Is Israel preparing to carry out intelligence operations on US soil?
August 26, 2024 2 Comments
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO, ISRAEL’S Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, reportedly met with the chief executive officer (CEO) of Israeli private intelligence company Black Cube. According to Israeli newspaper The Marker, the purpose of the alleged meeting was to propose an intelligence operation to be carried out on American soil by Black Cube, on behalf of the Israeli government. The intelligence operation would allegedly target a United States-based organization that stands at the forefront of demonstrations against Israel on university campuses in the United States —demonstrations that the state of Israel views as anti-Semitic.
According to The Marker report, the alleged meeting between Minister Chikli and the CEO of Black Cube, Dan Zorla, took place in a private residence in Herzliya near Tel Aviv. Minister Chikli was personally involved in the discussions with Black Cube, with the understanding that intelligence operations carried out by the firm on American soil would not be officially attributed to the State of Israel. However, it is unclear whether such intelligence operations were indeed authorized to proceed.
The organization against which Chikli reportedly asked Black Cube to target is “Students for Justice in Palestine”. The group has staged numerous demonstrations on university campuses across the United States since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last October.
The alleged use of a private intelligence company against an American-based organization, whose leaders are primarily American citizens, may be perceived as a violation of American sovereignty. Such an activity could further-damage the relationship between Israel and the American government and stigmatize Israel’s image among the American public.
Following the publication of The Marker report, the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs claimed the proposal for the intelligence operation had been initiated by Black Cube and that Ministry officials ultimately rejected it. Still, at least three different sources appear to confirm the exact opposite —namely, that the spying initiative was prompted by the Ministry. Black Cube reportedly rejected it based on concerns that such a high-risk operation could damage the company’s standing with the United States government and harm its ability to do business on American soil in the future.
An official statement issued by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said: “Since the beginning of the war, the ministry has held meetings with dozens of organizations seeking to assist the efforts of the State of Israel in various fields. At the company’s [Black Cube’s] request, a meeting was held with the ministry’s professional echelon, and at the end of it, it was decided not to proceed with any engagement”. Read more of this post
THE OFFICIAL INTERNAL INVESTIGATION into the performance of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (MID) during the run-up to the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, has been released. Known as The Road to War, the report addresses the central question of: how did the MID –the main military intelligence body of the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF– miss all the signs of the pending Hamas attack, and how did all the available warnings go unheeded?
IN A HIGHLY UNUSUAL move, authorities in Seoul have 
THE UNITED STATES SECRET Service is among the world’s most prestigious law enforcement agencies. Its institutional experience in protecting US presidents and presidential candidates dates to 1901. Given its high-stakes protective mission —safeguarding the executive leadership of the world’s most powerful nation— the agency has historically placed emphasis on flawlessness: it simply can’t afford to fail.
THE 5TH SYMPOSIUM ON the Law of Intelligence Services (Symposium zum Recht der Nachrichtendienste) took place in Berlin, Germany, on March 21-22. In view of the 
SEVERAL CASES OF CHINESE espionage have been 
THE TARGETED KILLING OF Hassan Mahdawi, a high-ranking member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, was carried out by Israel on April 1, 2024. The actual assassination was based on precise operational intelligence, while Israel’s assessment of Iran’s response was wrong.
ON GOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 29, Egisto Ott, a former member of Austria’s now-dissolved domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), was arrested in his house in Carinthia, Austria’s southernmost state. Ott had frequently been at the center of media attention in the past year, in connection with the network surrounding the fugitive 
These included contacts in friendly foreign police services, whom Ott knew from his time as a liaison officer in Italy and Turkey. According to Gridling, these contacts were unaware that Ott had been removed from the BVT under suspicion of being unreliable and potentially even working for Russia. They therefore continued to help him when asked. Ott allegedly deceived his contacts by claiming that he needed information on cases relating to different kinds of extremism. As it turned out, according to the leaked arrest warrant, several of the individuals referred to by Ott as “suspects” in terrorism investigations were in fact Russian dissidents or intelligence defectors who were living as protected persons in Austria and elsewhere outside Russia.
ON MARCH 23, CHANNEL 12 of Israeli television aired a remarkable interview with Sassi Elya, the former director of technology at the Israel Security Agency (ISA). Better known by the acronyms Shin Bet or Shabak, the ISA is Israel’s domestic security service. The interview had initially been scheduled for broadcast as part of the evening news on October 7, 2023. However, its airing was canceled due to the attack on Israel by Hamas, which occurred that morning.
SINCE OCTOBER 7, 2024, when Israel was caught off guard by a sudden and highly damaging attack from Hamas, more information has surfaced regarding why there was no prior warning about the attack and the failures of Israeli intelligence in this regard.
capabilities. Another important insight is that the counterintelligence structures inside Hamas were successful in preventing Israeli intelligence from recruiting agents who were close enough to Sinwar to be able to alert Israel about the impending attack. Furthermore, Israel’s collection and analysis of signals intelligence was unproductive, possibly because Hamas was successful in countering Israel’s ability to produce effective intelligence from signals intercepts.
THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES have been “bolstering the[ir] architecture” aimed at stopping potential defectors and “liquidating” those who have already defected and are living in exile, according to a new report. In a 
A RETIRED SENIOR MOSSAD official has alleged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly ignored, and even frustrated, efforts to stop the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas. This inaction may have enabled the Palestinian militant group to plan, organize and execute Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which killed over 1400 Israelis on October 7, 2023, and sparked the current war between Israel and Hamas.
THE OCTOBER 7 ATTACK on Israel was a total surprise. There was no warning. There were very few signs of a possible attack. Israeli intelligence evaluated these signs as elements of a routine military exercise by Hamas, and even assessed them as parts of an imaginary scenario. It therefore gave no warning to those Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) units that were stationed on the border with Gaza. Meanwhile, what we know about the intelligence failure of October 7 will likely pale before what the commission of inquiry will reveal once it is established. That was precisely what happened in the case of the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, which made significant revelations while investigating the intelligence failings of the IDF in the run up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
time, in the first two days of the conflict the IDF was confused and acted without direction, in the apparent absence of relevant action plans for what to do in the event of a massive invasion. The IDF was clearly not ready for such a scenario.
for those conclusions to become public. What is to be done in the meantime? There is public pressure to launch the inquiry soon.
Profile of Tang Yuanjun, alleged asset for Chinese intelligence 2018-2023
September 5, 2024 1 Comment
According to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), Tang expressed his desire to see his aging family in China. A prominent dissident such as Tang would not be able to travel to China without being arrested, unless his travel had been approved by authorities. An acquaintance helped him establish secure online contact with the MSS. After being recruited, Tang reported to the MSS using an email account, encrypted chats, text messages and audio and video calls. Tang helped the MSS infiltrate a group chat on WhatsApp; used by numerous People’s Republic of China (PRC) dissidents and pro-democracy activists to communicate about pro-democracy issues and express criticism of the PRC government. In fact, this was what users called a “super group”. It is a group that consists of many other groups. Members could not even identify who was the sponsor of the group chats [1].
In addition, Tang reportedly video-recorded a June 2020 Zoom discussion commemorating the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in the PRC. The Zoom online discussion was led by Zhou Fengsuo, Director of the June 4th Memorial Museum in New York City and a leading advocate for democracy in China. The Ministry of Public Security also infiltrated these discussions with the assistance of Zoom China and US based employees [2].
Tang was Secretary General of the overseas headquarters of the China Democratic Party United Headquarters in New York City. This non-profit organization assists mainland Chinese dissidents in immigration and asylum applications for the US. Tang allegedly provided information on these individuals to the MSS [3]. Tang also allegedly identified ten immigration attorneys to support MSS efforts to place assets in the US. Other dissident organizations in New York and Los Angeles provide similar visa application services to generate income.
In 2022, reportedly Tang met with the MSS in Changchun City, Jilin Province, China, where an officer installed a software on Tang’s phone which Tang believed to be a “bug” that caused all photographs and videos captured on the phone to be transmitted to the MSS. In his role as leading democracy advocate Tang encouraged dissidents to attend protests in Manhattan and Washington DC. He used the compromised phone to take photographs of the events. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) then used the photographs as evidence against overseas dissidents. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with China, counterintelligence, immigration intelligence, MSS (China), Nicholas Eftimiades, Yuanjun Tang