US sees Israel, tight Mideast ally, as spy threat. WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in. The incident, described by three former senior U.S. intelligence officials, might have been dismissed as just another cloak-and-dagger incident in the world of international espionage, except that the same thing had happened to the previous station chief in Israel. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.
In a separate episode, according to another two former U.S. officials, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged. In all the cases, the U.S. government believes Israel's security services were responsible. The CIA declined comment. The tension exists on both sides. Israel finally confirms the obvious – The collective punishment of the Gaza siege is based on politics, not security. After one and a half years in which Israel at first denied their existence and then claimed that revealing them would harm “state security”, the State of Israel today released three documents that outline its policy for permitting transfer of goods into the Gaza Strip prior to the May 31 flotilla incident. The documents were released due to a Freedom of Information Act petition submitted by Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement in the Tel Aviv District Court, in which Gisha demanded transparency regarding the Gaza closure policy.
Israel still refuses to release the current documents governing the closure policy as amended after the flotilla incident. “Policy of Deliberate Reduction” The documents reveal that the state approved “a policy of deliberate reduction” for basic goods in the Gaza Strip. Thus, for example, Israel restricted the supply of fuel needed for the power plant, disrupting the supply of electricity and water. “Luxuries” denied for Gaza Strip residents. If Americans Knew - what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine. (American) Public Opinion Toward Israel. By Mitchell Bard (Updated March 2014) Table of Contents | Opinion Polls | Palestinian Polls Support for Israel is not restricted to the Jewish community. Americans of all ages, races and religions sympathize with Israel.
The best indication of Americans' attitude toward Israel is found in the response to the most consistently asked question about the Middle East: “In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more with Israel or with the Arab nations?” In recent years Gallup has noted that many Americans have moved from “no preference” into the pro-Israeli column. In 85 Gallup polls, going back to 1967, Israel has had the support of an average of 47% of the American people compared to 12% for the Arab states/Palestinians.
Overall, support for Israel has been on the upswing since 1967. Gallup also takes regular polls on world affairs. Polls also indicate the public views Israel as a reliable U.S. ally, a feeling that grew stronger during the Gulf crisis. The American Public on the Islamic World. The American Public on the Islamic World June 7, 2005 Comments By PIPA Director Steven Kull at the Conference on US-Islamic World Relations Co-Sponsored by the Qatar Foreign Ministry and the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution DOHA, Qatar—When Americans look at events in the Middle East, they do not have a clear and simple response. The extent of conflict and instability they see bewilders them. Among all the competing groups, they do not see a side they identify with.
At the same time, the experience of 9/11 has stirred them. But they are very reluctant to act unilaterally. In the run-up to the Iraq war, though they believed that Iraq posed a threat, they resisted the idea of the US acting on its own. They did not expect to be greeted as liberators in Iraq. They are willing to accept whatever government the Iraqi people elect. When it comes to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Americans are once again bewildered. Americans do see oil as critical to the US economy. 1.
The Harris Poll—Middle East: Public Opinion Trends Remain Virtually Unchanged. LRB | John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt : The Israel Lobby. For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?
One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides. Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Mearsheimer and Walt's Anti-Israel Screed: A Relentless Assault in Scholarly Guise. In Dark Times, Blame the Jews. By Masha Leon Published June 20, 2003, issue of June 20, 2003. Sparks flew at the civil and witty “Conversation” between Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz and Natan Sharansky at the June 2 Aleph Society dinner at the Essex House. When moderator Charles Krauthammer expressed astonishment at the return of antisemitism 50 years after the Holocaust, Steinsaltz — author of 60 books on the Talmud, Jewish mysticism and philosophy — explained it as “an aberration of a more than 2,000-year old… malady endemic to a world that does not need Jews to inflame it.”
Sharansky, former Soviet refusenik and now Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs, concurred: “Antisemitism is as old as the Jews…. Recalling Soviet antisemitism, Sharansky added wistfully: “We hoped democracy would save us [from antisemitism] but… democracy failed.” Responding to Steinsaltz’s claim that “Jews are like eggs, the more you boil them, the harder they become,” Krauthammer joshed: “Then we should be very well done by now.”