Netanyahu embraces threat to US security

Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped a former spy feared by the United States as his national security advisor.

Sources close to Netanyahu have confirmed that Uzi Arad will be Israel’s next national security adviser, The Washington Times reported Tuesday.

The former Mossad chief has been denied entry into the United States during the past two years based on the grounds that he is a security risk.

Arad was implicated in the indictment of former Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to providing classified information about Iran to two employees of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The future Israeli national security advisor has admitted that he has not been able to obtain a United States visa despite pressure from influential Israeli and American individuals.

“The director general of the Israel Foreign Ministry did tell his American counterparts that there has been no cause to deny me a visa,” he told The Washington Times.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

According to Israeli and US officials, Arad has been denied a US visa since June 2007 under section 212 3(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The legislation permits consular officers and the US Justice Department to prohibit those who may seek “to violate any law of the United States relating to espionage or sabotage” from entering the country.

Arad was a member of the Israeli spy service for more than two decades beginning in 1975. Since then he has also served as Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser and as a contact for intelligence operations with the CIA.