WASHINGTON, 21 August 2004 — Democratic Representative Jane Harman, the ranking member of the House of Representatives appears to have a model for how the US Department of Homeland Security should be run and how America should fight terrorism. On the Aug. 15 NBC “Meet The Press” TV broadcast she commented on this topic and stated, “The Israelis seem to do it better than we do. There is some learning around the world that we should absorb.” And this wasn’t the first time that she suggested that we should use the Israeli model to “fight terrorism” in the US and, by inference, use Israelis.
Way back in March of 1997, in article Harman wrote for the Jerusalem Post, she said that, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee who had recently traveled to Israel, she was heartened by the strong security cooperation between the US and Israel. She continued, “As a strong supporter of Israel who feels the need for Israel’s security not only in my head, but in my heart, I came away dedicated to my best to make sure that the cooperation projects that come before my committees are robustly funded.” And in September of 2002 after another trip to Israel, Harman wrote in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, “Israel’s counterterrorism program of over half a century provides lessons for the United States as we work to secure our homeland... America needs this level of organization to implement a homeland security strategy.”
One wonders if Harman didn’t advise Gov. James McGreevey on how to develop a homeland security team utilizing Israeli expertise when McGreevey hired Golan Cipel, an Israeli citizen, to head the New Jersey office of counterterrorism and homeland security in January of 2002. McGreevey recently resigned as Governor of New Jersey, citing an adulterous affair, allegedly with Cipel, as his reason for leaving the Statehouse. Cipel is claiming sexual harassment by McGreevey in a legal suit that he is allegedly filing in a New Jersey court.
Most of the press is focusing on McGreevey’s admission of being a homosexual as the main issue in this revelation and describing Cipel as a “30-something Israeli poet.” But it is becoming clearer every day that Cipel’s appointment as McGreevey’s anti-terrorism czar is in itself an egregious act that needs much more investigation. Who is Cipel and how did he get this appointment in a state that contains one of the airports where a group of the Sept. 11 hijackers began their ill-fated flight?
Cipel served as chief information officer at the Israeli Consulate in New York City before he met McGreevey. In a letter to the US Immigration Service, Mcgreevey’s Chief Counsel Paul Levinsohn described the nature of Cipel’s work with the Israeli government as involving responsibility for “developing and maintaining the country’s terrorism portfolio, keeping government authorities abreast of terrorist activities and threats, maintaining a database of such activities and coordinating that information with data obtained from other agencies.” It appears as if Cipel was much more of an intelligence officer for the Israelis than an information officer. Nonetheless, McGreevey was criticized by Republican legislators for hiring the non-American Cipel for the post of homeland security head for amongst other things, not requiring even a routine security background security check.
Let’s go back to New Jersey for a moment. Not only did Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania while allegedly on its way to Washington, D.C., leave from a New Jersey airfield, but also, it was in New Jersey that a mysterious group of Israelis were observed videotaping the planes crashing into the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2000. A small group of Israelis were arrested a few days after the Sept. 11 incident and most of them were deported as illegal immigrants. The group was observed “cheering” and “jumping up and down” by a witness while they were videotaping the Twin Towers collapsing from a vantage point across the bay from New York City in New Jersey. Additionally the infamous anthrax letters were mailed from New Jersey. So why did McGreevey appoint someone who isn’t an American citizen and who had no background security check as his homeland security chief? We may never know but let’s look at some more information regarding Cipel.
The local New Jersey media reported that former FBI chief Louis Freeh had volunteered to head the New Jersey Domestic Security Preparedness Security Force as an unpaid volunteer and that idea was nixed by Cipel. Also Cipel was introduced to McGreevey by Charles Kushner, Mcgreevey’s chief fundraiser. Kushner is under investigation for tax evasion and election code violations. Kushner recently made the headlines when he sent a videotape to his sister of her husband having sex with a prostitute. His sister had been cooperating with prosecutors looking into irregularities on the part of Kushner. Kushner is also noted for his philanthropical activities with Jewish causes and his close links with Israel. Even before McGreevey’s election as governor, administration sources reported to the New Jersey media that Cipel toured the state “visiting refineries, nuclear plants bridges and seaports” allegedly to make an inventory of security needs for his candidate, James McGreevey.
So here you have it. An Israeli citizen without a security background check gets access to highly guarded security matters and heads counterterrorism in a key state. Could this be a “fox in the chicken coop.” Maybe McGreevey hadn’t heard of Jonathan Pollard, the spy convicted of espionage against the United States for Israel in 1986. Pollard, an American, is serving a life term in prison for that crime and was granted Israeli citizenship by the government of Israel while serving time in prison. And maybe Representative Jane Harman feels in her heart and head that Israel’s interests are America’s interests. And maybe, if we continue to see politicians putting Israel’s interests above American interests, we will see the tail wagging the dog.
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
