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Across the world there have been numerous reports of people who identify themselves as Israeli art students fraudulently selling fake paintings to unsuspecting collectors. The scam is closely related to a number of high-profile espionage allegations against Israel during the 2001-2002 period in the United States.

The scam

The "Israeli art student scam" is a well-known con in which scammers, claiming to be travelling Israeli art students, approach people in their homes or on the street and attempt to sell them oil paintings and frames for excessive prices. The paintings are represented as original and valuable art by up-and-coming talents but are in fact cheap, mass-produced works bought wholesale from China. The scammers explain that they are directly approaching people with offers because properly exhibiting the work in an art gallery would be prohibitively expensive. Framing is often provided at a later date by mobile vans in order to obtain the phone numbers of willing "marks" and extract as much money as possible.

The scam has been reported in Canada , Australia, New Zealand and Seattle .

The Australian Northern Territory police have released a warning about the scheme.

2001–2002 Israeli art student spying scandal

During the 2001–2002 period in the United States there were official reports of hundreds of young Israelis posing as art students spying on federal buildings and employees.

In January 2001 Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) field offices around the country reported that the "art students" had been attempting to penetrate offices for over a year, as well as other law enforcement and Department of Defence agencies. They had also visited the homes of many DEA officers and senior federal officials and attempted to sell art. Suspicious agents observed that when the "art students" departed they did not approach their neighbours. DEA Agents reported on 130 incidents involving "art students". Some "art students" were caught diagramming the architecture of federal buildings. Some were found to have photographed federal officials.

According to Jane's Intelligence Digest, in 2002 FBI officials claimed that the "art students" were "running a major eavesdropping operation that had penetrated into the highest echelons of the US administration".

Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive warning

In March 2001, the US Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) issued a warning about people identifying themselves as "Israeli art students" attempting to bypass security and gain entry to federal buildings, and even to the private residences of senior federal officials under the guise of selling art. Subsequent to the NCIX bulletin, officials raised other red flags, including an Air Force alert, a Federal Protective Service alert, an Office of National Drug Control Policy security alert and a request that the Immigration and Naturalization Service investigate a specific case. The "art students" were subsequently treated with more caution by officials.

Leaked Drug Enforcement Agency report

A leaked 60-page DEA report in 2002 revealed that up to 200 young Israelis had been arrested in America in the past year, of which about 140 were arrested before the September 11 attacks. The other 60 were arrested on October 31, 2002 by the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service in San Diego, Kansas City, Cleveland, Houston and St. Louis. Rather than selling art, these Israelis were working in kiosks in shopping centres across America selling toys. The FBI was investigating the kiosks as a front operation for espionage activities. The report said that most of the Israelis interrogated by Americans reported having served in the IDF in military intelligence, electronic signals interception and explosive ordnance units. One of the detainees was an Israeli general's son, another was a former bodyguard to the chief of the IDF, and another had operated Patriot missiles. In 2002 several officials dismissed reports of a spy ring and said the allegations were made by a Drug Enforcement Agency who was angry his theories had been dismissed.

The DEA report also claims that Israeli companies that had provided telephony services for U.S. businesses and U.S. federal organizations were connected to the "art students" and advised that Israeli telephony companies should be investigated. It raised the possibility that "back doors" had been installed in communications equipment to assist Israeli espionage.

September 11 allegations

It has been suggested that operatives in this "art student spy ring" were tracking the 9/11 hijackers and knew that the attacks were going to take place, although the DEA memo was primarily concerned with the students' efforts to foil investigations into unrelated Israeli organized crime.

German weekly Die Zeit published two articles regarding the September 11 controversy, one of which, titled "Next Door to Mohammed Atta" concerned allegations that Israeli intelligence had been tailing the 911 hijackers before the attack.

Some of the Israeli "art students" lived for a period of time in Hollywood, Florida, the same small city where Mohammed Atta and fellow terrorists had lived before September 11. Michael Ruppert in his book Crossing the Rubicon claimed that the ring had "heavy operations in some areas connected with 9/11". Ruppert and Alexander Cockburn have also argued that there was disproportionate media silence about the issue .

Canadian espionage rumors

In August 2004, a number of Israeli "art students" in Calgary, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Toronto and Ottawa were deported from Canada for working in the country illegally. The Calgary Herald wrote that the deportations "raised the specter of international espionage". However, claims that a spy ring was operating in Canada that were raised by newspapers were dismissed by Canadian officials. Officials noted that the Canadian art scammers did not target government officials or offices but instead focused on wealthy neighbourhoods

Denial of spy ring by officials

In 2002 several officials dismissed reports of a spy ring and said the allegations were made by a Drug Enforcement Agency who was angry his theories had been dismissed. Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden describe the claims as an "urban myth"

Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz also published an article on the spying allegations, noting that most of the allegations were based upon a single internal report from the DEA. It also noted that the U.S. administration was "desperate to keep the affair quiet" .

Official Israeli response

The Israeli government has denied the espionage allegations, calling them nonsense.

The Great Arab Refugee Scam

The story of the Arabs who left the coastal areas of Palestine in the spring of 1948 encapsulates one of the great international frauds of the 20th century. The Arabs are the only declared "refugees" who became refugees by the initiative of their own leaders. The concoction of the monstrous charge that it was the Jews who had driven out the Arabs of Palestine was a strategic decision made by the leaders of the Arab League months after the Arabs' flight.

The Arab "refugees" were not driven out by anyone. The vast majority left at the order or exhortation of their leaders - always with the same reassurance - that it would help the Arab states in the war they were about to launch to destroy the State of Israel.

The fabrication can most easily be detected by the simple circumstance that at the time the alleged expulsion of the Arabs by Zionists was in progress, nobody noticed it. Foreign newspapermen abounded in the country, in daily contact with all sides - and they did, in fact, write about the flight of the Arabs, but even those most hostile to the Jews saw nothing to suggest that the flight was not voluntary.

In the three months that the major part of the flight took place, the London Times published 11 leading articles on the situation in Palestine, in addition to extensive news reports. In none was there even a remote hint that the Zionists were driving Arabs from their homes.

Official Arab response

The Arabs deny the allegations, calling them nonsense.

Palestinian population scam on US taxpayers

Palestinian leaders in the West Bank have built luxury mansions for their personal use which were paid for by American tax dollars. A demographic study has revealed that the actual population of Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza is actually 50% lower than that reported by the Palestinian Authorities. The study found that only 2.5 million Palestinian Arabs reside in Gaza and the West Bank, not the 3.8 million claimed by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). The numbers were fabricated in order to inflate aid requests. Palestinians living abroad in foreign countries who are not refugees were counted as residents within the Palestinian Authority. 210,.000 Palestinian Arabs who reside in Jerusalem were counted as citizens of the Palestinian Authority.

References

1. ^ ""Israeli art scam" preying on people's kindness". Calgary Sun. 2009-08-19. |first=Renato |last=Gandia
2. ^ "Oil painting scam hits the Border". Border Mail. 2009-04-22.
3. ^ "Information On An Israeli Art Scam". Komo News. 2006-08-30.
4. Coulter, Narelle (2006-01-18). "Door slammed on 'original' art scam". Star News Group.
5. "Police warn against art scam". Northern Territory police. 2006-11-22.
6. ^ Ketcham, Christopher (2002-05-07). "The Israeli "art student" mystery". Salon.com.
7. "Allies and Espionage". Jane's. 2002-03-15.
8. "Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive: Suspicious Visitors to Federal Facilities (archived at Internet Archive".
9. "Telegraph.co.uk: US arrests 200 young Israelis in spying investigation".
10. "Sunday Herald (UK) via Internet Archive: Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA?".
11. Mintz, John (March 7, 2002). "U.S. officials dismiss report of Israeli spies". Washington Post. Retrieved October 18, 2008. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
12. ^ Guttman, Nathan (2002-05-07). "Spies, or students? Were the Israelis just trying to sell their paintings, or agents in a massive espionage ring?". Haaretz.
13. An Enigma: Vast Israeli Spy Network Dismantled in the US. Le Monde (Paris) March 5, 2002. Retrieved 2010-01-12.
14. "Deadly Mistakes". Die Zeit. 2002-10-02.
15. "Next Door to Mohammed Atta". Die Zeit. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dete= ignored (help)
16. Ruppert, Michael E. (2004). Crossing the Rubicon (illustrated ed.). New Society Publishers. p. 263. ISBN 0865715408, 9780865715400. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
17. Cockburn, Alexander; St Clair, Jeffrey. The Politics of Anti-Semitism. AK Press. p. 124. ISBN 1902593774, 9781902593777. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
18. McGraw, Seamus. "Espionage Ruled Out in Case of Bad Art". Forward Magazine.
19. Mintz, John (March 7, 2002). "U.S. officials dismiss report of Israeli spies". Washington Post. Retrieved October 18, 2008. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
20. The Refugee Scam
21. The Refugee Scam
22. The Refugee Scam
23. Palestinian population scam on US taxpayers
24. Palestinian population scam on US taxpayers