Israel and the FBI

In 2001, the United States Government shut down a Texas-based Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The charge: Funneling funds to the terror group Hammas. The case finally went to trial -- and it now may be headed for acquittal.

The reason: The evidence provided by the FBI was proven to be fabricated.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the FBI conducted wiretaps of the HLF back in 1996. A summary of these wiretaps was entered into evidence at the trial. But when the summary was checked against the actual transcript, something odd showed up: The summary included inflammatory anti-Jewish rhetoric which was not actually uttered by the individuals under surveillance.

According to the discredited summary, Holy Land officials referred to Israel as "the government of the demons" and to Jews as trying "to rob as much money as possible from the American taxpayers for the illegitimate excuse of protecting and preserving the chosen people of God."

One Muslim charity official supposedly told a colleague: "Even Jesus Christ had called the Jews and their high priests … the sons of snakes and scorpions."

None of those comments was contained in a 13-page verbatim transcript of the conversation recorded April 15, 1996, by the FBI. In response, defense lawyers demanded declassification of large portions of the government's documents in the case.

On Monday, federal prosecutors argued that the discrepancies were not serious enough to justify such sweeping declassifications.

"Not serious enough"? How could the matter possibly be more serious? This is the largest terror funding trial ever conducted!

The key question is: Who added these words, and why?

Note that the subject matter concerned Israel and Jews. In my opinion, these are the sentiments that an Israeli intelligence asset might wish to place into a Muslim's mouth. A non-Jew bent on "salting" the evidence would have been more likely to include references to Osama Bin Laden, or to Hamas, or to some other topic more directly related to the charges.

Did a Mossad asset penetrate the FBI and include fabricated evidence in a terror case?

Although that suggestion might seem, at first, like the product of an anti-Semite's imagination, we have startling evidence of Mossad involvement with American terror cases:

The trial of Muhammad Salah, a Chicago businessman, and Abdelhallen Ashqar, a Virginia professor, marked the first time an American court allowed the testimony of two Israeli security agents in a U.S. courtroom. Despite petitions filed by the Chicago Tribune and civil rights groups, Judge Amy St. Eve allowed the agents to testify in a closed hearing that amounted to secret evidence. (In the case of Salah, the prosecution sought to prove he provided aid to Hamas terror activities based on an admission obtained under torture in a foreign country and in a language the defendant does not understand.)

SEE: “U.S. Jury Acquits Two Men of Hamas Conspiracy” (Reuters, 2/1/07)

But was the Mossad directly involved in the handling of the HLF case? Apparently so:

Months before the Salah indictment was announced three years ago, the Holy Land Foundation was shut down amidst similar allegations of providing material support to Hamas terror activities. As detailed in a June 2006 Los Angeles Times report, “Israel’s prominent investigative role appears to be unprecedented in post-Sept. 11 terrorism cases”, including in the HLF over 8,000 pages of Israeli intelligence.

What, some may ask, is the problem with using Israeli intelligence in an American trial? To a degree, the practice is fair: Intelligence services often "swap" data. Sometimes, for complex reasons, these swaps even occur between services generally thought to be in opposition.

Difficulties arise when a foreign service takes a leading role in an American investigation. The Israeli agenda may not be ours. Their standards of justice and fairness may differ. They may be willing to falsify evidence, as appears to have occurred int he HLF case.

If a jury in a terror case becomes convinced that the evidence was neither collected nor presented in an impartial manner, an acquittal may result:

And more recently, the terrorism trial of South Florida professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian also included Israeli intelligence prominently as evidence, but resulted in acquittal on eight of 17 charges and the jury deadlocked on the rest. In each of these cases, the use of Israeli evidence failed to convince American jurors.

Even in the face of the terrorist threat, American justice must remain truly American. We cannot allow operatives employed by, or emotionally beholden to, a foreign government to have any effect on how our FBI does its duty.