| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 8:01 am Post subject: The McGreevey Scandal: An Israeli/Rove Connection? |
| More- http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen08142004.html
An Israeli / Rove Connection?
The McGreevey Scandal
By WAYNE MADSEN
Here we go again. Another political bombshell hits the American people and
there is yet another connection to the subterranean labyrinth of possible
Israeli intelligence activities. New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim
McGreevey's announcement on August 12 that he was resigning because of his
involvement in a gay relationship with an Israeli national may be the tip of
an iceberg that represents another high-level Israeli attempt to burrow into
the most sensitive areas of U.S. national security and our political
process. The surprise announcement is also being used by a number of
neo-conservative news outlets to tarnish the Democratic Party and absolve
Israel of any connection to the New Jersey political scandal.
The ties between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Russian-mafia infused
government and shadowy Israeli and Eastern European ex-intelligence agents
are beyond a doubt, according to international law enforcement officials.
But what is not readily apparent is the fact that a number of Israeli
off-the-books intelligence operatives are active inside the United States
and they do not have U.S. national interests in mind. In particular, the
Israeli-Russian mobsters and their allies within the Sharon government have
adopted one of the most successful intelligence ploys used by the former KGB
and East German Stasi--the use of prostitutes or "swallows" to gain intimate
access to high Western politicians, so-called "sexpionage." In the case of
Israel, which welcomed a number of émigré former Eastern bloc intelligence
agents during and after the Cold War, this has entailed the use of both
female and male prostitutes. The fact that White House chief dirty tricks
operator Karl Rove has close connections to the political spin machine run
out of Sharon's Jerusalem office is also a concern when it comes to
Israeli-connected dirty tricks operations being run against Democratic
politicians in the United States.
It should be remembered that New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli
was forced to drop out of his re-election race in 2002 because of leaks
about his involvement with a contributor indicted on federal charges.
Torricelli's major problems in New Jersey arose after he was chastised for
missing an important Senate vote supporting Israel. The Senate, at the time,
was tenuously in the hands of the Democrats, who had a one-seat majority.
However, Torricelli was replaced on the ticket by Frank Lautenberg, who went
on to win the seat for the Democrats.
Jim McGreevey was a rising star in Democratic politics. As Mayor of
Woodbridge, a New York City commuter suburb, McGreevey decided to opt for
statewide political office. At the same time he appeared on the Israeli
intelligence radar screens. In 2000, with his eye on the New Jersey
statehouse, Mayor McGreevey joined a large delegation of New Jersey Jewish
supporters in a political "mega pilgrimage" to Israel, where he met Golan
Cipel, said to be a tour guide/information officer for the mayor of the Tel
Aviv suburb of Rishon Le-Zion, the first Zionist settlement in Palestine.
However, Cipel had previously been the press secretary for the Israeli
consulate general in New York City. In 1999, Cipel, who is now being
described as a one-time low-level Israeli government employee in New York
and a "poet," gave a speech on behalf of the Israeli government at a meeting
at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Madison Avenue offices on some very high
profile issues, including the implications of the recent death of King
Hussein of Jordan, the upcoming Israeli elections, and the peace process
with the Palestinian Authority.
Cipel was also a former Israeli naval officer, leaving the service with the
rank of lieutenant. How a person goes from an influential position with one
of the most important Israeli diplomatic missions abroad to a mere Jerusalem
area tour guide seems, on the surface, extraordinary. But in the world of
intelligence, such career changes are driven by political necessity, not by
choice. McGreevey's admitted lifelong homosexuality also made him a likely
target for an intelligence approach--and Cipel, who, as a 1998 graduate of
the New York Institute of Technology and the New York Israeli consulate's
press spokesman, was more than familiar with north Jersey's political and
social terrain. And Cipel was no stranger to right-wing Republican politics.
In 1995, Cipel and future Washington Times reporter Joshua Mitnick edited an
Israeli consulate news wire called "Israel Line." The Washington Times,
owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, is a money-losing outlet for neo-conservative
political opinion.
After McGreevey returned to New Jersey from Israel, Cipel also moved to
Iselin, New Jersey and was hired by a billionaire Florham Park land
developer and Democratic fundraiser named Charles Kushner, an individual who
became the source for $250,000 for McGreevey's campaign for the governor's
mansion. Kushner sponsored Cipel for a temporary work visa. After McGreevey
was sworn in as governor, he named Kushner to the board of the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey, the original owners of the World Trade
Center. Kushner was recently indicted on federal charges of corruption
involving a land deal and illegal campaign contributions.
Soon after McGreevey announced his candidacy for the governorship, Cipel
became one of his campaign advisers. During 2001, in his role as McGreevey's
Jewish liaison adviser, Cipel received another temporary work visa that was
sponsored by the New Jersey State Democratic Committee.
After McGreevey's election, Cipel was named homeland security director for
New Jersey, a $110,000 per year job. New Jersey sponsored Cipel for yet
another temporary work visa just four months after a number of Israelis were
rounded up and arrested by New Jersey police and Federal agents for
photographing and celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers on September
11. Cipel, who had no verifiable security experience, was touted by
McGreevey's administration as having gained his anti-terrorist credentials
as a member of the Israeli Defense Force. An Israeli military expert told
the Bridgewater, New Jersey Courier News that Cipel's military record was
"routine, at best." In addition, Kathryn Flicker, an assistant attorney
general for New Jersey, was appointed by McGreevey to head of the state
counter-terrorism office but only after Cipel was strangely named as a
parallel counter-terrorism official.
After both Republican and Democratic New Jersey legislators complained about
Cipel's lack of qualifications and the Federal government refused to grant
him a security clearance because he was not a U.S. citizen, the Israeli
national left his position as homeland security czar and took up his
previous campaign job as McGreevey's Jewish affairs adviser and special
counsel at the same $110,000 salary. Inexplicably, Cipel maintained a staff
of three assistants for a staff job that had no real responsibilities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israeli Connection to 9/11:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/07/31/israel-9-11-connection-exposed.php | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2004 8:31 am Post subject: Sex, Lies, and Terrorism |
| Sex, Lies, and Terrorism
How did Golan Cipel become New Jersey's 'anti-terrorism' czar?
by Justin Raimondo
Aug. 16, 2004
 Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin
Â
This an excerpt:
Israeli organized crime and the Mossad are among the prime suspects
over
Governor McGreevey
New Jersey state officials, Democrats as well as Republicans, had long
been
mystified by the apparent hold Cipel had over Governor McGreevey, and
early
news accounts are filled with hints of a "special" relationship: heck,
the guys
over at Free Republic outed McGreevey two years ago. But the homosexual
angle
is hardly the whole story. The national security aspect of this episode
ought
to frighten the heck out of anyone who believes that government efforts
to
fight terrorism on the home front are in any way reassuring. How naïve
can you get?
But it also ought to raise a few questions beyond when is the Gay
Governor
going to start dating again.
New Jersey is key terrain in the real war on terrorism: Flight 93 from
Newark
to San Francisco was commandeered by the terrorists on 9/11 and crashed
into
a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers. The
anthrax
letters were mailed from New Jersey. Newark has recently been put on
orange alert
as the U.S. braces for a pre-election terrorist strike.
So let’s forget the gory details of McGreevey's sex life, and focus
on the
question of why did Cipel lobby so hard to get the job of New Jersey's
shadow
terrorism czar, nixing ex-FBI Louis Freeh and hiding behind Kathryn
Flicker’s
skirts? It seems like only yesterday that McGreevey was still defending
Cipel,
and New Jersey media reported:
"When the FBI issued a terrorist alert last week, it was apparently
Cipel who
first contacted McGreevey, not New Jersey's newly appointed terror
czar,
Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Flicker. Even before McGreevey's
election in
November, administration sources said, Cipel toured the state –
visiting
refineries, nuclear plants, bridges, and seaports – to make an
inventory of security
needs. McGreevey said Cipel has already offered ‘invaluable
insights’ into a
variety of security matters, both large and small. ‘He's someone who
thinks
with a different set of eyes, and that is very hard to find,’
McGreevey said."
So this guy was out there "inspecting" nuclear plants – if that
doesn’t set
off alarm bells, then we might as well pack it in, because we're all
doomed.
As an Israeli citizen, Cipel couldn’t have access to classified
materials –
except through the "back door," so to speak, via McGreevey. Did
McGreevey balk
at the arrangement, and transfer Cipel to another job? That, at any
rate, is
when their "relationship," whatever it was, apparently began to go
sour.
If Cipel maintains that he consistently refused McGreevey's advances,
then
how can he explain the series of jobs the governor found for him after
he left
public service? If the sexual relationship was nonexistent, then what
power did
Cipel have over the governor? In any case, he exercised that power in
order
to penetrate the U.S. counter-terrorism apparatus – on whose behalf
is not
altogether clear, but Israeli organized crime and the Mossad are among
the prime
suspects. After all, it would hardly be the first time the latter used
sex as a
lure: isn't that how they got Mordechai Vanunu?
=========
Sex, Lies, and Terrorism
How did Golan Cipel become New Jersey's 'anti-terrorism' czar?
by Justin Raimondo
Aug. 16, 2004
The self-"outing" of New Jersey Governor James McGreevey and his
involvement
with Golan Cipel, described as a 30-something Israeli "poet," soon
degenerated
into one of those the-personal-is-the-political soap operas Americans
seem to
revel in. After hearing McGreevey's now famous "I am a gay American"
speech,
some gushed that this put him right up there with rising Democratic
star Obama
Barack. Gay rights groups were quick to hail McGreevey for spilling his
guts
to the nation. No sooner had the Gay Guv finished filling us in on the
details
of his trauma-laden childhood and the burden of a life lived in the
"closet,"
when every cable news station booker was dialing Arianna Huffington's
number.
Her image flooded the airwaves, and, as she intoned knowledgeably and
interminably about the travails of a wife who has been left for a man,
it seemed
somehow appropriate that Arianna is one of those women who might be
plausibly
mistaken for a drag queen. The amalgamation of "news" into
entertainment never
seemed more vivid. But as I half-listened to the former Gingrich
groupie-turned-limousine-lefty bibble on in heavily-accented
psycho-babble, she suddenly
blurted out the truth:
"As the day progressed, it became clear that this was a story unfolding
on so
many levels only a Shakespearean drama or a Verdi opera could do
justice to
it. There was the personal, the political, possibly the legal, and who
knows
what else to be revealed by the time we get to Act Five."
Act Two unfolded soon thereafter. Cipel denied being gay, and denied
having
consensual sex with McGreevey: he issued a brief statement through his
lawyers
that used the word "victim" at least three times. The McGreevey camp
struck
back, claiming that Cipel had demanded $50 million as the price of his
silence,
later lowering the price to $5 million, and then a mere $2 mil, with
the
negotiations continuing right up until minutes before McGreevey went
before the
cameras.
Amid the voyeurism and vulgarity of this media circus, and hints of
more
revelations to come, I had to laugh out loud at Arianna's remark that
the hiring
of Cipel "only makes sense as a taxpayer-funded cry for help."
McGreevey hiring his boytoy as the state's anti-terrorist chieftain
less than
a year after 9/11 no doubt makes sense to Arianna, and to the millions
of
romantic fiction fans for whom nothing is impossible when it comes to
love. But
for the rest of us, the question is obvious: if McGreevey had to give
his
boytoy a job, why appoint him to the crucially important post of
anti-terror czar?
Why not give him a cushy office job in some obscure state agency?
Certainly
that would have been less obvious, and, as it was, McGreevey did his
best to
render the appointment invisible. As the New York Timesreports:
"On Jan. 24, 2002, with great fanfare, Mr. McGreevey announced the
creation
of an office of counterterrorism and appointed Kathryn Flicker, a
respected
assistant attorney general, to the post.
"But in late February, reporters discovered that there were two
Homeland
Security officials. Mr. Cipel, who listed Mr. McGreevey's largest
contributor, the
developer Charles Kushner, as the sponsor on his visa application, and
was
paid $30,000 a year for a public relations job with Mr. Kushner's
company in
2000, had actually been hired, with no fanfare, on Jan. 15, a full week
before
Ms. Flicker."
To characterize McGreevey's actions as "a taxpayer-funded cry for help"
is
one way of looking at it, but a simpler explanation is that he made the
appointment because Cipel requested it. But why would the 35-year-old
Israeli citizen,
whom McGreevey had met on a trip to Israel in 2000, want it in the
first
place?
Certainly Cipel made an effort to block anybody else from getting the
job, as
the local New Jersey media reported:
"Sources close to the task force said Cipel also played a key role in
persuading McGreevey not to tap former FBI chief Louis J. Freeh to head
the state's
Domestic Security Preparedness Task Force, which was created in
October.
Officials who served in the administration of former acting Gov. Donald
T.
DiFrancesco said Freeh had agreed to take the unpaid post if McGreevey
approved.
McGreevey declined to comment on Freeh. Several Democrats said Cipel
had argued
strongly against the choice, pointing out that the former FBI director
would be a
part-time volunteer when the governor wanted a full-time terror czar."
Whether Cipel asked for the job, or not, McGreevey very much wanted him
to
have it, as Sandy McClure of the Gannett news agency first reported in
December
of 2002:
"Using the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11 to justify the hiring, the
governor's chief lawyer wrote a letter to the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization
Service on McGreevey's inauguration day, telling the federal agency
that New Jersey
wanted Cipel to coordinate increased security with all branches of
government
and that Cipel had the necessary 'substantial experience' in public
security."
If McGreevey was trying to hide his sexual identity, this was clearly
not the
way to do it. The appointment led to an outcry among Republican
legislators,
and a series of revelations, including this excerpt from a letter to
the INS
from the governor's chief counsel, Paul Levinsohn, describing the
nature of
Cipel's work on behalf of the Israeli government:
"In particular, his experience as chief information officer, consulate
general of Israel, involved 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."
This doesn’t sound like an "information officer" to me: it's a job
description more suited to an intelligence officer.
With all the emphasis on the Gay Governor as a personality, and the sex
angle, Cipel has remained a bit of a mystery. Before he resigned under
the glare of
public scrutiny, in 2002 – while still retaining his 6-figure salary
–
McGreevey and his cohorts defended the appointment as entirely
appropriate.
Confronted with questions about why Cipel was named to the crucial post
of homeland
security czar for the state of New Jersey without undergoing a routine
background check, McGreevey replied:
"I didn't feel that kind of check was necessary. I know Golan and have
worked
with him closely. He's a super-bright and super-competent individual
who
brings a great wealth of knowledge on security.'"
Alright, then, let’s do our own background check on Mr. Cipel, made
possible
by the creators of Google.com. Who the heck is Golan Cipel, anyway?
Most news reports refer to him as "a former sailor and a poet,"
buttressing
the boy-toy-with-expensive-tastes character who plays such a key
supporting
role in the story of the governor's Coming Out party. Oh, those
sailors! But the
truth is more prosaic, and more political. Cipel, far from being a
boytoy, is
a rather plain young man who looks more like an insurance salesman than
a
gigolo – and sounds more like a propagandist for Ariel Sharon than
one of the boys
on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. While the record of his public
utterances
is slim, Cipel's remarks to a Jewish congregation in New Jersey were
reported,
under somewhat trying circumstances, by the New Jersey Jewish News:
"Making a rare public appearance before a Jewish audience since leaving
public life amid questions over the propriety of his hiring by New
Jersey Gov.
James E. McGreevey, former state homeland security adviser Golan Cipel
spoke about
Israel’s security situation March 21 at Congregation Anshe Chesed in
Linden.
"However, there was some confusion about how public his appearance was
to be.
Although the synagogue had announced Cipel's speech with a press
release and
invited NJ Jewish News, Cipel interrupted his lecture to ask a reporter
from
the paper to leave.
"Until that point, Cipel had been describing the plight of Israelis
living
under terror and the world's biased response to Israel."
Cipel went on to complain that the world
"’Treats us with a double standard.’ He compared the way world
governments
and the press reacted to the recent terrorist attack in Spain to
reactions to
attacks in Israel. 'There was no question [in Spain] it was a terrorist
attack.
When it comes to Israel, there's always a question,' according to the
media.
Cipel launched into discussions of the Israeli security fence and
terrorism
after casual references to his recent and controversial public career.
He
referred to inaccuracies in the press and articles he had read about
himself that
weren’t true before asking NJJN to stop reporting on the speech and
declaring
that his comments were not 'on the record.'"
In his capacity as an "information officer" at the Israeli consulate,
from at
least February 1996 until April of ’99, Cipel made appearances at the
events
of such groups as American Veterans of Israel's 1948 war, and also
churned out
an enormous volume of propaganda. He thereupon returned to Israel,
where he
served as a parliamentary aide to a Labor member of the Knesset, and
was a
public relations officer for the city of Rishon Letzion, where he met
McGreevey at
a reception.
Cipel was brought to the U.S. under the auspices of Charles Kushner,
McGreevey's chief fundraiser, whose gigantic real estate holdings made
him the rising
star among Democratic party moneybags. Cipel's job for the state
Democratic
party, doing Jewish outreach for the McGreevey campaign, pulled in a
paltry
amount of money, but Cipel's salary was generously supplemented by work
for
Kushner as a "consultant."
Kushner is quite a character. Under investigation for tax evasion and
election code violations, he recently made headlines when he sent his
sister a tape
of her husband having sex with a prostitute. The sister had been
cooperating
with prosecutors looking into the real estate mogul, and Kushner, a
noted
philanthropist, exacted retribution. Rumor has it that Kushner sought a
pardon,
apparently unsuccessfully, from the governor he thought he owned. When
the pardon
wasn’t forthcoming, the threat of a suit by Cipel and his lawyers
began to
loom large: there has been speculation in the media that Kushner may be
behind
the governor’s recent troubles, and this is fueled by the question of
who’s
paying the apparently penniless Cipel’s lawyers, as well as the
latest reporting:
"Yesterday a McGreevey administration source said Cipel also had sought
the
governor's influence in getting a New Jersey license for a New
York-based
Jewish college.
"Adding another twist to the case, administration sources said that in
recent
days, Lowy had asked for more than money to forgo a lawsuit. Cipel's
lawyer
also asked for help in winning a license for Touro College to build the
first
private medical school in New Jersey, said a top-ranking administration
source
who spoke on condition of anonymity. Among the board members of Touro
College,
a Jewish institution based in New York, is Charles Kushner …"
While the Democrats were quick to return Kushner's recent
contributions, the
multi-billion dollar real estate empire he presides over is bound to
survive
his legal problems – as will his political influence in the
Democratic
stronghold of New Jersey. The only question now is whether he has video
of Cipel being
"sexually harassed" by McGreevey.
New Jersey state officials, Democrats as well as Republicans, had long
been
mystified by the apparent hold Cipel had over Governor McGreevey, and
early
news accounts are filled with hints of a "special" relationship: heck,
the guys
over at Free Republic outed McGreevey two years ago. But the homosexual
angle
is hardly the whole story. The national security aspect of this episode
ought
to frighten the heck out of anyone who believes that government efforts
to
fight terrorism on the home front are in any way reassuring. How naïve
can you get?
But it also ought to raise a few questions beyond when is the Gay
Governor is
going to start dating again.
New Jersey is key terrain in the real war on terrorism: Flight 93 from
Newark
to San Francisco was commandeered by the terrorists on 9/11 and crashed
into
a field in Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers. The
anthrax
letters were mailed from New Jersey. Newark has recently been put on
orange alert
as the U.S. braces for a pre-election terrorist strike.
So let’s forget the gory details of McGreevey's sex life, and focus
on the
question of why did Cipel lobby so hard to get the job of New Jersey's
shadow
terrorism czar, nixing Louis Freeh and hiding behind Kathryn
Flicker’s skirts?
It seems like only yesterday that McGreevey was still defending Cipel,
and New
Jersey media reported:
"When the FBI issued a terrorist alert last week, it was apparently
Cipel who
first contacted McGreevey, not New Jersey's newly appointed terror
czar,
Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Flicker. Even before McGreevey's
election in
November, administration sources said, Cipel toured the state –
visiting
refineries, nuclear plants, bridges, and seaports – to make an
inventory of security
needs. McGreevey said Cipel has already offered ‘invaluable
insights’ into a
variety of security matters, both large and small. ‘He's someone who
thinks
with a different set of eyes, and that is very hard to find,’
McGreevey said."
So this guy was out there "inspecting" nuclear plants – if that
doesn’t set
off alarm bells, then we might as well pack it in, because we're all
doomed.
As an Israeli citizen, Cipel couldn’t have access to classified
materials –
except through the "back door," so to speak, via McGreevey. Did
McGreevey balk
at the arrangement, and transfer Cipel to another job? That, at any
rate, is
when their "relationship," whatever it was, apparently began to go
sour.
If Cipel maintains that he consistently refused McGreevey's advances,
then
how can he explain the series of jobs the governor found for him after
he left
public service? If the sexual relationship was nonexistent, then what
power did
Cipel have over the governor? In any case, he exercised that power in
order
to penetrate the U.S. counter-terrorism apparatus – on whose behalf
is not
altogether clear, but Israeli organized crime and the Mossad are among
the prime
suspects. After all, it would hardly be the first time the latter used
sex as a
lure: isn't that how they got Mordechai Vanunu?
–Justin Raimondo
+++++++
A sick man! Don't you think?
Jay Lefkowitz is now Deputy assistant to the President for Domestic
Policy.
"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for
the
Jews - reminds us who we are." --Jay Lefkowitz (NYT Magazine. Feb.12,
1995. Page
65). | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
