfare. Saakashvili’s early political ally, Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, was Jewish. (Zhvania died under mysterious circumstances in 2005.) Saakashvili’s current Defense Minister, David Kezerashvili, lived in Israel when he was younger and speaks Hebrew.

In a meeting with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations right after his election, President Saakashvili confided that his special appreciation for the Jewish people and his understanding of the Holocaust was conveyed to him by a law professor. Saakashvili studied law at Columbia and George Washington Universities. At the latter, he attended a seminar with Prof. Thomas Buergenthal, today a judge on the International Court of Justice. One day, Saakashvili related, Buergenthal let his hair down and spent four hours describing how he was a survivor, growing up in the Jewish ghetto of Kielce and later an inmate in the Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen concentration camps.

An American Ally

On our first visits to Georgia we always brought along a Russian translator, but suddenly, that was a thing of the past. The new ministers and officials were fluent English speakers, many educated in the West. Virtually every Georgian could speak Russian, but they wanted to speak to the West in the West’s language.

Today, Georgia seeks to become a member of NATO, much to the fury of Russia. American military personnel train the Georgian army, and, if the soldiers I saw on guard duty four years ago were a motley, rag-tag bunch, today they take pride in their spit-and-polish uniforms and demeanor. Today, 2,000 Georgian soldiers are serving in Iraq, the largest contingent after Great Britain. While other contingents are pulling out, Georgia’s may actually grow.

I visited Tbilisi two months ago after a two year hiatus. Construction is going on everywhere, the potholes on the major streets are filled, the old decrepit Ladas have been replaced by Audis and Mercedes. Much of the spiffying up was in preparation for President George Bush’s visit in 2005. But a walk a few blocks parallel to Rustaveli Boulevard showed that the potholes were still there, that tilting tenements with their cracks from a 2002 earthquake were somehow still standing, and that maybe some of the country’s new wealth still needed to trickle down some more.

Five years ago, you couldn’t drive 500 meters without a cop pulling you over for his lari payoff. One of the first steps taken by Saakashvili upon taking office was to put a stop to the police corruption. Today residents complain that the corruption may have been eradicated at the street level, but that it has grown at the upper levels of government. [The complaints echo what we hear and say in Israel.] The protests and demonstrations may be fed by legitimate complaints by impatient citizens who want their corruption-free democracy and reforms now. Or they may not.

Georgia is making nasty people unhappy

The Georgian government’s democratic, pro-American and anti-Russian policies and its anti-Jihadi military commitment make lots of nasty people unhappy, and Georgia could be a fat target on their radar screens.

Russia continues to stir up tensions, using its separatist proxies in Georgia’s regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The latest demonstrations and anti-Saakashvili protests may well have some Russian fingerprints.

Today, oil flows west from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, one of the world’s longest, costliest and most vital pipelines. Several international players – states and non-states – may have an interest in stopping the BTC flow.

There is virtually no Muslim presence in Georgia, but situated between Turkey and Chechnya, Georgia has served as a transit route for al-Qaeda terrorists, according to American intelligence sources.

It is clear that the “bad guys” have a motive to undermine Georgia’s stability. The goal of my dozen visits was to make sure that they didn’t have ready access to the means.

I was first invited to Georgia to explore whether foreign funds could be found to provide security for army bases and arms depots. I crisscrossed Georgia visiting bases and arsenals. I was shocked, even terrified, to see massive amounts of bombs, missiles, mines, rockets, and shells of all types. The Soviets saw Georgia as a major forward supply area in the event of conflict with the West. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, the broken fences and minimum security meant the arsenals were one-stop shopping malls for thieves, black marketers and terrorists. Most ominous were the strewn-about shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles – “ MANPADS” -- we saw in one poorly secured base inside a major urban area. The Strella and Igla missiles were the terrorists’ wet dream and the American and Israeli security officials’ nightmare. [That’s a picture of one of my team members holding an anti-aircraft missile. If he permits me to run his full picture I will.]

The haphazard storage of weapons, some corroding, meant that chemicals were leaching into the ground and water. But there was another environmental hazard. At one base an officer admitted that in 1996 parts of his base exploded. A fire burned for several days forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents of neighboring villages. The officer was relieved that the fire and explosions didn’t spread to one area of the camp, but he wouldn’t explain further. Later, as I toured other bases I learned why: In many bases radioactive cesium-137 was stored. Why? Heaven -- and maybe old Soviets -- knows. The local Georgians didn’t. After Alazani rockets with radioactive warheads were discovered in a nearby country, I asked Georgian base commanders if they had stocks of such weapons. Yes, they responded, thousands of them. No one was interested in finding out how many had radioactive warheads. These weapons were designed to break up hail-laden clouds above agricultural areas, and some Soviet scientists believed that cobalt particles couldn’t hurt. These missiles had also been used against civilian buildings in earlier civil wars. Cobalt and cesium were perfect ingredients for terrorists’ dirty bomb.

I discovered that before I could warn the Americans and Europeans about the threats I had to first warn the new Georgian leadership themselves about the strategic and ecological timebombs in their midst. The newly elected and appointed Georgian officials with whom I met had no idea of the existence of the problems, let alone its scope. The then-Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili went through our photographs and wept during my briefing.

I met with U.S. military officials in Tbilisi and in the Pentagon, and showed them the condition of the depots and their contents. I briefed American and Israeli security officials. I met a dozen officials in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nuclear Security Administration. A Washington Post correspondent followed me around and produced a lengthy expose. Congress began to show interest in funding conventional weapons reduction programs, not just the multi-billion dollar Nunn-Lugar non-conventional weaponry program.

Last year, our efforts began to pay off. A June 2006 Report to the UN Secretary General on “The Accumulation of Conventional Ammunition Stocks” includes an accounting from Georgia listing the destruction or demilitarization of SAM missiles, artillery, explosives extracted from shells and bombs, and other “combat materials.” The project, financed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, just may make it a little more difficult for terrorists to secure weapons or for a truck bomber to blow up the BTC pipeline, particularly as Georgia enters its latest exercise in democracy.

Lenny Ben-David served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Today he is an international consultant.

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Post Script to Previous Blog on Syrian-Hizbullah Signal Intelligence

The following appears deep in an Aviation Week article this week:

Israeli analysts closely watch ... Syria's support of Hizbullah during last year’s fighting in Lebanon and Israel. Of key interest was a signals and communications intercept operation that was run by the Syrian military. The intelligence products on location, makeup and intent of Israeli operations—much of it obtained from cell phone intercepts—were passed to Hizbullah.
In this case, they point to the involvement of Chinese and Russian advisory groups operating in Syria.

“When you’re talking about selling high-tech systems, they need support and staffing,” says a senior Israeli government official. “You can’t just talk about an air defense system. You also have to talk about communications, networking and intelligence gathering,” which includes the skills of communications and signals intelligence gathering and analysis.

“I can tell you that now, when I go into a [ministry] meeting, I have to take the battery out of my cell phone,” the government official says. “We’re aware of [traffic intercept during the Lebanon fighting]. There’s also the issue that in the north of Israel you have very large Arab communities. Most wouldn’t be involved, but you’re talking about a half-million people up on the border. That means there are people with the ability to watch and pass on information.”

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Don't Underestimate Iranian Meddling in Lebanon and its Military Assistance to Hizbullah

Several weeks ago I presented the scenario of Iranian and North Korean engineers building tunnels for Hizbullah under the border into Israel. Recent articles indicate that the Iranian assistance extends into other military areas, including SIGINT (Signal Intelligence).

Israel's Defense Forces got a bitter taste of Iran's commitment to the war against Israel when an Iranian-supplied (and probably Iranian-launched) C-802 anti-ship missile slammed into the Israeli corvette Hanit sailing off the coast of Lebanon during the 2006 war. Four sailors were killed.

Now two articles published this week indicate that Iran utilized drones against the IDF as well as electronic/network warfare. Today Ha'aretz runs a lengthy analysis on 50 German companies assisting Iran's nuclear program. The article includes this paragraph:

The success of the Iranian arms campaign was witnessed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Ali Mobaraki, an Iranian who managed Zenith Rollers Germany, a print roller company in Dusseldorf, orchestrated the transfer of 10 satellite navigation systems to Iran, with the help of his father, who owns Zenith, and a British engineer living in Germany since 1986. This type of global positioning system (GPS) is routinely found in unmanned aerial vehicles used to survey or attack enemy territory. FAKT, a German news program, reported last year that navigation systems used in Iranian drones employed by Hizbullah against Israel in the Lebanon war were manufactured by a company in the south German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

Earlier this week Aviation Week published the widely reported story, U.S. Electronic Surveillance Monitored Israeli Attack On Syria. It concluded that Israel's sophisticated "network attack and electronic hacking capability is an operational part of the Israeli Defense Force's arsenal of digital weapons."

But the article included this tidbit, pointing to Iranian/Syrian/Hizbullah capabilities: "Israel is not alone in recent demonstrations of network warfare. Syria and Hizbullah revealed some basic expertise during the Lebanon conflict last year."

As Lebanon teeters on the brink of a new implosion, we shouldn't lose sight of the thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops now based in Lebanon. W. Thomas Smith, Jr. reported recently that 2,000 - 3,000 of Iran's most dangerous forces are in Lebanon.

Whether Syria's Bashar Assad attends the Annapolis meeting or not, look for him to put Lebanon into a tail-spin while Washington, Israel and many Arab leaders are focusing on the one-day, media-spinning diplomatic exercise.

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Why would Hizbullah be interested in placing a spy in the FBI or CIA? Imad Mughniyah, that’s why.

That above question was asked by “Spectator” in a comment to the latest blog. Good question.

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UPDATE: NBC News reports NNP "had a much bigger role than officials at the FBI and CIA first acknowledged. In fact, Prouty was assigned to the CIA’s most sensitive post, Baghdad, and participated in the debriefings of high-ranking al-Qaida detainees."

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Court documents show that Nada Nadime Prouty inspected files on her family members who were under suspicion for fundraising for Hizbullah. But if the Feds suspect that she’s a Hizbullah agent, then the first file they should check for her computer’s fingerprints should be Imad Mughniyeh’s (also spelled Moughnieh).

In the history of modern terrorism, Mughniyeh ranks up there with Bin Laden, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (AKA “Carlos the Jackal”), and Ali Hassan Salameh (AKA “Red Prince”) of Black September. Mughniyeh’s name surfaced in Interpol’s recent deliberations as one of the planners of the bombings in Argentina along with Iranian intel and Islamic Revolutionary Guard brass. Generally, he was listed last among the conspirators; he should have been first in big bold letters.

Mughniyeh has a long history dating back to Arafat’s Force 17 (did he serve with Salameh?). He appears to be the glue that fused and now maintains the relations between Iran and Hizbullah’s military wing.

Presumably the CIA has a massive file on the master-terrorist. Just look at his Wiki file:

He has been implicated in many of terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, primarily American and Israeli targets. These include the April 18, 1983 bombing of the United States embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 63 people including 17 Americans. He was later blamed for the October 23, 1983 simultaneous truck bombings against the French paratroopers and U.S. Marine barracks. The attacks killed 58 French soldiers and 241 Marines. Almost a year later on September 20, 1984, he attacked the U.S. embassy annex building. The United States indicted him for the June 14, 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, which resulted in the death of U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. He was also linked to numerous kidnappings of Westerners in Beirut through the 1980s.

Israel also has a long score to settle with the Hizbullah/Iranian terrorist. He was one of the planners of the infamous Karine A arms supply ship that was intercepted in transit between Iran and Yasser Arafat’s forces in Gaza.

Intel analyst Michael Ladeen presents the case that Mughniyeh has ties with al Qaeda.
There’s enough history and data on Mughniyeh, Hizbullah and global terrorism that Nada Nadime would have a hard time avoiding it over at the FBI and CIA.

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Update on Nada Nadim Prouty

The suspected FBI/CIA mole was released yesterday by the U.S. District judge on a $10,000 unsecured bond.

Make sure to wave to her if you see her at the airport or the border crossing to Canada or Mexico. Who doubts she'll follow her brother-in-law who fled the country when the Feds started to close in? She probably has no interest in joining her sister in prison.

But where's the evidence that she worked for Hizbullah? I was asked today. Wait. Watch. U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, has already called for Congressional hearings.

The Detroit Free Press reported today, "In 2002, Prouty's sister and Chahine attended a fund-raiser in Lebanon that featured speeches by Chahine and Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hizbullah." The New York Post reports that Chanine spoke as the representative of "a worldwide group of fund-raisers."

The Freep also presents a chronology of Nadime's activities.

Meanwhile, the Feds are probably scurrying, assuming that agents, operations and methods have been compromised.

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Did Hizbullah Infiltrate the FBI and CIA?

Nada Nadim Prouty entered the U.S. from Lebanon in 1989. Her marriage was a fraud as was her subsequent application for U.S. citizenship. But that didn't stop her from getting jobs at the FBI and CIA. She was arrested this week for illegally accessing files in the FBI about Hizbullah investigations.

One of those investigations could have been about her brother-in-law, Talal Chahine, the owner of a string of Middle East restaurants in the Detroit area. He fled the country as the Feds started closing in on the $20 million he apparently sent to Hizbullah. Chanine's wife, Elfat El Aouar -- the spy's sister -- didn't or couldn't flee in time, and she was sentenced in May to 18 months in prison for tax evasion.

The Chanine's are a lovely family. Khalil Talal Chahine, the restraurantor's son, was convicted in May 2005 for the murder of a young man in Dearborn, Michigan. He's serving a 20-30 year sentence.

Read the U.S. Attorney's Charges against Nada Nadim Prouty.

Read the New York Times account. Many readers probably missed it because of the "parve" headline: C.I.A. Officer Pleads Guilty to Illegal Searches

And while we're talking about Dearborn, Houssein Zorkot, the 26-year old Hizbullah supporter who was arrested in September carrying a loaded AK-47 rifle in a Dearborn Park, came before a judge last week and had his competency examination postponed until December 14. When he was arrested he was wearing black face paint and dark clothing.

Come to think of it, would any jihadi suicide fighter pass an American court's competency exam?

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J’Accuse. Will a Conspiracy of Anti-Israel Media Bias Be Proven in a French Court?

Later this week a French court is supposed to view the entire 27 minute video of the alleged Muhammed Dura affair. The France 2 network broadcast less than a minute of the September 2000 shooting incident in Gaza, blaming Israeli soldiers for the murder of the child. The film clip was sent out to the entire world and enflamed the Arab world, escalated the Intifada, and sullied Israel’s reputation, perhaps irreparably.

Several brave individuals have come forward over the years, claiming that the filming was a hoax – fauxtography to use Little Green Football's term – and that the full tape shows that the incident was staged.

Historian Prof. Richard Landes, whose blog Augean Stables has chronicled the “Pallywood” forgeries, posted an important article on Pajamas Media yesterday. Landes writes that the al Dura case provides evidence that Western journalists knowingly broadcast film footage that is staged.

Indeed, as reported by BBC News last week, even the Palestinians are ready for the court concluding that the shooting was staged. Look at this rationalization:
For most Palestinians, “the Muhammad al-Dura case is closed. ‘The majority of Palestinians would not believe the court if they said the killing was fake,’ says Dr Eyad Sarraj, the head of the Gaza Community Health Program. ‘They would see it as some sort of conspiracy. All Palestinians see the Israelis as guilty in this. Even if Muhammad al-Dura was killed by a Palestinian bullet, if it hadn't been for the Israeli occupation in Gaza he would be still alive today.’”

Six years ago I discovered that BBC was also a blatant practitioner of fauxtography. This is what I wrote in the Jerusalem Post on June 22, 2001:

On May 10, 2001 at approximately 4:30 p.m. (Israel time), the BBC showed an Israeli attack on Palestinian Authority military and intelligence facilities in Gaza. Amidst the chaos, an ambulance was seen leaving a Palestinian compound. The next frame showed the ambulance arriving at hospital with a severely wounded man. The impression was clear: Israel attacks, Palestinians are hurt. The London-based newsreader, Lyse Doucet, who until recently reported from Israel, concluded, "Those are the pictures from Gaza."

But the film was edited, actually two videos spliced together, and one wasn’t even from Gaza. The paramedics wheeling the wounded into the hospital were wearing Magen David Adom uniforms complete with Star of David patches on their breast pockets. The wounded man was a foreign worker wounded by a bomb placed by Palestinian terrorists.

Immediately upon viewing the news clip I called the BBC office in Jerusalem. The receptionist requested the nature of my call, and I told her about the two film clips. “We know about it, and we’re speaking to London about it,” she hastily said and hung up.

To my knowledge, the BBC never admitted or apologized for the journalistic sin.

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On Israel's POWs and MIAs -- Dear Bashar Assad, Redeem Yourself before It’s Too Late

[A personal note: A newspaper has been sitting on this Op-Ed column for a month. Unlike wine, it doesn't get better with age. So here it is.]

Bashar, I’m sure it’s tough. Israeli planes flew deep into Syria in early September and destroyed something that you know you shouldn’t be playing with. It seems pretty clear that you and that creepy son of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jung II, were fooling around under the covers with something very dangerous. Or maybe you were cooking something explosive with that other punk, Ahmadinejad. Your father dealt with the likes of big time capos like Brezhnev and Kosygin. Look at the thugs you run with.

Meanwhile, the UN investigators keep getting closer and closer. Once they have implicated your brother-in-law and your close associates in the assassination of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri, how much longer can you tough it out? The special international court is now slated to take place in The Netherlands, and soon judges will be chosen by the UN Secretary-General. I’m sure you’ll try to kill off as many as you can, but the noose is tightening.

Yeah, you could blame the Neocons/Zionists/Jews/Israelis for fanning the flames and conspiring against you. But, as they say in New York, fuggetaboutit. You, your father, Hafez, and your cronies brought this on by yourselves. You ran Lebanon as your own fiefdom, acting more like Tony Soprano than like the noble descendant of Alawite leaders. You got into bed with Iranians, Hizbullah and Hamas terrorists, North Koreans and Iraqi Baathists, and now you wake up wondering why no one can stand your stench?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re probably going down, maybe not tomorrow, but just make sure your private jet is fueled and staffed around the clock for your quick get-away. Iran would be a good destination. Don’t forget to tip the kitchen staff and give the cat away to the neighbors.

Bashar, there’s still a respectable way to make your exit. It will get you some good PR, and boy, you could use it.

Bashar, cough up the Israeli soldiers missing in action. They are either sitting in the dungeons under your palace, or were tortured to death by your thugs, or were traded by Syrian proxies to the Iranians. If they’re not alive, then give over the information on where they are buried.

Zachary Baumel, Tzvi Feldman and Yehudah Katz were soldiers missing in action after the June 1982 Sultan Yaqub battle with Syrian tanks in Lebanon. Twenty-five years! Various reports, including some quoting your relatives, suggest that they may still be alive. Baumel, as you probably know, was also an American citizen.

Guy Hever was stationed at an Israeli base on the Golan Heights, near the Syrian frontier. In 1997 he disappeared. Did Syrian commandos grab him? Did he wander into Syrian territory?

Navigator Ron Arad was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. He was captured by one of the Lebanese militias and reportedly “sold” to the Iranians. But we know that in those days, grass didn’t grow in Lebanon without Syrian approval. At some point, Ron Arad passed through Syrian hands or territory.

Don’t forget the two Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, who Hizbullah kidnapped last year, an act that ignited the month-long war. Hizbullah couldn’t have carried out that act or fired off thousands of rockets into Israel without your assistance. Some of the most lethal rockets came from your factories and armories. You also host the head of Hamas, Hamad Mishal, who lives down the road from your residence in Damascus. Your security forces could grab him and his most sensitive parts and easily persuade Hamas to release Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped last year and is being held in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Bashar, before your security offices are looted and burned by the mobs that will pour out into the streets someday, give up the information on the POWs and missing-in-action. Some of the Israeli prisoners are sitting in prison for more than 20 years, which is twice what you’d get in a Western jail with time off for good behavior. And in case you didn’t hear, there is a $10 million reward on information on Ron Arad. I know it’s pocket change compared to what you have stashed away in the Cayman Islands or in Swiss banks, but as you’re looking for a refuge, you could use that kind of pocket change.

Don’t forget to turn off the switches on the Weapons of Mass Destruction as you go out, especially all those chemical warheads on the SCUD missiles you have pointed at Israel. And it would be a good idea to deep-six the WMD Iraq’s Saddam Hussein probably stashed in Syria before he got his comeuppance. Hey, I just realized -- is that where you got the idea to stash North Korea’s nukes?

Bashar, the world will be a better place without them – and without you in office.


Your Pal, LBD

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Could the Anti-Israel Boycott Threaten U.S. Military Assistance to the Palestinians?

The Central Boycott Office in Damascus is convening another of their meetings this week to discuss ways to further the economic, cultural and diplomatic boycott of Israel. The once powerful organization, established in 1951, has lost much of its clout. It was a big thing decades ago to impose a boycott on Israeli oranges or to ban Coca Cola for dealing with Israel. But today, Israel is such an economic and technological powerhouse that it’s difficult, even self-destructive, for Arab countries to enforce the boycott.


A few years ago a Gulf kingdom ordered a large shipment of drip irrigation equipment from Israel. The Israeli company felt compelled to erase all “Made in Israel” tags on the piping. The kingdom’s purchasing agent came back complaining that it was hard to move the merchandise because his customers wanted proof the product was made in Israel.

Today, a boycott of Israeli products would mean doing without many models of cellphones, computer processors, and medicines, to name just a few products containing technologies developed in Israel.

Perhaps that’s why eight Arab countries, including Jordan and Egypt, stayed away from the boycott meeting. But 14 other countries and representatives from the Palestinian territories did show up, according to the AP account.

It’s worth following up to see which countries attended and who the Palestinian representatives were. Were they officials from the Palestinian Authority? With Secretary of State Rice shepherding Israel and the Palestinian Authority to Annapolis, it is hoped that the PA is not engaged in economic warfare against Israel.

The would-be boycotters should know that Congress loathes the Arab boycott.

The following excerpt is from the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2008, HR 2764:

SEC. 634. It is the sense of the Congress that…
…the President and the Secretary of State should continue to vigorously oppose the Arab League boycott of Israel and find concrete steps to demonstrate that opposition by, for example, taking into consideration the participation of any recipient country in the boycott when determining to sell weapons to said country….

If the Palestinian Authority attended the Damascus boycott meeting, could it jeopardize the extensive military training and assistance the U.S. Government is providing to the Palestinian Authority?

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“Waltheimer” Get a Whupping. Walt & Mearsheimer Rehash Old Claims of Fulbright and Ball

It was almost too painful to watch. And I’m not talking about the thrashing the New England Patriots gave the Washington Redskins this week. The Walt-Mearsheimer book on the “Israel Lobby” took a double slam this week in two of the most prestigious academic publications.

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Evan R. Goldstein questions why the two giants of the “realist” school of foreign policy, which “presumes that states act rationally in pursuit of their national interests,” would veer off course to attack a domestic lobby for subverting U.S. national interests. According to the realist school, Goldstein explains, “domestic factors like whether or not a country happens to be a democracy or whether there is a powerful ethnic lobby pushing for certain policies have minimal effect on how states behave.” Yet “Waltheimer” go after the pro-Israel lobby with a vengeance, blaming it for many of the evils in the world, from Bin Laden’s terror to the Iraq war.
“Waltheimer” claim that they are treated as if they are “radioactive,” the victims of a boycott manipulated by the lobby. But Goldstein cites the professors’ colleagues who point out how the two have won world attention and adulation from some quarters (including the KKK’s David Duke), not to mention a $750,000 advance from their book publisher.

Look for some more hefty honoraria from the Saudi-sponsored Middle East studies programs around the United States and from their overseas speaking engagements.

The real coup de grace to Walt and Mearsheimer comes from the Council on Foreign Relations’ Foreign Affairs journal. Walter Russell Mead’s review is nothing short of an academic court-martial. Just read the review’s summary:

"Sloppy execution means 'The Israel Lobby,' however commendable the intentions of its authors, will have the opposite of its desired effect: impeding new thinking about U.S. policy in the Middle East rather than advancing the debate."

Mead goes on to predict that their book will give “aid and comfort to anti-Semites wherever they are found.” And could there be a more powerful whupping in academia than Mead’s pronouncement, “Rarely in professional literature does one encounter such a gap between aspiration and performance as there is in The Israel Lobby.”

Regurgitating Fulbright and Ball

I still believe that reviewers are missing an important point in Walt and Mearsheimer’s book. The two profs are rehashing – almost rephrasing -- accusations and arguments made 30 years ago by two of Israel’s greatest critics in Washington, Sen. J. William Fulbright and George Ball. As I pointed out last month in an article in National Review Online,

“It is curious, even troubling, that the Walt and Mearsheimer paper failed to cite those two prominent foreign-policy mavericks who so clearly influenced their opinions. Did they take Fulbright’s and Ball’s material and rewrite it as their own? They sound like Ball/Fulbright disciples, but did they conclude that Ball and Fulbright were perceived as so one-sided on Middle East issues that their opinions had little currency, and did the two professors keep those sources out lest their work suffer the same fate?"

"And if they didn’t know of Ball and Fulbright’s influential works, what does that say about their scholarship?”

The ‘Skins deserved what they got. So do “Waltheimer.”

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