Released FBI files describe arms smuggling for Israel — Jerusalem Post
The United States has released previously classified FBI materials on investigations into networks linked to intelligence gathering and arms supplies for the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine and the newly established state of Israel in the 1940s and 1950s. The Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy published the archive on October 21 following Freedom of Information Act requests, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The materials are part of the FBI’s ISINT counterintelligence file dedicated to Israeli intelligence services. According to the released documents, the bureau had conducted an investigation since at least July 1949. The files contain surveillance records, suspicions of violations of arms export rules, contacts with Israeli representatives, and the activities of networks that emerged before Israel declared independence.
Investigation into arms supplies
One episode concerned a shipment concealed in crates marked “used equipment.” While being loaded onto a vessel, one crate fell and broke open, revealing containers marked as explosives of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On January 15, 1948, the FBI announced the arrest of four suspects — Philip Alper, Moses Wolfson, Jack Dorfman, and Joseph Sager. They were charged with providing false information about the shipment’s contents in export documents.
The episode occurred after President Harry Truman’s administration imposed restrictions on arms exports to Mandatory Palestine and neighboring countries in December 1947. Washington supported the UN plan for the partition of Palestine, but that support did not give private individuals the right to circumvent export restrictions.
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The documents also mention Al Schwimmer, who participated in the creation of the Israeli Air Force and later founded Israel Aerospace Industries. In 1950, he was found guilty in the United States of conspiracy to violate the Neutrality Act and export control laws and was fined $10,000. In 2001, President Bill Clinton pardoned Schwimmer.
References to ADL and the founder of AIPAC
Some materials concern the acquisition by people linked to the Anti-Defamation League of documents about the activities of the League of Arab States in New York. According to an FBI memorandum, 76 pages of these materials were passed to U.S. officials through intermediaries and later reached the bureau. At the same time, the records themselves do not prove that the ADL engaged in espionage or acted on instructions from the Israeli government. The organization denied illegal activity.
The files also mention Isaiah Leo Kenen, who later founded the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC. The documents indicate that he was connected to the Israeli delegation to the UN and had previously registered as a representative of a foreign principal under the U.S. FARA law. At the same time, this does not indicate that the current AIPAC acts on instructions from the Israeli government or must register as a foreign agent. AIPAC states that it is an American organization that is neither funded nor controlled by the Israeli government.
Part of the released materials remains redacted. The documents do not establish the content of communications that the FBI sought to monitor through a shortwave radio receiver in a private house in Brooklyn in 1946–1947. Not all individuals mentioned in the files were suspected of wrongdoing, and not every suspicion examined by the FBI resulted in criminal charges or a conviction.
