MORE ON THE SPY SCANDAL

Sharon: "Israel Does Not Spy in the United States"
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is denying allegations that a Pentagon worker stole secrets for Israel, according to an interview by the Jerusalem Post released Wednesday. "Israel does not spy in the United States. I say this in the most emphatic way possible," Sharon said. (AP/Los Angeles Times)

See also AIPAC Says U.S.-Israel Ties Are Under Attack
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee charged Tuesday in a letter to supporters that the "very essence" of relations between the U.S. and Israel is under assault as a result of reports that the FBI is investigating whether AIPAC officials passed classified information to Israel. The letter strongly denies involvement in criminal activity or receipt of secret intelligence information by the organization or its employees, calling the allegations "false and baseless." In the letter, AIPAC President Bernice Manocherian and Executive Director Howard Kohr said the group will not "abide any suggestion that American citizens should be perceived as being involved in illegal activities simply for seeking to participate in the decisions of their elected leaders or officials who work for them."

"What we've had is the criminalization of the foreign policy debate. There are accusations being floated around more often based on policy disagreement rather than fact," said Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Iran and Iraq specialist in the Pentagon's policy office. Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said that the investigation was the result of either malicious intent or "some incompetence of not understanding reality," a reference to long-standing U.S.-Israeli cooperation. (Washington Post)

Witch Hunt? - Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Today, anti-Semitic witch hunts can be dressed up as ideological conflicts between the Bush administration's so-called "hard-liners" and "moderates." To be sure, there are those in the U.S. government - notably, in the State Department and CIA - who have profound policy disagreements with key Defense Department decision-makers, particularly about the magnitude of the danger from the Iranian regime and how best to counter it. This has been particularly true since President Bush's State of the Union declaration after September 11, 2001, that Iran was part of the "axis of evil." Simply writing off the attacks to bureaucratic rivalry obscures the fact that Mr. Bush has made clear his own views about the Iranian mullahocracy. (Washington Times)