A 47-page Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report detailing alleged Israeli intelligence activities all over the world was dismissed here by Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s spokesman, Uri Porat, as a “cheap invention not worthy of comment.” He added: “Israel cannot react every time a journalist thinks he has a big scoop.”
Local newspapers suggested that the report was based on falsified documents that were part of a Soviet disinformation campaign intended to breed mistrust between Israel and its friends abroad. The papers quoted an unnamed Jerusalem official as saying: “The initial source for this thing–Iran–cannot be described as a reliable source by any stretch of the imagination.” Israel rarely reacts either officially or unofficially to reports from abroad about activities of its intelligence establishment.
The reactions this time to the CIA report were prompted by a lengthy summary, published in The Washington Post Monday, of a document supposedly seized when the U.S. Embassy in Teheran was occupied in 1979. Iranian militants have been distributing classified material allegedly found at the Embassy to discredit the U.S. and internal and external enemies of the Khomeini regime.
Yaacov Kruze, a former Israeli intelligence official, told Yediot Achronot that it was “highly unlikely” that the CIA would have sent such a sensitive document to the Embassy in Teheran and that alone made it suspect.
ELEMENTS IN THE REPORT
The summary, by Washington Post staff writer Scott Armstrong, describes Israeli intelligence activities in the United Sates and other countries, a CIA evaluation of leading personalities in Israel and an organizational breakdown of the Israeli intelligence services.
It states that Israel’s collection of secret U.S. policy information affecting Israel and scientific data ranks only second and third in priority after collection of data on Israel’s Arab neighbors and the Arab world generally.
According to the CIA report, “Israel’s collection efforts are especially concentrated in the Soviet Union and the United States as well as the United Nations where policy decisions could have repercussions against Israel and Zionist goals.” Israel, the report continues, also “collects intelligence regarding Western, Vatican and UN policies toward the Near East; promotes arms deals for the benefit of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and acquires data for use in silencing anti-Israel factions in the West.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
