A few days ago, author Mark Perry wrote a piece for Foreign Policy, claiming Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight against Iran. As Carl posted:
This time, Perry is reporting that Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit Jundallah terrorists to carry out missions in Iran. According to Perry, this happened between 2007 and 2009, the Bush administration was furious about it – but did nothing – and Obama put a stop to it when he took office in 2009…The sources for the story are said to be unnamed, retired CIA officers, plus former Centcom chief Joe Hoar. Hoar is a vehement opponent of Israel (and of American involvement in Iraq, by the way), who cannot even acknowledge that George Marshall opposed recognition of the Jewish state out of anti-Semitism. Make sure you read that entire last link for the context.
Amir Oren of Ha’aretz reported that a senior Israeli government official called the Perry allegations “absolute nonsense,” and characterized Perry as “openly supporting the Arab cause.” This last statement caused full time anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein to get his panties in a knot.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/01/14/israeli-intelligence-source-denies-jundallah-false-flag-story/
But what especially irks me about Oren’s report is that he adds a dig against Perry’s credibility that is gratuitous and deeply insulting. Interestingly, the insult is only in the Hebrew version (wonder why hmm?) and not the English. Dimi Reider, in his 972 report notes that Oren calls Perry, an “avowed supporter of the Arab cause.” His Wikipedia article notes that Perry was an “unofficial” advisor to the PLO until 2004. How does this fact impeach his reporting on the false flag story? Because he had some informal involvement with the PLO ending eight years ago, that means he has it in for the Mossad on this story? C’mon. That’s bush league stuff. But unfortunately, this is what Israeli intelligence people and their willing collaborators in the media stoop to. And I say this as someone who’s admired all of Oren’s previous reporting.
Actually, there is nothing in Perry’s story that would give you the impression he was a pro-Arab partisan (and by the way Mossad source and Mr. Oren, Iranians aren’t Arab, but that’s beside the point). It is a very carefully reported story that contains no animus whatsoever against Israel, nor any gratuitous partisan statements on Iran’s behalf.
While the story itself is not framed in a way that betrays Perry’s anti-Israel proclivities, one need not look past his Twitter feed to see he contains a great deal of animus against Israel.
Notice his retweeting of Ali Abunimah, the vehemently anti-Israel founder of Electronic Intifada, and his characterizing as tiresome this article which points out Hamas terrorism and lack of acceptance of Israel’s very existence.
In addition, I’ve located this video of Perry downplaying the violence of Hamas and Hizballah, and coming out in favor of dialog with them, as well as with Iran, Syria and the Moslem Brotherhood.
He’s also published a book called Talking To Terrorists.
So contrary to Silverstein’s claims, Mark Perry does seem to have animus against Israel and clearly opposes operations action against Iran. This background is relevant in evaluating his objectivity and the merits of his article.
Update: Commentary Magazine adds the following:
The article’s sourcing is problematic and should also raise red flags. Perry relies on two current intelligence officers, only one of whom has seen the memo alleging Israeli malfeasance. One officer—presumably the same who saw the memo and perhaps also wrote it—describes Bush’s reaction, and so presumably was a briefer for the White House. Should Gen. David Petraeus, director of Central Intelligence, wish to identify that leaker, he could do so easily. In addition, Perry talks to four retired intelligence officials, whose names and positions he also cloaks in anonymity. Allowing these officials a wall of anonymity from behind which to throw mud is problematic as intelligence officials have admitted leaks to advance personal political agendas.
At the very least, Foreign Policy should have printed when the retirees left the service. Retired Defense Intelligence Agency officer W. Patrick Lang?, whose animus toward Israel is pronounced, for example, made a cottage industry during the Iraq war of commenting about matters following his retirement. He neither disclosed his role as a registered Foreign Agent nor the fact that he lacked direct knowledge of much for which he purported to be a source.
Update: Still on topic: here’s a recent commercial for a cable/tablet package with Israel’s HOT cable channel. It’s not translated, but you can get the jist of it.
But for those who could not make head nor tail of that, my friend Dave Bender has provided this summary:
Four Israeli guys hop over to Isfahan, Iran to meet up with the local Mossad agent, who lays out the deal’s benefits.
Quotes:
On beach: “…God only knows where you can get kosher food here…”
On beach: Dabs on suntan lotion, and defensively says: “What?!? You have any idea how much radiation there is here?…”
One tries operate an app on the tablet, and accidentally blows up the nuke factory in the background, and defensively says… “What?!? – just another ‘mysterious explosion in Iran.'”