By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
An Australian Defense Force officer was stripped of his security clearance after hiding his ties to the Jewish state and telling investigators that “Judaism mandates the loyalty of a Jew to his people and to the Land of Israel.”
An officer in the Australian army has been stripped of his security clearance because Asio believes he is more loyal to Israel than Australia, and at risk of being exploited by the Mossad.
The man told Asio interviewers he did not view Israel as a foreign government and that he would share classified information with the Israel Defense Forces if they asked for it.
Asio said the officer, who is Jewish and served 19 years in the Australian military, withheld information from Australian officials about training courses he had undertaken in Israel – where he is not a citizen – which included self-defence, security and firearms training.
In a decision published by the administrative review tribunal last week, Asio said the officer, anonymised as HWMW in tribunal documents, was not of “appropriate character and trustworthiness to hold any security clearance”.
“HWMW is vulnerable to influence or coercion to enable acts of espionage or foreign interference by Israeli Intelligence Services due to his loyalty to Israel,” the tribunal found.
“By virtue of HWMW’s demonstrated poor judgement, poor security practices, failure to comply with the obligations of a security clearance holder, his vulnerability to influence or coercion by the Israeli Intelligence Services, and HWMW’s demonstrated loyalty to Israel above the Australian government, ASIO assesses if HWMW were to continue to hold any level of security clearance, he would pose an unacceptable and avoidable risk to security.”
[…] HWMW told Asio: “Zionism is an essential theme within Judaism. Judaism mandates the loyalty of a Jew to his people and to the Land of Israel.”He said most Australian Jews do not volunteer to serve in the Australian defence force, but rather the Israel Defense Forces. He said he volunteered to serve in the ADF “as I felt a strong sense of belonging to Australia and I wanted to give back to the country and demonstrate the importance of serving here in Australia as opposed to the IDF”.
“It seems that events have now turned on me.”
In his interviews, HWMW said the purpose of his travel to Israel was for “community leadership” courses.
Under cross examination, HWMW maintained “there was no lie in that” but conceded “it wasn’t a complete disclosure”.
He later said, “I provided a truth, it’s not the full truth … it was only to save myself from interrogation and questioning.”
He said his failure to disclose his participation in CSG training courses “was an error on my part … and if I had my time again I would provide the full information”.
In a written statement to the tribunal HWMW said the ADF was a multicultural organisation that accepted “all peoples regardless of their race, religion, or sex”.
“Allowing Jews to serve within the ADF must come with an understanding that the Jew will have a level of loyalty for the Jewish Nation and for [the] State of Israel.”
He said if the ADF preferred not to enlist or commission Jews, “it would then be argued that this policy may be discriminatory to the Jewish People”.
For whatever reason, The Guardian left out this part from the officer’s statement:
The Australian Government is aware that every Jew harbours a varying degree of loyalty to Israel. Some have a higher and more overt levels of loyalty than others. This is the latent risk that the Australian Government must naturally accept when employing Jews. The revocation of my Security Clearance and subsequent removal of myself from the ADF, notwithstanding 19 years of service, on the grounds that I harbour loyalty to Israel, would be viewed within the Jewish World with apprehension. This further puts into question the standard of multiculturalism tolerated within the ADF.
Even while proclaiming his innocence, he issues a not-so-subtle threat on behalf of the “Jewish World.”
His comments are reminiscent of those of Jonathan Pollard, the US-born Jewish-American Naval intelligence analyst who stole massive troves of US military secrets and sold them to Israel.
In an interview with a Sheldon Adelson-owned Israeli outlet given after Pollard the Trump administration let him flee to Israel to make Aliyah, Pollard said: “The bottom line on this charge of dual loyalty is, I’m sorry, we’re Jews, and if we’re Jews, we will always have dual loyalty.”