January 4, 2009: After a three year investigation, a former U.S. Army civilian employee pled guilty to spying for Israel in the 1980s, and passing on classified documents. The Israeli spy, Ben-Ami Kadish, worked for the same Israeli spymaster that handled former US Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard.
While Kadish won't get more than a five year sentence, Pollard was given a life because of the large quantity of secrets he passed on the Israel. The U.S. has long believed that Israel was using more Americans as spies in the 1980s, and the Kadish case proves it. The U.S. was angered by the Pollard operation, and the fact that some of the stolen data ended up in the Soviet Union. It was believed, at the time, that the Israelis were trading the Soviets U.S. classified data, in return for the Soviets allowing more Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel. The U.S. was stonewalled by Israel during the Pollard investigation, and the Israelis have always insisted that Pollard was recruited by a "rogue operation." But U.S. counter-intelligence investigators found no evidence of that. Finally, in 1998, Israel admitted that they had recruited Pollard. The U.S. believes there were more Americans than Pollard and Kadish recruited, and still wants to find out who the others were. Israel still refuses to cooperate, and continues to ask for Pollard's release from prison.
