[THS] Justin Raimondo: WikiLeaks Exposes Israeli Mafia’s Growing Influence

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26994.htm

WikiLeaks Exposes Israeli Mafia’s Growing Influence

Cable reveals Mafia-government connection -- But US media don't care to dig for the
story

By Justin Raimondo

December 03, 2010 "Antiwar" -- I love how the pundits are yawning over the latest
WikiLeaks revelations: oh, there’s nothing to see here, it’s all so boring, no "smoking
gun," so let’s just move right along. These people are just plain lazy: they want
"scoops" delivered to their front doors, all neatly packaged and labeled as such. In
short, they don’t want to have to do any work, beyond the usual cut-and-paste.
Which is why a lot of the really juicy stuff coming out of WikiLeaks continues to elude
them.

Take, for example, this excerpt from a cable dated May 15, 2009 — entitled "Israel, A
Promised Land for Organized Crime?" – sent by our embassy in Tel Aviv, which deals
with the rising influence of Israeli organized crime:

"As recently as March 2009, Zvika Ben Shabat, Yaacov Avitan, and Tzuri Roka
requested visas to attend a ‘security-related convention’ in Las Vegas. According to
local media reports, all three had involvement with OC. Post asked the applicants to
provide police reports for any criminal records in Israel, but without such evidence
there is no immediate ineligibility for links to OC. Luckily, all three have so far failed to
return for continued adjudication of their applications. Nevertheless, it is fair to
assume that many known OC figures hold valid tourist visas to the United States and
travel freely."

What are organized crime figures doing showing up at a "security-related
convention" in Las Vegas? Well, it seems Mr. Zvika Ben Shabat is the President of
"H.A.Sh Security Group," an Israeli company that offers security services worldwide.
Indeed, they just signed an agreement to start a joint venture with India’s giant
Micro-Technologies, a company which is described as follows:

"Micro Technologies was established by Dr. [P.] Shekhar, who served as the person
in charge on behalf of the Indian Government for advancement and development of
the technology and software field in India (First Director Software Technology Park in
India), and his company deals with the development of technologies and is already
active in many markets around the world, amongst which are:  Denmark, Brussels,
Italy, New York, Japan, Singapore, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and more.
The company has security technologies for identification and monitoring of cell
phones, vehicles, structures, computers, infrastructures and WIFI technologies."

In other words, they specialize in snooping, otherwise known as spying. The first
Micro Technologies/H.A. Sh Security Group project is a "command and control
center" to be built in Mumbai, India. As for what theH.A.Sh Security Group
specializes in, well, take a look at these Youtube videos: here, here, and here, for
starters. And get a load of who is the Chairman of H.A.Sh Security: none other than
retired Major General Dan Ronen, whose resume appears here:

"2001-2003 – Israel Police: Head of the Operations Division, with the rank of Major
General; Coordination of activities of all police units in the operational field;
Coordination with the General Security Service and IDF units in the battle against
terrorism; 2004-2007 – Israel Police: Commander of Northern Region (the largest of
the police regions); Responsible for liaison and coordination vis-à-vis heads of local
authorities; Responsible for leading and commanding the overall forces and systems
during the second Lebanon War, in missions involving defense of the residents in the
northern home front; Areas of Expertise: Combat against terrorism and suicide
bombers coordination and operation of emergency and rescue organizations Combat
against crime and crime organizations."

Gen. Ronen is listed as the Chairman of H.A.Sh Security Group, with Mr. Ben Shabat,
variously described [pdf] as the President, Vice-President, and Director. So why is
one of Israel’s former top cops in a business relationship with a known member of
the Israeli Mafia?

Enquiring minds want to know!

Ominously, the cable goes on to bemoan the fact that Israeli organized crime figures
are no longer automatically prevented from entering the US due to a change in the
rules. As the author, someone named Cunningham, notes in an appended comment
entitled "OC [Organized Crime] Slipping Through the Consular Cracks":

"Given the growing reach and lethal methods of Israeli OC, blocking the travel of
known OC figures to the United States is a matter of great concern to Post. Through
collaboration with Israeli and U.S. law enforcement authorities, Post has developed
an extensive database and placed lookouts for OC figures and their foot soldiers.
Nevertheless, the above visa cases demonstrate the challenges that have arisen since
the termination of the Visas Shark in September 2008. Unlike OC groups from the
former Soviet Union, Italy, China, and Central America, application of INA 212(a)(3)
(A)(ii) against Israeli OC is not specifically authorized per Foreign Affairs Manual 40.31
N5.3. As such, Israelis who are known to work for or belong to OC families are not
automatically ineligible for travel to the United States."

"Visas Shark" was apparently a program that effectively excluded organized crime
figures from the US, and its termination is noted here: instead, the embassy must go
through a complex bureaucratic procedure in order to exclude a suspected organized
crime member. First, the consular official must determine that a "reasonable
suspicion" exists to identify a visa applicant as a member of an organized crime
syndicate, and then the matter goes back to the State Department’s "Office of
Legislation, Regulations, and Advisory Assistance," which will then determine if a
"reason to believe" the derogatory information on the applicant exists. A whole
laundry list of possible "reasons to believe" are listed, including

"Acknowledgement of membership by the individual, 
actively working to further the
organization’s aims in a way to suggest close affiliation; Receiving financial support or
recognition from the organization; Determination of membership by a competent
court;  Statement from local or U.S. law enforcement authorities that the individual is
a member; Frequent association with other members;  Voluntarily displaying symbols
of the organization; and participating in the organization’s activities, even if lawful."

Yet it was due to media reports that the author of the cable determined the
connection of Messrs Ben Shabat, Avitan, and Roka to organized crime. Is this good
enough to have a "reason to believe"? Ask the Office of Legislation, Regulation, and
Advisory Assistance – which is what our embassy in Tel Aviv (and, indeed, our
embassies all around the world) must do before they can refuse a visa to an
applicant on that basis.

Not that the Israeli Mafia has had any problem entering the United States in the past
– and  making its presence felt. As Fox News’ Carl Cameron reported on December
17, 2001:

"Los Angeles, 1997, a major local, state and federal drug investigating sours. The
suspects: Israeli organized crime with operations in New York, Miami, Las Vegas,
Canada, Israel and Egypt. The allegations: cocaine and ecstasy trafficking, and
sophisticated white-collar credit card and computer fraud.

"The problem: according to classified law enforcement documents obtained by Fox
News, the bad guys had the cops’ beepers, cell phones, even home phones under
surveillance. Some who did get caught admitted to having hundreds of numbers and
using them to avoid arrest.

"This compromised law enforcement communications between LAPD detectives and
other assigned law enforcement officers working various aspects of the case. The
organization discovered communications between organized crime intelligence
division detectives, the FBI and the Secret Service.

"Shock spread from the DEA to the FBI in Washington, and then the CIA. An
investigation of the problem, according to law enforcement documents, concluded,
‘The organization has apparent extensive access to database systems to identify
pertinent personal and biographical information.’"

Israel’s hi-tech military sector is booming in the midst of a world economic downturn,
and the "homeland security" industry is something they’ve jumped into head first, as
Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania knows all too well. It was Rendell who hired
them to oversee Pennsylvania’s security – until it was revealed they were spying on
legal citizens groups who were protesting the construction of a local power plant.
Israeli "security" firms are operating all over the US, as well as abroad, in airports,
and government facilities, and if Israeli organized crime is now a factor in that
booming industry, then surely that’s a major security concern – or ought to be.

Cameron’s four-part Fox News investigation into Israeli spying in the US seemed to
posit a connection between the Israeli government and the Israeli Mafia, and, thanks
to WikiLeaks, we can now see the link made visible. The Gen. Ronen-Ben Shabat
connection, through the H.A.Sh Security Group, shows Cameron’s reporting was
based on more than a mere suspicion. Given the additional information provided by
this cable, it is reasonable to believe a corrupted segment of the Israeli military-law
enforcement establishment has literally gone into business with Israeli organized
crime.

If that isn’t scary — and newsworthy — I don’t know what is. Yet our laid-back
pundits, and "journalists" — who want a story delivered on a silver platter —
complain that there’s nothing really new to be found in the WikiLeaks cables.

That’s because they aren’t looking.
Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com. He is the author of An
Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus Books, 2000),
Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement (ISI,
2008), and Into the Bosnian Quagmire: The Case Against U.S. Intervention in the
Balkans (1996).

He is a contributing editor for The American Conservative, a senior fellow at the
Randolph Bourne Institute, and an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises
Institute. He writes frequently for Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.