FBI Agents Claims Was Fired For Being Jewish

I have asked before the question in the form of a post title: Is the F.B.I. Anti-Semitic?

fbi seal plaque m W4rim 19672

That post was related to the then news of an arrest of an American-Jewish agent for espionage:

The F.B.I. recently launched a sting operation to test the loyalty of a former employee of the Energy Department and Jewish-American Stewart Nozette. Nozette had top secret clearance while at the Energy Department and worked on senior projects - including a laser that collected information concluding that ice was on the southern pole of the Moon.

In the late 1990s, Nozette had retired from his government work, but continued to access classified information up until 2006. Nozette also started to do consulting work - 1/4 of a million dollars worth - for an aerospace company owned by the Israeli government. This sparked the F.B.I.’s interest, which feared that Nozette may be handing over or discussing classified information with his new employer the Israeli government. The F.B.I. then had an agent pose as a Mossad agent - Israel’s intelligence service - and meet Nozette in a hotel lobby to test his loyalty. Nozette was anything but, and with little persuasion, presumably, from the posing F.B.I. agent, Nozette agreed to hand over secret information to the Mossad at a “dead drop” locale in Washington D.C. (a U.S. post office) and all for $11,000. Nozette also discussed an Israeli passport and his “right” to move to Israel - Nozette feared he may be caught and his court papers detail his intention to move to Israel (and some other unidentified nation) and tell them “everything” if caught. Nozette was caught, of course, and is awaiting trial on espionage charged.

But because the F.B.I. set Nozette up for a sting, this led to some American-Jews hinting at anti-Semitism on behalf of the Bureau:

Rosen, AIPAC’s former foreign policy chief who was accused, with Keith Weissman, of passing along classified information, said it was revealing that Israel was inserted into the narrative of Nozette’s entrapment and subsequent arrest. . . .

“One of the things that our case revealed is the very extreme views that are held by some in counterintelligence agencies of the CIA and FBI about Israel,” Rosen said. “They believe that the Mossad spied on the US on a huge scale and they believe that the Pollard case was the tip of some sort of iceberg. . . .

“It’s revealing that they used Israel for the sting,” Rosen added. “They could have used China, or others. But they chose Israel.” Describing an “obsession” with Israel within certain parts of the CIA and FBI. . . .

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the Nozette case is part of a “troubling” pattern of targeting Israel and Jews as potential spies against the United States.

“I am not naïve enough to believe that there aren’t efforts to obtain information in all kinds of ways,” Foxman said. But, he asked, “Why is it that we don’t hear of any other country, except for Israel? I find that troubling.”

The US Defense Department has repeatedly singled out Jewish employees for possible disloyalty, Foxman said. The situation has escalated, with increasing cases of Jews having difficulty obtaining security clearance. If you have relatives in Israel, speak Hebrew, or practice Orthodox Judaism, he said, “changes are, you won’t get clearance. That’s the mindset out there.”

I wrote at the time:

First of all, it is amusing that a man accused of espionage would be quoted on the merits of the Nozette case. Second, there is an “obsession” with Israel because the government’s own Government Accounting Office stated that Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally.” Third, the F.B.I. tested the loyalty of Nozette using Israel because Nozette was employed by an Israeli government-owned firm. If it was a Chinese firm, than the F.B.I. would have a sent a “Chinese intelligence agent.” The F.B.I. was playing it safe, it it turns out that their precaution was proper since Nozette was so willingly to sell out his nation all for a few grand. That is not “revealing” of some alleged anti-Semitism in the American intelligence community and it is not “extreme” to defend one’s nation from traitors.

As for Foxman (who never stops crying wolf and touting his own obnoxious horn), again, what is so “troubling” beyond Nozette’s own treason? And the reason we also hear about Israel is because Israel “conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any ally.” All the other cases in the last several years were genuine cases of Israeli instigation of spies. And Foxman is wrong to imply that the Defense Department singles out Jewish employees. Arab-Americans with family in the Middle East often cannot get jobs dealing with sensitive information. If an Arab was working for a Saudi company and did the same, would Rosen and Foxman say the same thing?

This story of possible anti-Semitism in the F.B.I. has been revived due to an employee being fired and claiming that it was because he was Jewish:

A Jewish FBI agent says he was falsely accused of "an unspecified foreign preference'" for Israel. In suing over his termination, the John Doe plaintiff says he believes the accusation came because he faxed unclassified documents to "colleagues at AIPAC," the politically powerful American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. He accuses the FBI and the Justice Department of allowing "ill-informed biases regarding the country of Israel and the loyalty of Jewish Americans to improperly and illegally color their personnel decisions."

The former FBI intelligence specialist says he was wrongfully tied to the 2004 scandal in which two AIPAC employees and Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin were indicted on espionage charges.

It is, of course, an anti-Semitic wrong for all Jews (or any people) to be treated with suspicion. But why is this guy handing over information, any information, to a lobbying group that works closely with the Israeli government? AIPAC employees are not "colleagues" and if that is how he views them then he deserved to be fired. He is in the F.B.I. to serve his country, not the Israel lobby.

This guy shot his own foot with improper behavior and is now just being petty about his firing.

Get out of here!