The Jewish Agency's U.S. Arms Smuggling Network

Documents

Before statehood, Israel's government-in-waiting, the Jewish Agency, assembled a vast clandestine smuggling network in the United States.  The network purchased explosives, munitions, manufacturing equipment, fighter airplanes, bombers and other materiel from the War Assets Administration.  Some purchases were made through front organizations such as Foundry Associates and Materials for Palestine. For other items, Jewish Agency agents arranged straw buyers from Latin American countries. 

The Jewish Agency was the creation of American Israel lobby organizations, such as the ZOA and the American Jewish Committee. (Link to JTA archive of report below).

Network operatives also stole some items from WAA stockpiles, such as heavy machine guns, or falsified export papers attempting to export state-of-the-art fighter airplane engines.  One front operation, Service Airways, purchased export-prohibited military transport planes ostensibly to fly for a Panamanian start-up airline (Lineas Aeros de Panama), but instead delivered them to Jewish flyers to use in combat in Palestine.

The following classified Naval Intelligence and FBI files were first sought by researcher and author Stephen Green for his 1984 book "Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with Militant Israel." Thirty years after he sought them, and nearly seventy years after they were written, the National Archives and Records Administration declassified them under a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request (release letter PDF).  The files are interesting for their glimpse into strategies and tactics Israel lobbying organizations would use to escape consequences in later confrontations with law enforcement—claiming not to know the "big picture," conducting key illegal activities offshore, and trying to hide clandestine operations money trails.  The files also indicate how law enforcement tactics such as informant development, mail and communications monitoring, and multi-agency information sharing helped provide a fuller picture of Israeli espionage on U.S. territory and foreign countries such as Panama and Czechoslovakia.

Despite financing the smuggling operation, the Jewish Agency and its New York legal representatives never faced any criminal charges.  The Jewish Agency was found by the Justice Department and Senate in the early 1960s to be funding the American Zionist Council/AIPAC.  The Justice Department ordered the AZC to register under the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act. When American activists finally forced the Jewish Agency's American Section to file its secret covenant with the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency's American Section staged a paper reorganization (characterized as "sketchy" by the U.S. Department of Justice) and reemerged as the American Section of the World Zionist Organization. 

According to a Congressional Research Service report (PDF) by 1973 the Jewish Agency began receiving $25 million a year in U.S. taxpayer funding for refugee resettlement and other activities – totaling $460 million by 1991. CRS reveals that between 2000 and 2013 the Jewish Agency received another $534 million ($41 million per year) in funding from Congress – none of it easily auditable by U.S. taxpayers.
 

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"The Czechs are manufacturing Messerschmitt fighters for my employers and Mike and myself have been sent down here to the factory to check them over for flaws.  This isn't a nice place.  The police, including traffic cops are all in Army uniform.  They all look nasty but don't hesitate to take bribes.  Your Daddy doesn't care for Russia influenced people."  "This ME-109 is supposed to be a better plane than the Spitfire that the Jikkos (Arabs) are using... "One of the boys from Tel Aviv said they are using C-47 for bombers, just opening the door and start chucking.  These ME's we're getting ready will carry a 1000 lb bomb that'll set the Jikkos on their heels..." 

'This war is being fought for important uranium deposits near Palestine.  The English want those deposits and recently proposed to the Jews an armistice if the Jews would give up their rights to this one piece of desert.  The Jews preferred to fight, and here we are."

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