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<\/a><\/p>\nBy Whitney Webb
\nMintPress News<\/p>\n
A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.<\/p>\n
by Whitney Webb<\/p>\n
S<\/span>ince the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein\u2019s ties to intelligence, described in-depth in a recent\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0investigative series<\/a>, have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.<\/p>\n For those who have examined Epstein\u2019s ties to intelligence, there are clear links to both U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence, leaving it somewhat open to debate as to which country\u2019s intelligence apparatus was closest to Epstein and most involved in his blackmail\/sex-trafficking activities. A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Epstein\u2019s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad. <\/p>\n In\u00a0an interview<\/a>\u00a0last week with the independent outlet\u00a0Narativ<\/i>, Ben-Menashe, who himself was involved in Iran-Contra arms deals, told his interviewer Zev Shalev that he had been introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by Robert Maxwell in the mid-1980s while Maxwell\u2019s and Ben-Menashe\u2019s involvement with Iran-Contra was ongoing. Ben-Menashe did not specify the year he met Epstein.<\/p>\n Ben-Menashe told Shalev that \u201che [Maxwell] wanted us to accept him [Epstein] as part of our group \u2026. I\u2019m not denying that we were at the time a group that it was Nick Davies [Foreign Editor of the Maxwell-Owned\u00a0Daily Mirror<\/i>], it was Maxwell, it was myself and our team from Israel, we were doing what we were doing.\u201d Past reporting by Seymour Hersh and others\u00a0revealed that<\/a>\u00a0Maxwell, Davies and Ben-Menashe were involved in the transfer and sale of\u00a0 military equipment and weapons from Israel to Iran on behalf of Israeli intelligence during this time period.<\/p>\n He then added that Maxwell had stated during the introduction that \u201cyour Israeli bosses have already approved\u201d of Epstein. Shalev later noted that Maxwell \u201chad an extensive network in Israel at the time, which included the then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, according to Ben-Menashe.\u201d<\/p>\n Ben-Menashe went on to say that he had \u201cmet him [Epstein] a few times in Maxwell\u2019s office, that was it.\u201d He also said he was not aware of Epstein being involved in arms deals for anyone else he knew at the time, but that Maxwell wanted to involve Epstein in the arms transfer in which he, Davies and Ben-Menashe were engaged on Israel\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n Ariel Sharon (right) meets with Robert Maxwell in Jerusalem on Feb. 20, 1990. Photo | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, as\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0reported in\u00a0Part IV<\/a>\u00a0of the investigative series \u201cInside the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail<\/a>,\u201d Epstein was involved with several arms dealers during this period of time, some of whom were directly involved in Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. For instance, after leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, Epstein\u00a0began working<\/a>\u00a0in the realms of shadow finance as a self-described \u201cfinancial bounty hunter,\u201d where he would both hunt down and hide money for powerful people. One of these powerful individuals was Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer with close ties to both Israeli and U.S. intelligence and one of the main brokers of Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. Epstein would later forge a business relationship with a CIA front company involved in another aspect of Iran-Contra, the airline Southern Air Transport, on behalf of Leslie Wexner\u2019s company, The Limited.<\/p>\n During this period, it is also known that Epstein became well acquainted with the British arms dealer Sir Douglas Leese, who collaborated with Khashoggi on at least one British-Saudi arms deal in the 1980s. Leese\u00a0would later introduce<\/a>\u00a0Epstein to Steven Hoffenberg, calling Epstein a \u201cgenius\u201d and describing his lack of morals during that introduction. Thus, there are indications that Epstein was involved with Middle Eastern arms deals, including some related to Iran-Contra, during this period. In addition, Epstein would later claim (and then subsequently deny) having worked for the CIA during this period.<\/p>\n After having been introduced to Epstein, Ben-Menashe claimed that neither he nor Davies were impressed with Epstein and considered him \u201cnot very competent.\u201d He added that Ghislaine Maxwell had \u201cfallen for\u201d Epstein and that he believed that the romantic relationship between his daughter and Epstein led Robert Maxwell to work to bring the latter into the \u201cfamily business\u201d \u2014 i.e., Maxwell\u2019s dealings with Israeli intelligence. This information is very revealing, given that the narrative, until now at least, has been that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein did not meet and begin their relationship until after Robert Maxwell\u2019s death in 1991, after which Ghislaine moved to New York.<\/p>\n Ben-Menashe says that well after the introduction, though again he does not specify what year, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein began a sexual blackmail operation with the purpose of extorting U.S. political and public figures on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. He stated:<\/p>\n In this case what really happened, my take on it, in the later thing, is that these guys were seen as agents. They weren\u2019t really competent to do very much. And so they found a niche for themselves \u2014 blackmailing American and other political figures.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He then confirmed, when prompted, that they were blackmailing Americans on behalf of Israeli intelligence.<\/p>\n In response to his statement, Zev Shalev replied,\u00a0\u201c<\/b>But, you know, for most people it\u2019s hard for them to think of Israel as being \u2026 blackmailing their leaders in the United States, it\u2019s a very \u2026\u201d at which point, Ben-Menashe interrupted and the following exchange took place:<\/p>\n Ari Ben-Menashe:\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>You\u2019re kidding? [laughs]\u2026. It was quite their M.O. Sleeping around is not a crime, it may be embarrassing, but it\u2019s not a crime, but sleeping with underage girls is a crime.<\/p>\n Shalev:\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0It was a crime in 2000 as well, but they let him off that\u2026<\/p>\n Ben-Menashe:\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>And that it is [why] always so he [Epstein] made sure these girls were underage.<\/p>\n In addition, when Shalev asked Ben-Menashe about\u00a0the relationship<\/a>\u00a0between Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ben-Menashe stated \u201cAfter a while, you know, what Mr. Epstein was doing was collecting intelligence on people in the United States. And so if you want to go to the U.S. if you\u2019re a high-profile politician you want to know information about people.\u201d Ben-Menashe subsequently stated that Barak was obtaining compromising information (i.e., blackmail) that Epstein had acquired on powerful people in the United States.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If Robert Maxwell did recruit Epstein and bring him into the \u201cfamily business\u201d and the world of Israeli intelligence, as Ben-Menashe has claimed, it provides supporting evidence for information provided to\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0by a former U.S. intelligence official, who chose to remain anonymous in light of the sensitivity of the claim.<\/p>\n This source, who has direct knowledge of the unauthorized use of PROMIS to support covert U.S. and Israeli intelligence projects, told\u00a0MintPress\u00a0<\/i>that \u201csome of the proceeds from the illicit sales of PROMIS were made available to Jeffrey Epstein for use in compromising targets of political blackmail.\u201d As was noted in a\u00a0Mintpress\u00a0<\/i>series on the Epstein scandal<\/a>, much of Epstein\u2019s funding also came from Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner, who has documented ties to both organized crime and U.S. and Israeli intelligence.<\/p>\n After the PROMIS software was stolen from its rightful owner and developer, Inslaw Inc., through the collusion of both U.S. and Israeli officials, it was marketed mainly by two men: Earl Brian, a close aide to Ronald Reagan, later U.S. envoy to Iran and close friend of Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan; and Robert Maxwell. Brian sold the bugged software through his company, Hadron Inc., while Maxwell sold it through an Israeli company he acquired called Degem. Before and following Maxwell\u2019s acquisition of Degem, the company was\u00a0a known front<\/a>\u00a0for Mossad operations and Mossad operatives in Latin America often posed as Degem employees.<\/p>\n With Maxwell \u2014 Epstein\u2019s alleged recruiter and father of Epstein\u2019s alleged madam \u2014 having been one of the main salespeople involved in selling PROMIS software on behalf of intelligence, he would have been in a key position to furnish Epstein\u2019s nascent sexual blackmail operation with the proceeds from the sale of PROMIS.<\/p>\n This link between Epstein\u2019s sexual blackmail operation and the PROMIS software scandal is notable given that the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been for blackmail purposes on U.S. public figures and politicians, as was described in\u00a0a recent\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0report<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When dealing in the world of deception and intrigue that defines intelligence operations, it is often difficult to determine whether any individual linked to an intelligence agency is telling the truth. Indeed, in the United States, there are\u00a0examples<\/a>\u00a0of elected intelligence officials committing perjury and lying to Congress\u00a0on several occasions<\/a>\u00a0with no consequences, and of intelligence officials feeding politically motivated and untrue information to agency assets in the media.<\/p>\n So, are Ari Ben-Menashe\u2019s claims regarding Epstein and the Maxwells trustworthy? In addition to the aforementioned, corroborating information for his claims, a review of Ben-Menashe\u2019s post-intelligence career suggests this is the case.<\/p>\n Ari Ben-Menashe arrives at Harare International Airport, in Zimbabwe, Feb. 22, 2002. Photo | AP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Prior to his arrest in November 1989, Ben-Menashe was a high-ranking officer in a special unit of Israeli military intelligence. He would\u00a0later claim<\/a>\u00a0that his arrest for attempting to sell American-made weapons to Iran was politically motivated, as he had threatened to expose what the U.S. government had done with the stolen PROMIS software if the U.S. did not cease providing Saddam Hussein\u2019s Iraq with chemical weapons. Ben-Menashe was\u00a0later acquitted<\/a>\u00a0when a U.S. court determined that his involvement in the attempted sale of military equipment to Iran was done on behalf of the Israeli state.<\/p>\n After his arrest, Ben-Menashe was visited in prison by Robert Parry, the former\u00a0Newsweek<\/i>\u00a0contributor and\u00a0Associated Press<\/i>\u00a0reporter who would later found and run\u00a0Consortium News<\/i>\u00a0until his recent passing last year. Parry\u00a0remembered that<\/a>, during that interview, \u201cBen-Menashe offered me startling new information about the Iran-Contra scandal, which I thought that I knew quite well.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s government immediately began to attack Ben-Menashe\u2019s credibility following his interview with Parry, and claimed that Ben-Menashe had never worked for Israeli intelligence. When Parry soon\u00a0found evidence<\/a>\u00a0that Ben-Menashe had indeed served in Israeli military intelligence, Israel\u2019s government was then forced to admit that he had worked for military intelligence, but only as a \u201clow-level translator.\u201d Yet,\u00a0the documentation<\/a>\u00a0Parry had uncovered described Ben-Menashe as having served in \u201ckey positions\u201d and performed \u201ccomplex and sensitive assignments.\u201d<\/p>\n A year later, Ben-Menashe would be interviewed by another journalist, Seymour Hersh. It would be Ben-Menashe who first revealed to Hersh secrets about Israel\u2019s nuclear program and the fact that British media mogul Robert Maxwell was an Israeli spy, revelations that Hersh would not only independently corroborate but include in his book\u00a0The Samson Option: Israel\u2019s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy<\/i><\/a>. Hersh was then sued by Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell-owned Mirror Group for libel. The case was\u00a0later settled<\/a>\u00a0in Hersh\u2019s favor, as the claims Hersh had made were true and not libelous. As a result, the Mirror Group paid Hersh for damages, covered his legal costs, and issued him a formal apology.<\/p>\n After Ben-Menashe\u2019s interviews by Hersh and Parry, Israel\u2019s government was apparently concerned enough about what Ben-Menashe would tell congressional investigators that it\u00a0attempted to kidnap him<\/a>\u00a0and bring him back to Israel to face state charges, much like Israeli intelligence had done to Israel\u2019s nuclear-weapons whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. The plan was foiled largely thanks to Parry.<\/p>\n Parry, who broke many key stories related to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and beyond, was tipped off by a U.S. intelligence source about a joint U.S.-Israel plan to have Ben-Menashe first be denied entry to the United States on his planned trip to give congressional testimony. Per the plan, Ben-Menashe would be denied entry to the U.S. in Los Angeles and then be deported to Israel, where he would have stood trial for \u201cexposing state secrets.\u201d Parry called Ben-Menashe and convinced him to delay his flight until he secured a guarantee for safe passage from the U.S. government.<\/p>\n Ben-Menashe subsequently gave\u00a0a sworn statement<\/a>\u00a0to the House Judiciary Committee that mostly focused on U.S.-Israel collusion regarding the theft and creation of a \u201cbackdoor\u201d into the PROMIS software. Ben-Menashe offered to name names and provide corroborating evidence for several of his claims if he was offered immunity by the committee, which, for whatever reason. declined that request.<\/p>\n Prior to the conclusion of the Hersh \u201clibel\u201d trial, which would later uphold Ben-Menashe\u2019s claims regarding Robert Maxwell\u2019s Mossad activities as true, there was a concerted effort in the U.S. press to downplay Ben-Menashe\u2019s credibility. For instance,\u00a0Newsweek<\/i>\u00a0\u2014 in an article on Ben-Menashe entitled \u201cOne Man, Many Tales<\/a>\u201d \u2014 claimed that \u201cinconsistencies may undermine Ben-Menashe\u2019s testimony in the British courtroom proceedings,\u201d citing inconsistencies from sources in Israel\u2019s government and Israeli intelligence as well as\u00a0Ben-Menashe\u2019s ex-wife<\/a>\u00a0and Israeli journalist Shmuel (or Samuel) Segev, a\u00a0former IDF colonel<\/a>. It goes without saying that such sources had much to gain from any effort to discredit Ben-Menashe\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n According to Parry, this media campaign, which employed American journalists with\u00a0close ties<\/a>\u00a0to Israel\u2019s government and intelligence agencies, was very successful \u201cin marginalizing Ben-Menashe by 1993, at least in the eyes of the Washington Establishment.\u201d After a years-long media campaign to discredit Ben-Menashe, \u201cthe Israelis seemed to view him as a declining threat, best left alone. He was able to pick up the pieces of his life, creating a second act as an international political consultant and businessman arranging sales of grain.\u201d The effort to marginalize Ben-Menashe has continued well into recent years, with mainstream news outlets still referring to him as a \u201cself-described ex-Israeli spy<\/a>\u201d \u2014 despite the well-documented fact that Ben-Menashe worked for Israeli intelligence \u2014 as a means of downplaying his claims regarding his time in Israel\u2019s intelligence service.<\/p>\n After the conclusion of the Hersh libel trial, Ben-Menashe became an international political consultant who \u201csurrounded his far-flung business activities in secrecy and got involved with some controversial international figures, such as Zimbabwe\u2019s leader Robert Mugabe,\u201d and<\/p>\n \u201cconducted his international consulting business \u2026 in a wide variety of global hotspots, including conflict zones,\u201d according to Parry. In addition to Mugabe, Ben-Menashe\u00a0has also recently come under fire<\/a>\u00a0for his consulting work on behalf of Sudan\u2019s military junta and Venezuelan opposition politician Henri Falc\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Ben-Menashe has also maintained ties to several different intelligence services and\u00a0eventually became<\/a>\u00a0a controversial whistleblower whose information\u00a0led to the arrest<\/a>\u00a0of the former head of Canada\u2019s Security Intelligence Review Committee, Arthur Porter.<\/p>\n As far as his character is concerned,\u00a0Parry noted<\/a>\u00a0that Ben-Menashe could often be \u201chis own worst enemy\u201d and that, even though Parry considered his information regarding Iran-Contra and PROMIS reliable and noted that much of it was later corroborated, he \u201coften compound[ed] his media problem by treating journalists in a high-handed manner, either due to his suspicions of them or his arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n Bill Hamilton, the original developer of the PROMIS software and head of Inslaw Inc., also found Ben-Menashe\u2019s claims regarding the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to be credible, though he expressed doubts about Ben-Menashe\u2019s character.<\/p>\n Hamilton told\u00a0MintPress<\/i>\u00a0the following about Ben-Menashe:<\/p>\n Ari Ben Menashe was the first source to tell us reliable information about the role of Rafi Eitan and Israeli intelligence vis-a-vis PROMIS but, in the end, of course, he was a clandestine services-type guy whose official duties include the ability and willingness to lie, cheat, and steal.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n While Ben-Menashe may have been viewed as a \u201cdeclining threat\u201d after the early 1990s, his plans to meet with Robert Parry of\u00a0Consortium News<\/i>\u00a0years later in 2012 to discuss Iran-Contra and other covert dealings of the 1980s appeared to change that. Right before he planned to travel from Canada to the United States to meet with Parry and \u201cfinally prove\u201d the truthfulness of his past claims,\u00a0a fire-bomb was thrown<\/a>\u00a0into his Montreal home, destroying it.<\/p>\n Ari Ben-Menashe surveys the damage to his home after it was mysteriously firebombed. Photos | Robert Parry<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Though Canadian media\u00a0referred to<\/a>\u00a0the incendiary device as a \u201cmolotov cocktail,\u201d\u00a0Consortium News<\/i>\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe arson squad\u2019s initial assessment is said to be that the flammable agent was beyond the sort of accelerant used by common criminals,\u201d leading to speculation that the accelerant was military-grade.<\/p>\n Had it not been for the bomb, the origins of which Canadian police failed to determine, Ben-Menashe would have traveled to the U.S. alongside a \u201csenior Israeli intelligence figure\u201d to be interviewed by Parry. The other intelligence-linked individual,\u00a0according to Parry<\/a>, \u201cconcluded that the attack was meant as a message from Israeli authorities to stay silent about the historical events that he was expected to discuss.\u201d<\/p>\n Though neither Ben-Menashe nor Parry directly blamed Israel\u2019s government for the destruction of Ben-Menashe\u2019s home,\u00a0Parry noted<\/a>\u00a0that the bombing did succeed in \u201cintimidating Ben-Menashe, shutting down possible new disclosures of Israeli misconduct from the other intelligence veteran, and destroying records that would have helped Ben-Menashe prove whatever statements he might make.\u201d<\/p>\n While Ben-Menashe\u2019s post-intelligence associations with controversial governments and individuals have given plenty of fodder to the still thriving media campaign to discredit his claims about covert U.S.-Israel operations in the 1980s, there remain troubling indications that the Israeli government sees his information on decades-old events as a threat.<\/p>\n Now, with the major efforts by powerful Americans and Israelis to distance themselves from Jeffrey Epstein and other figures associated with his depraved sex trafficking operation, Ben-Menashe may soon again find his reputation \u2014 and perhaps more \u2014 under fire.<\/p>\n Feature photo | Graphic by Claudio Cabrera<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIn\u00a0an interview<\/a>\u00a0with Zev Shalev, former\u00a0CBS News<\/i>\u00a0executive producer and award-winning investigative journalist for\u00a0Narativ<\/i>, the former senior executive for Israel\u2019s Directorate of Military Intelligence, Ari Ben-Menashe, claimed not only to have met Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in the 1980s, but that both Epstein and Maxwell were\u00a0already\u00a0<\/i>working with Israeli intelligence during that time period.<\/p>\n\u201cThey found a niche\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nPROMIS, sex, and blackmail<\/h2>\n
Can an ex-spy be trusted?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nA threat revived<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n