CIA head John Brennan landed in Israel Thursday to discuss the Syrian conflict and Iran’s nuclear proliferation. During the visit, Brennan met with heads of security and defense in the Jewish state, including Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon at army headquarters in Tel Aviv. The pair briefed one another on intelligence regarding chemical weaponry in Syria, specifically steps taken to prevent weapon spillover to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The surprise meetings come just days after Israel allegedly struck …More

Technology used by the CIA and FBI to prevent terrorist attacks is being employed by Israeli farmers to detect pesticides. The sensitive chemical detection technology has the ability to identify minute levels hundreds of different pesticides in a single test. Farmers of the Yofi Shel Yerakot farmer’s collective in Ein Yahav are using the state-of-the-art chemical testing technology to ensure that the crops grown and stamped with the Yofi Shel Yerakot, which means “Beauty of Vegetables,” label …More

A US intelligence contractor is looking for a Yiddish linguist, Wired Magazine reported Friday. The magazine published an article rounding up some of the strangest employment ads in the intelligence sector of the past year. A post by the US-based intelligence firm MVM Inc made the shortlist, with Wired reporting the firm was looking for an individual with Yiddish "native or near native oral and written communications skills," including the ability to "comprehend slang and colloquial expressions." MVM deals …More

CIA debriefers of Jonathan Pollard said the Israeli spy cooperated "in good faith" while in custody and that his handlers' requests were limited to intelligence on the Pakistanis, Arab states and the Soviets. The 1987 CIA damage assessment, published for the first time in a newly declassified version by the National Security Archive, a George Washington University project, recorded Pollard as "responding in good faith to debriefers' questions." Polygraphs "tended to confirm that his cooperation with US …More

The man accused of killing three Brooklyn shopkeepers claims he is a secret CIA operative, ordered to kill Jews. Salvatore Perrone, 63, further claimed Arab men paid him to enact the execution-style murders that took place over the last few months. The slayings rocked the Jewish Brooklyn community, with this latest round of news immediately making headlines after the claims were made public from court documents yesterday. The former clothes salesman told officials he worked for the “Palestinian section of …More

The families of several slain Iranian nuclear scientists filed a lawsuit accusing Israel, the US and Britain of being involved in their assassinations. “Through this complaint, we declare to the world that actions of arrogant governments, led by the US, Britain and the occupying Zionist regime, in assassinating nuclear scientists and elites is against human principles,” Mansoureh Karami, the wife of slain Tehran University physics professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi, said at a news conference Wednesday in …More

Mossad chief Tamir Pardo held secret meetings with top US officials over the weekend, comments made during a Senate intelligence committee hearing revealed on Tuesday. The secret Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, broadcast live on American television. CIA Director David Petraeus and Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate panel, both made reference to the meetings. The purpose of the meeting was reportedly to discuss Iran's "immunity zone," the amount of …More

The United States is still unclear about Israel’s intentions towards Iran, two US senators allowed on Tuesday. "I don't think the administration knows what Israel is going to do. I'm not sure Israel knows what Israel is going to do,” Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said to Reuters. “That's why they want to keep the other guys guessing. Keep the bad guys guessing.” Echoing Levin's view, Senator John McCain said, "I'm sure [administration …More

If only they had listened to Sharon, maybe the 1973 War would have been averted. Not GOC Southern Command up to 15 July 1973, Maj. Gen. Ariel Sharon, who left the Israeli Defense Forces just in time to be eligible to participate in the upcoming elections. The general, who would join the party born from the merger of the Liberal and Herut parties, was just as insouciant as his rivals on Israeli’s political left and among military brass. He too believed that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would avoid conflict, …More

Iran’s star-crossed nuclear and energy programs have suffered a rash of setbacks, mishaps and catastrophes in the past two years. Assassins killed three scientists with links to Iran’s nuclear programs. The Stuxnet computer worm that famously infected computers worldwide zeroed in on a single target in Iran, devices that can make weapons-usable uranium. Dozens of unexplained explosions hit the country’s gas pipelines, and Iran’s first nuclear power plant suffered major equipment failures …More

The heroic Jewish narrative of the outbreak of Arab-Israeli hostilities on June 5, 1967, is well known: Israel, surrounded by massing Arab forces marshaled by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, launched the most spectacular surprise attack since Pearl Harbor, taking out its enemies’ planes on the ground in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq and enabling Israeli ground troops to seize in six miraculous days all of the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Gaza, and the West Bank, including the key prize of Jerusalem. But …More