Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy - Softcover

Smith, Grant F

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0976443716 ISBN 13: 9780976443711

Publisher: Institute for Research, 2009

Synopsis

Israel and its American lobby have committed audacious but generally unknown crimes against the United States. The government has long kept files about Israeli espionage, weapons smuggling, and covert operations on American soil classified...until now. Spy Trade begins on the trail of a vast smuggler network funneling stolen and illegally purchased surplus WWII arms to Jewish fighters in Palestine. When the FBI threatened to crack down, a clandestine summit meeting yielded minor convictions for small-time operators, but not the financial masterminds behind the scheme. Spy Trade probes Israel lobby smuggling operations diverting uranium from the US to Israel's Dimona nuclear weapons facility. The Justice Department battled mightily to regulate two key enablers―the Jewish Agency and American Zionist Council―as Israeli foreign agents in the 1960s. But when the effort collapsed, it unleashed election law violations and escalating intimidation of American politicians by the Israel lobby. Spy Trade reveals the long-term impact of a newly declassified "third scandal" that began in the 1980s. In the midst of both the Iran-Contra affair and the Jonathan Pollard espionage incident, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Israeli embassy conducted a spectacular clandestine operation against American industries and workers; it has so far cost the US economy $71 billion and a hundred thousand jobs each year by shutting down or diverting US exports. More than a dissection of the tactics used by Israel and its lobby to evade justice, Spy Trade provides strategies for ending criminal immunity and restoring American governance.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Scheuer is a twenty-plus-year CIA veteran. From 1996 to 1999, he
served as the Chief of the bin Laden unit (aka Alec Station), the Osama bin
Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorism Center. He then worked as Special
Adviser to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.
He resigned from the CIA in 2004. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of
Security Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown
Foundation, writing regularly for its online publication "Global Terrorism
Analysis". He lives in Virginia with his wife and two children.

Review

"This terrific historical exposé ought to be required background reading for those FBI agents assigned to investigate foreign espionage and public corruption matters. For many reasons, such cases are amongst the most challenging to investigate and prosecute, but are made even harder when undue political pressures enter into the picture. FBI officials responsible for setting investigative priorities and allocating resources would also do well therefore to read Spy Trade so they are aware of the historical linkage between Israel's 'Uzi diplomacy' arms dealing, the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Jonathan Pollard spy incident with AIPAC's nefarious 'lobbying' activities." --Coleen Rowley, former FBI agent and 2002 Time Magazine Person of the Year.

"Grant F. Smith's excellent, deeply disturbing book..is a welcome addition to a growing scholarly literature." --Michael Scheuer, former senior CIA analyst and author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror"

"Like political parties, lobbies are groups of citizens with shared interests, an important part of a functioning democracy. When they have enormous power, however, and especially if their activities remain almost completely hidden, lobbies can be dangerous.

Meticulously detailed in this riveting addition to his earlier exposés, Grant Smith reveals yet another facet of the extent to which the pro-Israel Lobby is beyond dangerous, and has become a serious threat to a broad range of American ideals, objectives and interests abroad, as well as here at home. This book contains many highly disturbing, documented revelations. Read it." --Ambassador Edward L. Peck, former Chief of Mission in Iraq and Former Deputy Director, Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism, Reagan White House

"This book presents formidable and dangerous new evidence of spying by Israel and the corrosive long term influence of its lobby on US governance." --Paul Findley, member of Congress from 1961-1983 and author of three books on the US-Israeli relationship, including the Washington Post bestseller "They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel′s Lobby"

About this edition

• Publisher: Institute for Research
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0976443716
• ISBN 13: 9780976443711
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180