U.S. Has Deported Dozens Of Israelis Who Visited Federal Sites

U.S. Has Deported Dozens Of Israelis Who Visited Federal Sites

by Julia Malone
Cox News Service
March 5, 2002

The United States has deported in the last two years dozens of young Israelis who posed as art students and visited sensitive federal facilities, federal officials said Tuesday.

The Israeli visits came under renewed attention after a French Internet site posted a secret draft report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that concluded there "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity" dating back at least two years.

The report states that the Israelis had focused on the South, especially Florida, over a period of two years. The visitors typically knocked on the doors of agencies or the homes of federal agents offering to sell artwork. The artwork had been made in China, the report said.

In December of 2000, for example, two Israelis knocked on the door at the residence of a DEA special agent in the Atlanta area and offered to sell artwork. The agent grew suspicious later after seeing the exact same items for sale in a kiosk at the Mall of Georgia.

Moreover, the report said the visitors had recently served in the Israeli military, the majority in intelligence, electronic signal intercept or explosive ordinance units.

Federal law enforcement officials confirmed the arrest and deportations of young Israelis over the past two years, but they said they were removed for routine visa violations, not spying.

"The Department of Justice has no information to substantiate the report about Israeli art students being involved in espionage," said Susan Dryden, a spokesperson at the Justice Department.

Another federal official added, "There is no evidence of spying by an Israeli spy ring."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari told the Associated Press that the spy report was "nonsense." And Irit Stopper, another spokeswoman, said that some Israelis had been deported for posing as art students and working without permits but not for espionage.

The 60-page DEA report that raised suspicions about the young Israeli visitors was first made public late last year by the Fox News Network.

A French Website, Intelligence Online, brought the subject back into public attention this week by posting the report on the Internet.

The report noted that some of the Israelis had been based last year in Hollywood, Fla., the same place where some of the Sept. 11 hijackers had been living before they executed their attacks.

The French daily Le Monde, writing about the Israeli spy report Tuesday, said that the coincidence had raised American suspicions that the Israelis might have been tracking al-Qaida terrorists "without informing federal authorities."

Attorney General John Ashcroft, at a press briefing, declined to discuss the report.

However, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) spokesman confirmed that his agency has deported "dozens" of young Israelis arrested for visa violations in several cities, including New York and Dallas.

"Over the last two years or so, INS has arrested a number of Israeli nationals here-- who were on student visas or visitor visas--who were selling art," said the spokesman, Russell Bergeron.

"I cannot confirm espionage," he said, but he noted that "some were arrested around federal buildings."

Julia Malone's e-mail address is juliam(at)coxnews.com

Rebecca Carr contributed to this article.

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