A senior Shabak agent has been dispatched to Washington D.C. in order to present the U.S. administration with what is being called irrefutable proof that the six organizations recently linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) are indeed terrorist organizations, Walla reports.
The agent will be giving a number of briefings to senior administration officials and will provide them with intelligence information that demonstrates the links between the six organizations and the PFLP. The organizations operate under cover of being civil or humanitarian organizations but are in fact controlled by senior PFLP leaders and employ their activists in various positions, including many who have been involved in terrorism, Israel alleges.
Following the declaration by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz that the organizations would henceforth be considered terrorist organizations, the Americans demanded clarifications, and a special Shabak agent also representing the Foreign Ministry was selected to perform the delicate mission. The agent will reportedly also be presenting his information before the U.S. Congress.
The visit is being coordinated between the Shabak, the Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the Prime Minister’s Office. It follows a visit made last week to Washington by the head of the Foreign Ministry’s department of strategic affairs, who updated the Bureau of Counterterrorism within the U.S. State Department on Israel’s intention to declare the six organizations terrorist entities and also provided the Americans with evidence proving Israel’s assertions. According to a senior Israeli official, it appears that last week’s visit was not a success, due to the fact that the U.S. State Department failed to pass the information it received from Israel to the Middle East Bureau which deals with Israel-Palestinian affairs.
As a result of this failing, the Americans declared themselves surprised by the Israeli announcement and State Department spokesman Ned Price demanded clarifications, explaining that he had not been updated on Israel’s intentions in advance. The demand then took the Israelis by surprise; a day later, Defense Ministry officials announced that they had indeed given the Americans advance notice, but for some reason, the information had not reached the right ears.
“The intelligence materials related to the terrorist organizations are part of a large file of information which includes irrefutable evidence – including videos, photographs, receipts of money transfers, and other proofs – all related to these six organizations that support terrorist activity,” a senior Israeli official told Walla. “These materials leave no room for doubt on the matter; they prove beyond doubt that the organizations and the people belonging to them are all linked to the terrorist PFLP.”