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The unified intelligence agencies called Five Eyes act as a gobal dominating power outstrechting any and all executive and legislative oversight. That is the lesson learned from the Edward Snowden whistleblowing. It had been before our eyes for decades under various scandals that broke – see Echelon and the European Union.

Canada, USA, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand had been the weakest link and Israel was added to the bunch along the way. The link between the Clintons and Marc Rich (Mossad) had been very worrisome. The same countries where the conservative press have been succesful and expanded greatly into all media including radio and television broadcast. The media tycoons like Robert Maxwell [capture of Vanunu, later ‘drowned’]  and Rupert Murdoch covered Australia, Great Britain, Israel and the U.S. Canada and the Conrad Black – Hollinger Inc. years (also owner Jerusalem Post).

Clinton Pardon Scandal Reemerges

(Judicial Watch – funded by Richard Mellon Scaife) – Questions about the scandal are resurfacing in light of Judicial Watch’s obtaining a confidential cable from the U.S. Department of State that had been under tight wraps since 1995. The cable – from Clinton’s ambassador to Israel to his high-ups at State – reveals high-level Israeli efforts to persuade State Department officials to intercede with Department of Justice (DOJ) to enable Rich to conduct Israeli business affairs worldwide directly relating to Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations [sic!].

Specifically, the cable, obtained through a Judicial Watch June 2013 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, provides details of 1995 efforts by apparently top Israeli officials to pressure their counterparts at the State Department to intervene with the DOJ to withdraw outstanding arrest warrants against Rich on charges he had violated America’s 1981 domestic oil-price along with 64 other crimes, including racketeering and “trading with the enemy.” Israel, it turns out, had recruited Rich, then living in Switzerland, to travel internationally in order to raise funds to finance economic deals between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.  Rich died on June, 26, 2013, and Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about him with the Department of State on the same day.

While the Israeli official who interceded on Rich’s behalf is not identified in the cable obtained by Judicial Watch, he or she was in a sufficiently high-level position to confer directly with then-U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk and Clinton administration Middle East convoy Dennis Ross. The official was also able to persuade Indyk to meet with Rich’s lawyer, Isaac Herzog, just three days after requesting that he do so. The confidential classification of the cable was extended by the State Department on February 10, 2014 for an additional 15 years, following the Judicial Watch FOIA request, in an apparent effort by the State Department to keep the names of the Israeli official confidential. Ambassador Indyk is now President Obama’s Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations. [and not getting anywhere similar to Dennis Ross before– Oui]

In the cable, entitled “[REDACTED] REQUEST FOR INTERVENTION WITH DOJ ON BEHALF OF MARK [SIC] RICH,” Indyk writes:

    ◦During August 29 [1995] meeting with Dennis Ross and I, [REDACTED] raised the issue of Mark Rich, a wealthy businessman now resident in Switzerland, whom [REDACTED] has recruited to head up an effort to promote private sector involvement in Palestinian economic development. [REDACTED] asked me to see Rich's lawyer, Isaac Herzog, to be briefed on the subject. He further requested that Dennis and I follow up in Washington to try to resolve the problem.

    ◦Rich paid a large fine and according to Herzog, DOJ is no longer pursuing the matter ... Nevertheless, there are still international warrants outstanding for Rich's arrest. This severely restricts his travel ... [REDACTED] request is that State consider the project and, if it is regarded as worthwhile, contact DOJ and communicate its interests in enabling Rich to engage in these activities - specifically that:  ... The GOI [Government of Israel] has notified State that it is in the GOI's interest to facilitate the travel on behalf of Mark Rich to advance the `Economic Solution' ... The U.S. has a legitimate interest in fostering these objectives.

Interestingly, the Indyk confidential memo clams that the U.S. ambassador, who at the time had been a key figure in American-Israeli affairs for more than a decade, had no knowledge of Rich or the activities that had led the commodities trader 1983 indictment. According to Indyk’s confidential memo, “We have never heard of Mark [sic] Rich and have no way of evaluating his ability to contribute to this effort by bringing in foreign investors.” The ambassador added, “However, [REDACTED] is pushing him hard.”

Lipsky Defends Clinton’s Pardon of Marc Rich

I don’t know what’s going on in the N.Y. Times op ed section.  First they publish anti-Obama smears by Ed Luttwak, then a call for nuclear attack on Iran by Benny Morris.  Now they’ve given column inches to one of America’s foremost Jewish neocons who argues that Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich was a perfectly valid and defensible use of presidential power.

This is really a novelty.  Almost every Democrat I know finds Clinton’s actions in the closing hours of his presidency to be reprehensible.  And here comes someone who long ago ceased (if he ever was one) being a Democrat.  What’s he doing defending Bill Clinton?  And what does it say about Clinton that someone like Seth Lipsky, founding editor of the N.Y. Sun,  is his full-throated defender?

It seems the only thing Marc Rich had in common with Palestinian land, is funding to buy real estate in East Jerusalem from Palestinians in favor of Jews.

Clinton Pardon Scandal Reemerges

On January 20, 2001, just hours before leaving office, President Clinton granted Rich a highly controversial presidential pardon. It was widely alleged at the time that Rich’s pardon had been the result of Denise Rich having given more than $1 millionto the Democratic Party, including more than $100,000 to the Senate campaign of Hillary Clinton and $450,000 to the Clinton Library foundation. As far back as 2009, journalist Joe Conason, writing in Salon had conjectured, “Winning the pardon was a top priority for Israeli officials because Rich had long been a financial and intelligence asset of the Jewish state …” But the confidential cable obtained by Judicial Watch is the first solid evidence of the usually close ties between the Israeli government and the fugitive financier.

PBS: Transcript Clinton’s Pardon of Marc Rich

Yossi Melman: Marc Rich and the Israeli Perspective

Continued below the fold …

All the Fugitive’s Men in Israel
February 25, 2001|Yossi Melman | Yossi Melman is an Israeli author and journalist for Haaretz.

(Los Angeles Times) – But sources in the Ministry of Justice tell a different story. According to them, Rich paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to several prominent Israeli lawyers to use their influence and contacts on his behalf. Among them were Avner Hai-Shaki, a former minister of religion; Yaacov Neeman, who later became finance minister; and Amnon Goldenberg, an external legal advisor to the Mossad, Israel’s foreign espionage agency. The U.S. Justice Department protested the Israeli decision, to no avail. Israel remained firm. Rich would not be arrested.

The episode is part of a larger story about how money buys Israeli politicians and influence and how Rich used Israel as a lever to obtain a pardon.

In his apologetic explanation for his controversial pardons of Rich and his partner, Pincus Green, former President Bill Clinton said that Israeli officials had asked him to grant the two men clemency. In response, Israeli leaders charged that Clinton was groping for an “excuse” by trying to deflect blame to Israel.

Yet, more than 50 prominent Israelis from all walks of life–politics, intelligence, universities, medical institutes, cultural and religious organizations–sent letters to Clinton urging him to pardon Rich and Green. These Israelis included caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Barak; Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami; Shabtai Shavit, a former head of the Mossad; Barak’s Cabinet secretary Yitzhak Herzog; and Ehud Olmert, mayor of Jerusalem. They all praised Rich and Green for their charities–the Israel-based Doron Fund for Arts and Public Welfare and the Rich Foundation –and their generosity. Equally important, though not mentioned, were Rich’s and Green’s business relations with the Jewish state.

In the 1970s, the two men and their trade company, Marc Rich & Co., were significant suppliers of oil to Israel. A senior Israeli official said that Rich and his company bought oil either on the spot market or in Arab countries, then sold it without the sellers’ knowledge to Israel’s major oil companies. Rich and Green made big profits from these deals. A senior Israeli Cabinet minister said that the two were also instrumental in Israel’s acquisition of “special strategic supplies” during the the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi Scud missiles hit the Tel Aviv area.

Through these and other transactions, Rich and Green–especially the more social Rich–befriended and gained unlimited access to all Israeli prime ministers from Menachem Begin to Barak. To extend his influence and prestige in the corridors of power of Israel, Rich agreed to work with Mossad by becoming a “sayan,” Hebrew for “helper” or “assistant.”

Sayan play an important and unique role in the Mossad. Mostly of Jewish origins, they are the security net upon which Mossad agents can rely in emergencies or as providers of special assignments. Shavit defended his petition to Clinton by revealing that Rich had helped to establish contacts with authorities in Yemen, Ethiopia and Sudan during Mossad’s operations to rescue Jews in those countries and bring them back to Israel.

Whatever happened to the plea by the State of Israel in the 1995 letter, Marc Rich was essential in the establishment of peace with the Palestinians. Bill Clinton reneged on his promise to Benjamin Netanyahu to release spy Jonathan Pollard in 1996. Netanyahu will never forget a broken promise by the U.S. President and it will be an experience he will use to his advantage.

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