This Forward interview with ex-Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin confirms elements of what I wrote about back in January 2006 in a piece entitled, "Are we are all Jonathan Pollards, now?" posted here. Specifically, I accused  former FBI counter-intelligence chief, David Szady and others were part of a blatant anti-Semitic cabal intent on finding an "Israel Mole" and that Jews in our national intelligence echelons were suspect of "dual loyalties".

Contrast what I said in January, 2006 when Franklin was sentenced with  what Franklin has said in this Forward interview:

             GORDON -2006:

The harsh sentencing and jailing of former Defense Analyst Larry Franklin ordered by Federal Judge T.J. Ellis, III has shocked American Jews and Christian allies.

Are those of us who defend Israel all simply "Jonathan Pollards?"

Malcolm Hoenlein from the rostrum of the prestigious Herziliya conference in Israel this week has articulated what a lot of us here in the US are concerned about in the so-called Franklin "affair": the less than subtle official anti-Semitism in certain Washington "power corridors."<!--more-->

Listen to his comments:

"The very fact that this kind of climate can exist in the capital of the U.S. is unacceptable," he said at the Herzliya Conference.

Rosen and Weissman, he said, "are two patriotic American citizens working for a Jewish organization, who did nothing to violate the American security."

The April trial of Steve Rosen who created the successful AIPAC lobbying model and Ken Weissman one of their senior Middle East policy analysts has to be played out against the backdrop of FBI's drive led by associate director and counter intelligence chief David Szady and his hunt for "moles" in the American Jewish community whose divided loyalty in his view is" questionable."

As an example, we have the case of former CIA staff lawyer, Adam Cirelsky against the CIA and FBI that revealed Szady's alleged anti-semitic comments during an earlier 1999 investigation.

Szady probably believes that every American Jew is a closet "Jonathan Pollard." Fundamentalist Christians, too, by the likes of DoD analyst Larry Franklin's harsh penalty handed down by Federal Judge Ellis last week: 12.7 years plus a fine, unless he "squeals."

To those of us here in the US that smacks of the classic "Juden frage" or the "Jewish question" of 19th and 20th Century Europe where governments and citizenry alike accused Jews of "dual loyalties" - a dynamic "conflict" between being loyal citizens of countries in the Diaspora and being supporters of Zionism and the formation of the Jewish State, Israel.

Over the weekend, I got an email from Janet Levy in California who is active in Dr. Frank Gaffney, Jr.'s Center for Security Policy. She wrote about her questioning of FBI associate director and Counter Intelligence chief Szady at last year's Intelligence Conference held across the Potomac in Northern Virginia in the Washington, DC vicinity about Larry Franklin and AIPAC defendants, Messrs. Rosen and Weissman. Szady was adamant in his remarks about the "relentless" prosecution of fundamentalist Christian and loyal Americans Larry Franklin and the AIPAC Jewish officials, Messrs. Rosen and Weissman.

FORWARD/FRANKLIN-2009: 

Although charges against the two other key players, former lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were ultimately dropped in May, Franklin pleaded guilty early on as part of a plea agreement and is preparing to serve his reduced sentence of 100 hours of community service and 10 months in a halfway house.

Franklin’s narrative of his ordeal, which started off with him being described on national news as the “Israeli mole” in the Pentagon, reflects a mixture of naiveté, frustration with government bureaucracy and a deep belief that his views must be heard, even if it meant breaking the rules. In retrospect, it was a practice in humility for the devout Catholic military analyst.

“I’ve learned a lot by crawling on the ground,” the 62-year-old father of five said in his first interview since the affair began in 2004. The lessons that Franklin has learned from his experience include the capacity by his colleagues and partners for — as he sees it — betrayal, and the persistence, he has concluded, of deep-rooted antisemitic sentiment in certain quarters of America’s intelligence community.

Franklin in the Forward article believes that he was betrayed by Weissman and Rosen when they relayed some of the Iranian nuclear threat information to the two former AIPAC lobbyists.  In fact, as the circumstances behind the government dropping the case and questionable legal basis indicate they did nothing wrong.   

Here is what Franklin states and Steve Rosen's reply:

He said it was made clear to him by the FBI that Rosen, then AIPAC’s foreign policy director, was the target of the investigation and had been followed by the FBI for years. “The bureau told me Rosen was a bad guy,” he said. Believing that he himself had “done wrong,” Franklin agreed to cooperate with the FBI investigation.

This cooperation culminated in a June 26, 2003, meeting at an Italian restaurant in Arlington, Va., where Franklin was sent by the FBI to carry out a sting operation against the AIPAC lobbyists. Before his meeting with Weissman, agents wired Franklin with microphones and transmitters and provided him with a fake classified document alleging there was clear life-threatening danger posed to Israelis secretly operating in Iraq’s Kurdish region. Passing on the information would help seal the case against the AIPAC staffers.

“At the time, I believed they were guilty,” Franklin said of Weissman and Rosen. Yet he still came to the meeting with mixed feelings. He put the document on the table, but hoped Weissman would not reach out for it. “And when he did not take the document, I did breath a silent sigh of relief,” he recalled. In retrospect, Franklin sees that moment as “one I am not proud of.”

Though Weissman didn’t take the document, he read its content, which was allegedly classified, and the sting operation succeeded. Weissman hurried back to AIPAC headquarters with the supposedly classified information disclosed it to Rosen, who subsequently relayed it to an Israeli diplomat. Even without Weissman taking the actual paper, prosecutors, who were wiretapping all the players, felt they had enough of a case to press charges against both Rosen and Weissman for communicating national defense information.

Franklin said he felt betrayed by the two former AIPAC staffers. He believed that he was sharing information with them so that they could pass it to other government officials, and was disappointed to learn they conveyed it to Israeli diplomats and to the press. “I do think they crossed a line when they went to a foreign official with what they knew was classified information,” Franklin said.

Rosen told the Forward in response: “Franklin did not expect us to warn the Israelis that they would be kidnapped and killed? That’s like telling officials of the NAACP that there is going to be a lynching, but don’t warn the victims, because it is a secret.”

The unfortunate aspect of the AIPAC 'spy case' is that the FBI sting operation that ensnared Franklin, Weissman and Rosen in a four year long hellish nightmare was perpetrated by  anti-Semitic counter-intelligence 'experts' in our government searching for an Israeli mole. At the same time, our government was permitting Muslims to infiltrate our intelligence community after 9/11 and denying talented American Jews and Christians the opportunity to ferret out the real threat to our security that Rosen and Wiessman were seeking information about.

As I noted in my January, 2006 piece:

The FBI counterintelligence functions may be an important segment of our national security apparatus in the post 9/11 environment created by patent radical Islamic jihadists. But then, why has this same agency bent over backwards to engage in PC multicultural "benefits" for its Muslim staff that violate our civil rights laws vis a vis segregation of women staff? Or never followed up on reports of FBI Arabic translators "celebrating" 9/11 as reported by loyal non-Muslim Turkish American Sibel Dinez Edmunds in a FrontPageMagazine report by author Paul Sperry? Why are these same Muslim patently disloyal FBI workers given a free pass? Moreover, why has the FBI with a backlog of over 100,000 hours of intercept tapes not seen fit to hire both Middle Eastern Christians and Mizrahi and Iranian Jews who are fluent Arabic and Parsi speakers to assist in this translation effort?

The word we get back from those in both communities who applied as loyal American citizens immediately after 9/11 was rejection because of-you guessed it- "dual loyalties."

What is the careworn French expression:"Plus de choses changent, plus qu'ils restent les mêmes",  in English,  "the more things change, the more they are the same."