Muslim fundamentalist governance

Egypt moved decisively from military to civilian rule. For the first time in its history, Egypt elected its president, Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.(There had been indirectly elected prime ministers in the Liberal Age, 1922-1952). Since the young officers coup of July, 1952, Egypt’s president had come from the upper ranks of the officer corps. As 2012 opened, the 23-member Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) was the de facto executive of the country, which had appointed the prime minister and approved his cabinet. In June 2012, the supreme administrative court dissolved the parliament that had been elected late in 2011, and SCAF promptly declared itself the interim national legislature, attempting to limit the powers of the incoming elected president, Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi gradually made senior officers retire and got an agreement from the junior generals that he promoted that they would return to the barracks. On August 15, Morsi abrogated the SCAF decree on the legislature. By the crisis of the referendum on the constitution from November 22 until December 22, the military had been effectively sidelined or turned into an instrument of the Muslim Brotherhood president. Egypt has many problems, including the question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood really respects individual human rights. But it is indisputable that the country’s basis for legitimate government has become free and fair parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, Egypt moved decisively toward Muslim fundamentalist governance, with the passing in December of a new constitution, crafted in large part by supporters of political Islam.

---

By George Friedman

The Egyptian presidential election was held last week. No candidate received 50 percent of the vote, so a runoff will be held between the two leading candidates, Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq. Morsi represented the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and received 25.3 percent of the vote, while Shafiq, a former Egyptian air force commander and the last prime minister to serve in Hosni Mubarak's administration, received 24.9 percent. There were, of course, charges of irregularities, but in general the results made sense. The Islamist faction had done extremely well in the parliamentary election, and fear of an Islamist president caused the substantial Coptic community, among others, to support the candidate of the old regime, which had provided them at least some security.

Morsi and Shafiq effectively tied in the first round, and either can win the next round. Morsi's strength is that he has the support of both the Islamist elements and those who fear a Shafiq presidency and possible return to the old regime. Shafiq's strength is that he speaks for those who fear an Islamist regime. The question is who will win the non-Islamist secularists' support. They oppose both factions, but they are now going to have to live with a president from one of them. If their secularism is stronger than their hatred of the former regime, they will go with Shafiq. If not, they will go with Morsi. And, of course, it is unclear whether the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military committee that has ruled Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, will cede any real power to either candidate, especially since the constitution hasn't even been drafted.

This is not how the West, nor many Egyptians, thought the Arab Spring would turn out in Egypt. Their mistake was overestimating the significance of the democratic secularists, how representative the anti-Mubarak demonstrators were of Egypt as a whole, and the degree to which those demonstrators were committed to Western-style democracy rather than a democracy that represented Islamist values.

What was most underestimated was the extent to which the military regime had support, even if Mubarak did not. Shafiq, the former prime minister in that regime, could very well win. The regime may not have generated passionate support or even been respected in many ways, but it served the interests of any number of people. Egypt is a cosmopolitan country, and one that has many people who still take seriously the idea of an Arab, rather than Islamist, state. They fear the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamism and have little confidence in the ability of other parties, such as the socialists, who came in third, to protect them. For some, such as the Copts, the Islamists are an existential threat. The military regime, whatever its defects, is a known bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood. The old order is attractive to many because it is known; what the Muslim Brotherhood will become is not known and is frightening to those committed to secularism. They would rather live under the old regime.

What was misunderstood was that while there was in fact a democratic movement in Egypt, the liberal democrats who wanted a Western-style regime were not the ones exciting popular sentiment. What was exciting it was the vision of a popularly elected Islamist coalition moving to create a regime that institutionalized Islamic religious values.

Westerners looked at Egypt and saw what they wanted and expected to see. They looked at Egyptians and saw themselves. They saw a military regime operating solely on brute force without any public support. They saw a mass movement calling for the overthrow of the regime and assumed that the bulk of the movement was driven by the spirit of Western liberalism. The result is that we have a showdown not between the liberal democratic mass and a crumbling military regime but between a representative of the still-powerful regime (Shafiq) and the Muslim Brotherhood.

If we understand how the Egyptian revolution was misunderstood, we can begin to make sense of the misunderstanding about Syria. There seemed to be a crumbling, hated regime in Syria as well. And there seemed to be a democratic uprising that represented much of the population and that wanted to replace the al Assad regime with one that respected human rights and democratic values in the Western sense. The regime was expected to crumble any day under the assaults of its opponents. As in Egypt, the regime has not collapsed and the story is much more complex.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad operates a brutal dictatorship that he inherited from his father, a regime that has been in power since 1970. The regime is probably unpopular with most Syrians. But it also has substantial support. This support doesn't simply come from the al Assads' Alawite sect but extends to other minorities and many middle-class Sunnis as well. They have done well under the regime and, while unhappy with many things, they are not eager to face a new regime, again likely dominated by Islamists whose intentions toward them are unclear. They may not be enthusiastic supporters of the regime, but they are supporters.

The opposition also has supporters -- likely a majority of the Syrian people -- but it is divided, as is the Egyptian opposition, between competing ideologies and personalities. This is why for the past year Western expectations for Syria have failed to materialize. The regime, as unpopular as it may be, has support, and that support has helped block a seriously divided opposition.

One of the problems of Western observers is that they tend to take their bearings from the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. These regimes were genuinely unpopular. That unpopularity originated in the fact that the regimes were imposed from the outside -- from the Soviet Union after World War II -- and the governments were seen as tools of a foreign government. At the same time, many of the Eastern European nations had liberal democratic traditions and, like the rest of Europe, were profoundly secular (with some exceptions in Poland). There was a consensus that the state was illegitimate and that the desired alternative was a European-style democracy. Indeed, the desire to become part of a democratic Europe captured the national imagination.

The Arab Spring was different, but Westerners did not always understand the difference. The regimes did not come into being as foreign impositions. Nasserism, the ideology of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who both founded the modern Egyptian state and set the stage for an attempt at an Arab revolution, was not imposed from the outside. Indeed, it was an anti-Western movement, opposed to both European imperialism and what was seen as American aggression. When Hafez al Assad staged his coup in Syria in 1970, or Moammar Gadhafi staged his in Libya in 1969, these were nationalistic movements designed to assert both their national identity and their anti-Western sentiment.

These were also unashamedly militaristic regimes. Nasser, inspired by the example of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, saw his revolution as secular and representing mass sentiment, but not simply as democratic in the Western sense. He saw the military as the most modern and most nationally representative institution. He also saw the military as the protector of secularism.

The military coups that swept the Arab world from the 1950s to the early 1970s were seen as nationalist, secularist and anti-imperialist. Their opponents were labeled as representing Western interests and corrupt and outmoded regimes with close religious ties. They were not liberal regimes, in the sense of being champions of free speech and political parties, but they did claim to represent the interests of their people, and to a great extent, particularly at the beginning, they earned that claim.

Since the realignment of Egypt with the United States and the fall of the Soviet Union, with which many of these states were allied, the sense that these regimes were nationalist declined. But it never evaporated. Certainly they were never seen as regimes imposed by foreign armies, as was the case in Eastern Europe. And their credentials as secularists remained credible. What they were not were liberal democracies, but they weren't founded as such. From the Western point of view, that delegitimized everything else.

What the Westerners forgot was that these regimes arose as expressions of nationalism against Western imperialism. The more that Westerners intervened against them, as in Iraq, the more support at least the principle of the regime would evince. But most important, Westerners did not always recognize that the demand for democratic elections would emerge as a battleground between secular and religious tendencies, and not as the crucible from which Western-style liberal democracies would emerge. Nor did Westerners appreciate the degree to which these regimes defended religious minorities from hostile majorities precisely because they weren't democratic. The Copts in Egypt cling to the old regime as their protector. The Alawites see the Syrian conflict as a struggle for their own survival.

The outcome of the Egyptian election, which now pits a former general and prime minister of the Mubarak regime against the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, demonstrates this dilemma perfectly. This is the regime that Nasser founded. It is the protector of secularism and minority rights against those who it is feared will impose religious law. The regime may have grown corrupt under Mubarak, but it still represents a powerful tendency among the Egyptians.

The Muslim Brotherhood may win, in which case it will be important to see what the Egyptian military council does. But the idea that there is overwhelming support in Egypt for Western-style democracy is simply not true. The issues Egyptians and those in other Arab countries battle over derive from their own history, and in that history, the military and the state it created played a heroic role in asserting nationalism and secularism. The non-military secular parties don't have the same tradition to draw on.

As in many Arab countries that underwent Nasserite transformations, the army remains both a guarantor against Islamists and of the rights of some religious minorities. The minorities are the enemy of the resurgent religious factions. Those factions may win, but regardless of who prevails, the outcome will not be what many celebrants of the Arab Spring expected. We are down to the military and the Islamists. The issue is no longer what they are against. This year's question is what they are for. This is not Prague or Budapest and it doesn't want to be.

Read more: The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring | Stratfor

Egyptian protesters

The army in Egypt has called for dialogue to resolve a crisis over President Mohammed Morsi's new powers, warning it will intervene to stop Egypt going into "a dark tunnel".

In its first statement since protests erupted, it vowed to protect public institutions and innocent people.

It came as protests continued outside the presidential palace in Cairo.

The opposition has rejected his call for talks, unless he gives up powers and halts a constitutional referendum.

Critics say the draft was rushed through the constituent assembly - a body dominated by Islamists who support Mr Morsi - without proper consultation and does not do enough to protect political and religious freedoms and the rights of women.

Vice-President Mahmud Mekki has indicated that Mr Morsi could delay the 15 December plebiscite if the opposition agreed not to challenge the move on those grounds later, AFP news agency reports.

Under Egyptian law, referendums must be held two weeks after being formally presented to the president.

Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood

A day after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, he widely expanded his own powers. It’s been met with both approval and anger, with accusations that he cares only about his followers, not all Egyptians.

Clashes between Morsi's supporters and opponents swept the nation on Friday, with police firing tear gas at demonstrators in Cairo.

Rallies sprung up in several different cities, after Morsi signed a controversial decree expanding his powers – a move that has divided the country on whether the leader has the right to do so.

And as the controversy around Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood continues to mount, many are quick to compare him to toppled leader Hosni Mubarak.

“Even people who did not vote for him tried to give him a chance, but found that he’s no different than Mubarak in foreign policy,” Said Sadek, a professor of political sociology at American University, told RT.

Sadek’s view is shared by Mark Almond, professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Turkey.

“He’s becoming a devout version of Mubarak, one might say at first sight. He organized the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and almost 24 hours later, he’s effectively declaring himself the absolute ruler of Egypt – for the coming period, anyway,” Almond told RT.

Morsi brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas two days ago. The move was welcomed by Washington, which reportedly talked Tel Aviv into giving it a shot.
Protesters demonstrating against Egypt′s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi run from tear gas fired by Egyptian riot police during clashes in Cairo′s landmark Tahrir square on November 23, 2012 (AFP Photo / Ahmed Mahmoud)
Protesters demonstrating against Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi run from tear gas fired by Egyptian riot police during clashes in Cairo's landmark Tahrir square on November 23, 2012 (AFP Photo / Ahmed Mahmoud)

And Sadek says approval from the US and Israel was at the top of Morsi’s agenda.

“He was able to reach a ceasefire between Gaza, between Hamas and Israel. And because the Americans and Israelis were happy with that, he had a green light now to take a very drastic action inside the country by these draconian regulations… which provoked many of the population,” he said.

No matter whose approval prompted Morsi to issue the declaration, tens of thousands of Egyptians hit the streets in both protest or support of the leader.

For Sadek, the motivation for anti-Morsi demonstrators is clear.

“They want to give a message to President Morsi, and those backing him from the outside, that Egypt is not the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.

Morsi addressed the controversial decree during a speech in front of the presidential palace on Friday.

Speaking to a crowd of thousands, the leader said his main goal for the country was safety and stability.
Egypt′s Islamist President Mohamed Morsi addresses his supporters in front of the presidential palace in Cairo on November 23, 2012 (AFP Photo / Str)
Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi addresses his supporters in front of the presidential palace in Cairo on November 23, 2012 (AFP Photo / Str)

However, others say the speech only shows the leader’s lack of tolerance for those who oppose him.

“One problem is that his idea of democracy – displayed by the fact that he addressed the crowd in the streets today – is very much a populist one, and it’s very much winner takes all. He won the election; the people who voted for him were the majority, and their will should be done,” Almond said.

Meanwhile, the leader has been accused of appointing himself as a “new pharaoh.” But Almond says it’s still too soon to determine whether those cries are justified.

“We’ll see whether he lives up to his promises that he’s really trying to protect the revolution and the demand for liberal democracy. But I fear the problem is that his interpretation of what is democracy is that the majority should rule and the minority should shut their mouths and do what they’re told,” he said.

Sadek says the best way to please both the majority and the minority is to revert back to the country’s old constitution.

“[The old constitution] would avoid those controversial issues that would scare many of the urban population and women and the minorities that Egypt is becoming a Socratic state… but this requires diplomatic, behind-the-scenes intervention from the EU, from Americans, from the United Nations. This is very important to achieve stability. Otherwise President Morsi will have a very unstable regime and condition in the country,” Sadek said.

Egypt’s 31-year state of emergency

The end of Egypt’s 31-year state of emergency must signal a return to the rule of law, Amnesty International said after the measure timed out on Thursday, two years after it was last renewed by the government of Hosni Mubarak.

“The Egyptian authorities must make a clean break with state of emergency practices by combating the systemic abuses it facilitated and which still continue today under military rule,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“These include serious human rights violations such as brutal crackdowns on peaceful protesters, arbitrary arrests, torture and unfair trials of civilians under military law.”

While Egypt’s parliament has allowed the state of emergency to lapse, it has not been able to end unfair trials for civilians before military courts.

Amendments to the Code of Military Justice, a law which in practice allows for civilians to be tried before military courts, were passed by parliament in May.

However the amendments were not wide-ranging enough to stop the army from continuing to try civilians before military tribunals. Around 100 people detained following a protest in May in Cairo’s Abbaseya neighbourhood are currently facing military prosecution.

Since the “25 January Revolution”, military courts have sentenced thousands of civilians in unfair trials for crimes such as “thuggery” and “breaking the curfew”.

Amnesty International is also calling on the Egyptian authorities and parliament to challenge the climate of impunity fostered by the state of emergency.

“Under Mubarak, security forces enjoyed near total impunity for human rights abuses, including the systemic torture of detainees,” said Ann Harrison.

“It now falls to the Egyptian authorities and parliament to challenge the climate of impunity fostered by the state of emergency.”

Systemic torture and other ill-treatment went largely unchallenged during the state of emergency. Under the army’s rule, such abuses have included the forced "virginity tests" on women protesters in March 2011, and the beating of protesters detained following the sit-in outside the Egyptian government’s cabinet building in December.

Impunity under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has also continued for violations committed during the brutal suppression of demonstrations by the security forces and the army.

The crackdowns include protests at Cairo’s Maspero building in October, in which 27 people were killed; near the Interior Ministry in November in which 50 people were killed; and around the Cabinet building in December, in which 17 people were killed. To date, the SCAF have yet to hold a single member of the security forces to account.

Under Mubarak, the state of emergency gave Egypt’s security forces the power to operate above the law. The now-disbanded State Security Investigations service (SSI), in particular, committed serious human rights violations, including torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, for which its members have yet to be held to account.

Amnesty International is calling on the authorities to launch independent and impartial investigations into all human rights violations committed under the state of emergency, and to bring anyone found responsible to justice in fair trials and without recourse to the death penalty.

Under Mubarak, the state of emergency was used to hold tens of thousands of people in administrative detention without charge or trial for months or years – often in defiance of repeated court orders for their release. The Emergency Law also fostered a parallel justice system of emergency courts, which flaunted the basic guarantees of a fair trial, such the right to appeal to a higher tribunal.

Amnesty International is calling for the authorities to release anyone still held under the Emergency Law, or to charge them with a recognizable criminal offence and try them before a civilian court under procedures which fully conform to international fair trial standards.

Tahrir Trauma

The protest mood in Egypt doesn't seem to be subsiding - despite the long-anticipated announcement of the presidential vote results last weekend. Amid the never-ending swarm of political demands, the psychological stress ordinary Egyptians are constantly under is often ignored.

---

A decision by Egypt's Justice Ministry to extend the military's power to arrest and investigate civilians for a wide range of offences would pave the way for fresh human rights violations and must be urgently revoked, Amnesty International said.

According to the decision, announced on Wednesday by Minister of Justice Adel Abdel Hamid Abdallah, military police and intelligence officers are now granted the same powers as judicial police when dealing with civilians suspected of offences related to national security and public order.

In the unrest since early 2011, peaceful protesters have routinely been punished for such offences, which include resisting public authorities and disobeying their orders, assaulting by insults and other acts, damaging public property, blocking traffic, strikes in key public places and “thuggery”.

“Instead of investigating the serious abuses committed by military officers and soldiers against protesters and others since January 2011, Egypt's authorities are giving them carte blanche to arrest and detain civilians,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“We urge the authorities to rescind this decision, which has dangerous and pervasive ramifications for the rule of law in Egypt, but also in the short term with run-off presidential elections just days away.”

“That the Minister of Justice could now give an army responsible for killing, torture, and thousands of arbitrary arrests and unfair trials the power to arrest and detain civilians beggars belief. It is nothing less than legally sanctioning abuse.”

The Head of Egypt's Military Judiciary said that the decision fills a gap left by the end of the Mubarak-era state of emergency – which expired on 31 May after being in effect for three decades – and insists it will not be used against peaceful protesters.

“The end of Egypt's long-standing state of emergency was an opportunity for the authorities to end decades of abuses that have corroded the country's justice system,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

“Yet we fear this latest decision signals that instead of ushering in proper reform, the authorities are intent on holding on tight to the emergency powers they enjoyed for so long.”

Many of the offences that can be investigated by military police and intelligence officers, including national security-related offences and thuggery, were previously dealt with by the emergency law or referred to military courts.

Among them are activities protected under international human rights law, such as freedom of assembly and the right to strike.

Worryingly, the new decision gives military police and intelligence officers the authority to arrest suspects in their homes as well as in the streets.

Amnesty International fears that civilians arrested and investigated under the new decision could face trial in military courts.

Civilians should never be tried in military courts. People held solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of assembly should be immediately and unconditionally released.

“We fear this decision will further entrench impunity for members of the military who violently repress peaceful protests and commit other human rights violations. The end of Egypt's emergency must mean an end to impunity and a return to the rule of law,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

The Power of Nightmares

The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. Its three one-hour parts consist mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis's narration. The series was first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and has subsequently been broadcast in multiple countries and shown in several film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States and the radical Islamist movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two. More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies.

The Power of Nightmares has been praised by film critics in both Britain and the United States. Its message and content have also been the subject of various critiques and criticisms from conservatives and progressives.



player

This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

"Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. " The Power of Nightmares, Baby It's Cold Outside.

Part 1 - Baby it's Cold Outside | 64kbps | 256 kbps | mpeg2
Part 2 - The Phantom Victory | 64kbps | 256 kbps | mpeg2
Part 3 - The Shadows in the Cave | 64kbps | 256 kbps | mpeg2

An NTSC DVD ISO is available to make burning this to DVD easier.


This movie is part of the collection: Feature Films

Producer: Adam Curtis
Production Company: BBC
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Adam Curtis

friends

Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9/11

A Mossad surveillance team made quite a public spectacle of themselves on 9-11.




The Lavon Affair refers to a failed Israeli covert operation, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954. As part of the false flag operation,^[1] a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned targets. The attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Communists, "unspecified malcontents" or "local nationalists" with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone.^[2] The operation caused no casualties, except for those members of the cell who committed suicide after being captured.

The operation became known as the Lavon Affair after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign because of the incident, or euphemistically as the Unfortunate Affair or The Bad Business (Hebrew: העסק ביש‎, HaEsek Bish or העסק הביש, HaEsek HaBish). After being denied for 51 years, the surviving agents were in 2005 officially honored with a certificate of appreciation by the Israeli President Moshe Katzav.



During the Six-Day War, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. Thirty-four American servicemen were killed in the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats. Israel claimed that the whole affair had been a tragic accident based on mistaken identification of the ship. The American government accepted the explanation. For more than 30 years many people have disbelieved the official explanation but have been unable to rebut it convincingly. Now, Dead in the Water uses startling new evidence to reveal the truth behind the seemingly inexplicable attack. The film combines dramatic reconstruction of the events, with new access to former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services who have decided to give their own version of events. Interviews include President Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy Admiral Shlomo Errell and members of the USS Liberty crew.

---

Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954, Galveston, Texas) worked as a civilian intelligence analyst before being convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987.

Israel granted Pollard citizenship in 1995, but denied until 1998 that they had bought classified information from him.^[1] Israeli activist groups, as well as high-profile Israeli politicians, have lobbied for his release.^[2] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced particularly strong support for Pollard, visiting the convicted spy in prison in 2002.^[3][4] His case was later linked to that of Ben-ami Kadish, another U.S. national who pleaded guilty to charges of passing classified information to Israel in the same period.^[5][6] He renounced his United States citizenship and is now solely an Israeli citizen. He would be deported to Israel if he were released from prison.

Shortly after Pollard began working at NIC/TF-168, he met Aviem Sella, an Israeli Air Force combat veteran who was at the time a graduate student at New York University, on leave from his position as colonel in order to gain a masters degree in computer science. Within a few days, in June 1984, Pollard started passing classified information to Sella and received, in exchange, $10,000 cash and a very expensive diamond and sapphire ring, which Pollard later used to propose marriage to his girlfriend Anne. He also agreed to receive $1,500 per month for further espionage.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigator Ronald Olive has alleged that Pollard passed classified information to South Africa,^[20] and attempted, through a third party, to sell classified information to Pakistan on multiple occasions.^[21] Pollard also stole classified documents related to the People's Republic of China on behalf of his wife, who used the information to advance her personal business interests.

Pollard's espionage was discovered in 1985 when a co-worker anonymously reported his removal of classified material from the NIC. The co-worker noted that he did not seem to be taking the material to any known appropriate destination, such as other intelligence agencies in the area. Although Pollard was authorized to transport documents and the coworker did claim the documents were properly wrapped, it appeared out of place that Pollard would be transporting documents on a Friday afternoon when many workers were focused more on the upcoming weekend rather than intelligence work. Pollard's direct superior, having to complete extra work at the office on a Saturday, had walked by Pollard's desk and noticed unsecured classified material. Taking the initiative to secure it, the supervisor glanced over it and saw it was unrelated to antiterrorism matters in the Caribbean, which is what the section focused on. Looking at more unrelated documents, the supervisor believed foreign intelligence may be involved, but was unable to determine which nation would be interested.^[30] Supervisors began investigating, and upon finding the enormous amount of material checked out by Pollard, and that it was outside of his area of responsibility, asked the FBI to begin an investigation.

Pollard was stopped and questioned about a week later while removing classified material from his work premises. He explained that he was taking it to another analyst at a different agency for a consultation. During the voluntary interview, his story was checked and found to be false. Pollard requested to make a phone call to his wife telling her where he was. As the interview was voluntary the investigators had no choice but to grant the request. During the call to Anne he used the code word 'cactus', meaning that he was in trouble and that she should remove all classified material from their home, which she attempted to do,^[31] enlisting the help of a neighbor.^[32]

After some time, Pollard agreed to a search of his home which turned up only a few documents Anne had missed. At this point, the FBI decided to drop the case and leave it as an administrative action for Pollard's supervisors, since there only seemed to be some mishandling of documents and at this point, was no proof that Pollard was passing classified documents. The case broke wide open a few days later when Pollard was asked to take a polygraph. Instead, he admitted to illegally passing on documents, without mentioning Israel.

The FBI again became involved. A short time later Pollard's neighbor began calling around the military intelligence community (he was a naval officer) asking what to do with the 70 lb suitcase full of highly classified material that Pollard's wife, Anne, had given him.^[32] After being unable to contact Anne or Jonathan Pollard he became concerned about safeguarding the documents. He cooperated fully with the investigation and was not charged with any crime.

After his partial confession, Pollard was surveilled but not taken into custody. He and his wife then attempted to gain asylum at the Israeli embassy, only to be rebuffed by the Israeli guards and taken into custody by FBI agents who swarmed the perimeter as soon as Pollard set foot off embassy property. Until this point, investigators could not confirm that Pollard had been spying for Israel; their only lead having been the speculation of Pollard's superiors. Pollard was finally arrested on November 21, 1985, at the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.^[33]

After Pollard was arrested, Anne lost an agent following her and met Sella at a restaurant, where she informed him of her husband's arrest. Hours after Pollard was arrested, Sella, along with Yossi Yagur and Irit Erb (two other Israelis involved in the operation), caught an El Al flight from New York to Israel before the FBI could stop them.

5,000 Palestinians held by Israel

historic deal to swap Gilad Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners


Israel and Hamas have agreed a prisoner swap deal. Gilad Shalit, a captured Israeli soldier, is to be freed in exchange for 1,027 Palestinians.

Although no list of detainees to be freed, nor the exact dates of the swap, has yet been announced, many Palestinians have started preparations for the possible return of their imprisoned family members.

Shalit was captured by Hamas in a cross-border raid in 2006, but with the revelation that more than 300 of those being freed in exchange for his return are serving life terms for murder and other violent attacks, some Israelis have questioned the seemingly lopsided deal.

So what does the deal mean for the Palestinians and the Israelis? Will it help draw attention to the plight of the more than 5,000 Palestinians held by Israel?

Inside Story discusses the deal with Marcus Sheff, the executive director of Israel Project; Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of Palestinian National Initiative; and Abdullah Al Ashal, a former assistant to the Egyptian foreign minister and a professor of International Law at Cairo University.