Where are Walt and Mearsheimer to report on this story? Surely this is the kind of story they would use to show that Jews in America who are supporters of Israel cannot be trusted while in the same thought accusing them of being very well connected and powerful – nay, in control of American foreign policy.
The story is that Israeli-Americans cannot get clearances at the Pentagon. Of course, without such clearances it can be somewhat challenging to work at the Pentagon or to move up through the ranks. What is worse, of course, is that whatever reasons they give, the only realistic reason for this form of discrimination is the belief and accusation of dual loyalty.
One of the pending clearance cases where government lawyers have sought to rely on the Aipac prosecution involves an Israeli-born mechanical engineer who has worked at a major defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, for more than two decades, the employee’s attorney, David Schoen, told the Sun.
“There was some basis for McCarthyism. Here there’s nothing, just this dual loyalty business,” Mr. Schoen said. “It really strikes me as un-American.”
The Lockheed employee, whom Mr. Schoen declined to name, was born in Israel but emigrated to America 25 years ago. “His wife is American. His kids are American,” the lawyer said. “He has never had a problem at Lockheed.”
More than 7 years ago, the engineer was assigned to the F-22 fighter jet project and granted a “secret” clearance, Mr. Schoen said. A few months ago, defense department officials moved to revoke the employee’s clearance, citing his dual Israeli citizenship, his possession of an Israeli passport, and the fact that his mother and siblings live in Israel.
…At a hearing a few weeks ago on the Lockheed engineer’s case, Mr. Schoen said, a government attorney sought to file the indictment of Messrs. Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman as an exhibit. The government argued that the indictment showed Israel was actively spying on America…
Anybody else starting to get the creeps?
Okay, I hear you, but the original Sun article also wrote,
“After courts ruled that dual citizenship alone was insufficient to deny a clearance, in 2002, the defense department adopted a policy that denied clearances to most people who hold foreign passports.”
Though I am not for targeting Israelis (which are not the same as Jews, which Rabbi Hertzfeld suggested), quite frankly, I don’t know if I agree with that court decision.
Why should we trust anyone with a foreign passport or dual citizenship when it comes to security? Some countries won’t allow dual citizenship at all. I’m not saying we should do away with that, but when it come to security, I think special precautions are okay.
Note I already included the link to the original article above.
The answer is that if they take on American citizenship, they are citizens. The reason the dual citizenship exists is that you have to take proactive steps to eliminate it. According to the story, the engineer offered to do so if he would get the job but this option was denied.
More to the point is that the Pentagon used the FBI entrapment of those two AIPAC employees as justification. Today they are applying it to “dual citizens,” but that’s just the story we are hearing. What about those stories we are not hearing, the ones behind closed doors where the person doesn’t know s/he didn’t get the job or promotion because they are Jews and not trusted? If you read the Sun article to the end, you read about the former CIA employee who sued them for this very reason.
This again gives a lie to every claim made by the Bush’s that they are a ‘friend of Israel’ and/or Jews. And it’s a crying shame and a disgrace that one of the worst administration’s for anything positive or competent in the national security realm gets to play this BS w/o being called on it. Every damn day too. The AIPAC case is just the camel’s nose under the tent of our collective security & civil rights. What’s left of them both after this wrecking crew has got done with them. It’s a hugely bogus case that the Bush’s have trumped up to get them ever more power concentrated in the hands of our ‘fearless leader’. Believe it, then check out the goods on the case by POGO or FAS.org & Steve Aftergood. Even the ACLU has their number. Cheers, ‘VJ’
It’s not just Israeli citizens — religious Jews (kippah-wearing men, in particular) have a harder time getting security clearances.
And you know what? I don’t blame the government a bit. A noisy, very prominent segment of the Jewish community is constantly screaming about how it was entirely appropriate for Jonathan Pollard to violate security classifications to support Israel. When the rest of the Jewish community distances themselves from the Free Pollard crowd, then we can start complaining that the DOD gives Orthodox Jews a litlle extra scrutiny.
Mr. Singer, I don’t know how many people in the Jewish community actually support Pollard or what he did, but it has been 20 years now and Israel has continued to state that it no longer spies in the US and that Pollard was an anomaly anyway. The fact is that this bias against Jewish members of the US security establishment has been an open secret for a while and we can be sure that many Jews have probably not even bothered to pursue such a career for precisely this reason.
That doesn’t make it right. Essentially, it tarnishes an entire community and treats them with bias that is disallowed BY LAW in our society.
By the way, with respect to Pollard, allow me to add that many of those who now speak about him receiving a release are doing so on a very different basis than legitimizing what he did. They are doing so on the basis of his having become an obvious scapegoat and reminder. He is serving a longer and harsher sentence – with no end in sight – than any other equivalent spy and is doing so without people in the public being able to know why. Furthermore, there is information that wasn’t available when he was tried because Aldrich and Ames have been caught since his incarceration began. Those are legitimate issues and have nothing to do with his inexecusable spying.
isn’t the director of homeland security an israeli citizen?
Chertoff?
Not to my knowledge. He is Jewish, though.