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The Scandal that Isn't
(Jerusalem Post) Avinoam Bar Yosef - Every four years, around election time, Washington intrigues seem to chip away at Israel's integrity. On the eve of the 2000 elections, the press reported that ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk's security clearance had been lifted for supposedly making improper use of his personal computer. Turns out that during long flights, Indyk had written up summaries of secret conversations with world leaders in order to save precious time upon his return to the State Department. And who remembers the 1997 "mega affair" during the Clinton administration? The Mossad's deputy chief of station in Washington had a telephone conversation from her home and mentioned "mega." American intelligence operatives monitoring the call assumed they were discussing a "mole," until they learned that "mega" was simply the Mossad's nickname for the entire CIA Middle East desk. Israel's working assumption should be that the scandal stems from bureaucratic competition between neoconservatives and their opponents within the administration. When all is said and done, the Franklin affair will go the way of all the previous "scandals" that were motivated by politics and personality. The writer is director of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute.