The Pentagon charges Jews with dual loyalty

The AIPAC case is being used as an excuse by the Pentagon to remove security clearances from Jews who have dual Israeli and American citizenship — or who have relatives in Israel.

The Pentagon is invoking the prosecution of two pro-Israel lobbyists and a Defense Department analyst for illegal use of classified information as a basis for stripping security clearances from government contractor employees who have dual citizenship in America and Israel or family members living in the Jewish state.

In at least three instances, Defense Department attorneys have used or attempted to use the case involving the former staffers of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to justify withdrawing a security clearance or denying one in the first place, according to a Virginia lawyer who closely tracks such disputes, Sheldon Cohen.

“In my personal experience, I know of at least three cases,” Mr. Cohen told The New York Sun yesterday. “I assume they’re raising it in every Israel case.”

Asked why government lawyers were invoking the Aipac case in security clearance disputes with no known connection to the pro-Israel group, Mr. Cohen said, “The only reason to possibly use it is to implicate anybody with a connection to Israel, to imply they cannot be trusted. There is no other conceivable reason to bring it up.”

We’re talking both anti-Semtism and McCarthyism here. Americans whose ony apparent “crime” is to have relatives in Israel are having their security clearances revoked. It is unbelievable to me that in the 21st century, we are still experiencing the dual loyalty charge. As I understand it, the information was not solicitied by the AIPAC employees, but offered by Larry Franklin. And they have not been found guilty in a court of law. Consider this:

On September 30, the Washington Post reported that Franklin was negotiating an agreement with prosecutors and would plead guilty to at least the conspiracy charges at a court hearing the following week, after which he would continue his cooperation with prosecutors [13] .

He did indeed pleaded guilty to the three conspiracy counts on October 5, explaining that he had shared his frustrations over U.S. Iran policy with the other two defendants regularly in 2002 and later passed documents he knew were classified to them in the hope they could get them to employees of the National Security Council who might be able to help force a harder line.

It seems that Franklin is the one who initiated the transfer of information, and it seems it was unsolicited.

Mr. Cohen, who recently completed a study of the Israel-related security clearance cases, found that “an unusually large number” of the public cases involving concerns about foreign influence appear to relate to Israel. The names are deleted from cases made public by the Pentagon and most of those involved in clearance disputes do not wish to be identified, Mr. Cohen said.

One of the pending clearance cases where government lawyers have sought to rely on the Aipac prosecution involves an Israeli-born mechanical engineer who has worked at a major defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, for more than two decades, the employee’s attorney, David Schoen, told the Sun.

“There was some basis for McCarthyism. Here there’s nothing, just this dual loyalty business,” Mr. Schoen said. “It really strikes me as un-American.”

The Lockheed employee, whom Mr. Schoen declined to name, was born in Israel but emigrated to America 25 years ago. “His wife is American. His kids are American,” the lawyer said. “He has never had a problem at Lockheed.”

More than 7 years ago, the engineer was assigned to the F-22 fighter jet project and granted a “secret” clearance, Mr. Schoen said. A few months ago, defense department officials moved to revoke the employee’s clearance, citing his dual Israeli citizenship, his possession of an Israeli passport, and the fact that his mother and siblings live in Israel.

Mr. Schoen said his client fully disclosed the citizenship, the passport, and the family ties when he was first granted the clearance and was puzzled by the sudden claim that he was a security risk.

At a hearing a few weeks ago on the Lockheed engineer’s case, Mr. Schoen said, a government attorney sought to file the indictment of Messrs. Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman as an exhibit. The government argued that the indictment showed Israel was actively spying on America, Mr. Schoen said.

Mr. Schoen said he strenuously objected that the indictment was irrelevant to his client’s case and, as a charging document, no proof of anything. “The only relevance can be is here are two Jews in Washington who are accused of spying for Israel so now any Jew is suspect for that,” he said.

Mr. Schoen said the government argued that Franklin’s guilty plea confirmed the validity of the charges, but the administrative judge conducting the clearance review hearing declined to admit the exhibit.

Mr. Schoen said his client, whose hearing was continued to June, was recently laid off by Lockheed.

Note the paragraph in bold. Once again — the government employee volunteered the information. It wasn’t solicited.

The centuries-old canard of dual loyalty shows that it is alive and well, and living in the Pentagon. Tell me again why the Jews don’t need the existence of Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, as a retreat and a bulwark from the world’s persecution of Jews.

I’ve been saying for years that I didn’t think America would ever have pogroms. I have insisted, over and over again, that what has happened in Europe cannot happen here. And I still think that.

Mostly.

But I am extremely disturbed by this report.