After dealing with interminable delaying tactics, a trial date of Oct 28th 2008 has finally been set for Weissman and Rosen, the two AIPAC officials who stand accused of funnelling classified information about US foreign policy on Iran to an official in the Israeli embassy. If you remember, Larry Franklin already pleaded guilty and is currently serving time.
Frankly I don't have high hopes for this trial. The funniest thing about the whole affairs is how the New York Times tried oh-so hard to avoid using the word "spying" and instead called it "sharing information".
The pro-Israelis have already raised a hue and cry, claiming that spying for Israel is normal activitity that is sanctioned by the Bush administration -- which unfortunately is probably true. Israeli agent have a lon history of spying on the US -- even at the highest governmental levels -- and have been regularly caught too. And you know what happens? Nothing.
Hell, Israel stole nuclear material from the US to make its first bomb, Israel strafed a US naval vessel and Israeli agents posing as Egyptian Arabs placed bombs in UK and US sites in Egypt in order to try to harm Egypt's foreign relations ... and still nothing was done.
I'm sure the usual pro-Israeli crowd will come up with lots of similar excuses for spying on the US -- they did the same for Jonathan Pollard. First the Israelis denied vehemently that Pollard was spying for them ... but then they eventually admitted it, and claimed that Israel was actually entitled to spy on the US because he was collecting information that the US gave to Israel anyway. And the old "anti-Semitism" card has been played already in this case too. In fact the FBI investigation was deliberately leaked to CBS before they could follow the espionage trail to the Israelis themselves, which is why Franklin was merely accused of unauthorized disclosure of classified information rather than espionage.
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