1088 Ari Ben-Menashe: Epstein sexual blackmail for Israeli military intelligence; Bill Clinton was his biggest catch

Ari Ben-Menashe: Epstein sexual blackmail for Israeli military
intelligence; Bill Clinton was his biggest catch

Newsletter published on December 15, 2019

(1) Ari Ben-Menashe: Epstein sexual blackmail for Israeli military
intelligence; Bill Clinton was his biggest catch
(2) Israeli company Carbyne911 conducts surveillance while 'stopping
Terror attacks'

(1) Ari Ben-Menashe: Epstein sexual blackmail for Israeli military
intelligence; Bill Clinton was his biggest catch
https://www.mintpressnews.com/ari-ben-menashe-israel-relationship-jeffrey-epstein/263465/

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Former Spy Details Israel’s Main Motive Behind
Epstein’s Sexual Blackmail Operation

MintPress speaks with Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli spy who worked
closely with Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, as part of
their work with Israeli military intelligence and had frequent
encounters with Jeffrey Epstein.

by Whitney Webb

December 13th, 2019

By Whitney Webb Whitney Webb  @_whitneywebb

MONTREAL — In recent weeks, renewed attention has been brought to the
allegations that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking
and sexual blackmail operation was run on behalf of Israeli military
intelligence. Those claims revolve around statements made by a former
Israeli military intelligence official turned public relations
consultant Ari Ben-Menashe, whose allegations regarding the Epstein
scandal were reported by MintPress this past October.

Ben-Menashe’s claims related to Epstein first surfaced in an interview
between Ben-Menashe and Zev Shalev of the independent news outlet,
Narativ. As detailed in a MintPress summary and commentary of that
interview, Ben-Menashe claimed to have seen Jeffrey Epstein in the
office of Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, several times in
the 1980s.

At the time, Ben-Menashe was in close contact with Robert Maxwell
regarding their work mutual work with Israeli military intelligence.
Maxwell, in addition to heading a media empire and being a one-time
member of U.K. parliament, was a longtime operative for Israeli
intelligence, so much so that his 1991 funeral was attended by no less
than six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence as well as
several high-ranking Israeli politicians and prime ministers.

Maxwell is alleged to have recruited Jeffrey Epstein for Israeli
intelligence and later introduced Epstein to Ben-Menashe and another
operative, Nicholas Davies. Epstein was introduced to Ben-Menashe as
having been pre-approved by leading figures in Israel’s military
intelligence directorate, known as Aman.

MintPress recently conducted its own interview with Mr. Ben-Menashe as
part of an ongoing investigation on the life and connections of the
now-infamous Jeffrey Epstein.

Part of that interview is provided below with relevant commentary,
particularly regarding claims related to the relationship between
Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Epstein’s trip to
Tel Aviv immediately prior to his first arrest, and the reasons for
Israeli military intelligence’s interest in orchestrating and financing
a major sexual blackmail operation targeting top U.S. politicians.

"Israel Requested that Epstein Target Clinton"

MintPress News first asked Ben-Menashe about Robert Maxwell, a known
asset and operative for Israeli intelligence, having recruited Jeffrey
Epstein. Ben-Menashe confirmed this to MintPress and also noted that,
after their initial meeting, Epstein was frequently present in Maxwell’s
office in London.

During the 1980s, as MintPress previously reported, Epstein claimed to
have been an intelligence operative and so-called "bounty hunter" in the
world of shadow finance. During this time, he was known to have
developed close relationships with several British arms dealers,
particularly Sir Douglas Leese. Thus, Epstein appeared to frequently be
traveling between the Middle East and London, which is also supported by
Epstein’s now-infamous Austrian passport which he was believed to have
carried during this period of time.

Ben-Menashe told MintPress that he had not only met Epstein after
Epstein had been recently recruited by Israeli military intelligence,
but had seen him on several occasions thereafter as Epstein "used to be
in [Robert Maxwell’s] office [in London] quite often" and would arrive
there between trips to and from Israel.

In addition, Ben-Menashe revealed his understanding of why Epstein was
eventually shepherded into acting as a professional sexual blackmailer
on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. Per Ben-Menashe, there were
concerns among Israeli intelligence figures that, following the Reagan
Era, a new president would push for Israel to make peace with the
Palestinians, something those officials sought to avoid by any means
necessary.

ABM | Here’s the thing… Mr. Carter… as in President Carter… the Israelis
feared that Mr. Clinton, when he was campaigning for President, will be
a repeat of Mr. Carter. He wanted to press them for peace with the
Palestinians and all that stuff. They feared… Clinton wasn’t that… but
they feared he was that… And I think Mr. Epstein was sent early on to
catch up with President Clinton.

MintPress News (MPN) | Well, that’s interesting because the first year
Clinton was in office, Epstein was already attending donor dinners at
the White House and making White House visits as well.

ABM | Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. I believe his biggest client was
Mr. Clinton catch, or catch, or whatever, and he had a few other
congressmen and what not but Clinton was, was his biggest catch.

Thus, Ben-Menashe argues, when Bill Clinton’s candidacy in the 1992 U.S.
Presidential election became clear, efforts were made to target him via
sexual blackmail and Jeffrey Epstein was chosen for that purpose. Bill
Clinton was eventually blackmailed by the state of Israel and his
administration was also targeted by Israeli espionage as part of the
"Mega" spy scandal. Epstein’s involvement in the Clinton administration
and his visits to the White House date back to Clinton’s first year in
office. More information on the Epstein-Clinton relationship can be
found in this MintPress report.

In addition, MintPress also asked Ben-Menashe if he was aware of
Ghislaine Maxwell being directly involved with her father’s
intelligence-related activities prior to his death in 1991. Ben-Menashe
noted that Ghislaine accompanied her father so frequently, including on
a now-infamous 1989 party on Maxwell’s yacht where Donald Trump and
several key figures in the PROMIS software scandal were in attendance,
that she was involved in his intelligence-related activities to some
extent. However, he stopped short of saying how involved she was or what
she has specifically been involved in prior to her father’s death.

When did Epstein really meet Ehud Barak?

One of the more controversial ties between Epstein and powerful
politicians is that between Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak. Barak has claimed to have only met Epstein in 2002 and, from
that point on, their relationship was very public, with Barak frequently
visiting and even spending the night at residences owned by Epstein,
including apartments where he housed the underage girls that he
exploited. Barak also visited Epstein’s now-infamous island and
recruited him to help fund the Israeli intelligence-connected company,
Carbyne911.

However, there appear to be indications that Epstein and Barak may have
met much earlier than Barak has since claimed. Given that Ben-Menashe
claimed to have learned of Epstein’s recruitment by Israeli military
intelligence in the 1980s, MintPress asked if one of the people involved
in his recruitment was Ehud Barak. Barak served as head of Israel’s
military intelligence directorate, Aman, from April 1983 to January 1986.

Ben-Menashe could not recall the exact year when he first became aware
of Epstein’s recruitment by Israeli military intelligence but stated
that it was "most likely" during Ehud Barak’s tenure as the head of
Aman. Yet, even if Epstein’s recruitment did not take place while Barak
headed Aman, it is highly likely — per Ben-Menashe — that Epstein had
met Barak during this time because "Robert Maxwell became buddies with
Ehud Barak…and he [Robert Maxwell] probably introduced them, the young
man [Epstein] to Mr. Barak" if the two were not already acquainted.

Since the Epstein scandal broke, Ehud Barak has insisted that he did not
meet Epstein until the year 2002 and claimed that the two had been
introduced by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Ben-Menashe
dismissed the possibility that this claim was true, emphatically stating
that he was "sure they had met before" and that he did not believe that
their first meeting was in 2002.

Epstein’s 2008 Trip to Tel Aviv

Just a few months before he was sentenced to prison for the first time
in June 2008, Jeffrey Epstein had made a sudden visit to the Israeli
capital of Tel Aviv. In April of that year, the Palm Beach Daily News
reported that Epstein was staying at the Tel Aviv Hilton and quoted an
Epstein spokesman as saying that he was "spending Passover, meeting with
Israeli research scientists, and taking a tour of military bases."

Sometime prior to Epstein’s sentencing on June 30 of that year,
Alexander Acosta –then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of
Florida– signed off on a lenient sentence for Epstein who was charged
with soliciting sex from a minor. That legal arrangement has since been
nicknamed the "sweetheart deal." Acosta later told Trump transition
officials prior to his nomination for Secretary of Labor that his
decision to approve the "sweetheart deal" came after he had been told to
back off in the Epstein case because Epstein "belonged to intelligence."

Though Acosta did not specify from whom he had received this
information, former CIA agent Phil Giraldi has made a convincing case
that they originated from Epstein’s then-lawyer Alan Dershowitz, a close
associate of Epstein with ties to high-ranking Israeli politicians, and
Barry Krischer, then-Florida State Attorney for Palm Beach who recently
received an award from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for his
"outstanding contribution to the legal profession and to the community
at large."

As detailed in a previous MintPress report on Epstein’s ties to Israel
published this past August, the ADL’s long-time top funders have close
ties to Epstein and his sexual blackmail network, particularly the
Bronfman family of Seagrams fame.

Ben-Menashe told MintPress that Epstein’s 2008 Tel Aviv visit was likely
"blowing smoke" and involved Epstein "trying to make himself important
maybe not to get arrested" and "hoping that the Israelis would help
him." He then added that "At the time they probably did" help Epstein,
but added that "the second time around [i.e. 2019], well…it would be a
harder sell."

Feature photo | A graphic shows Ari Ben-Menashe, left, and Jeffery
Epstein, right. Credit | Claudio Cabrera

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has
contributed to several independent media outlets including Global
Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among
others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the
2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in
Journalism. ==

(2) Israeli company Carbyne911 conducts surveillance while 'stopping
Terror attacks'

https://www.mintpressnews.com/cia-israel-mossad-jeffrey-epstein-orwellian-nightmare/261692/

THE TAKEOVER

How the CIA, Mossad and "the Epstein Network" are Exploiting Mass
Shootings to Create an Orwellian Nightmare

Following another catastrophic mass shooting or crisis event, Orwellian
"solutions" are set to be foisted on a frightened American public by the
very network connected, not only to Jeffrey Epstein, but to a litany of
crimes and a frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent in
the United States.

by Whitney Webb September 06th, 2019

By Whitney Webb

Following the arrest and subsequent death in prison of alleged child sex
trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a little-known Israeli tech company began to
receive increased publicity, but for all the wrong reasons. Not long
after Epstein’s arrest, and his relationships and finances came under
scrutiny, it was revealed that the Israeli company Carbyne911 had
received substantial funding from Jeffrey Epstein as well as Epstein’s
close associate and former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak, and
Silicon Valley venture capitalist and prominent Trump backer Peter Thiel.

Carbyne911, or simply Carbyne, develops call-handling and identification
capabilities for emergency response services in countries around the
world, including the United States, where it has already been
implemented in several U.S. counties and has partnered with major U.S.
tech companies like Google. It specifically markets its product as a way
of mitigating mass shootings in the United States without having to
change existing U.S. gun laws.

Yet, Carbyne is no ordinary tech company, as it is deeply connected to
the elite Israeli military intelligence division, Unit 8200, whose
"alumni" often go on to create tech companies — Carbyne among them —
that frequently maintain their ties to Israeli intelligence and,
according to Israeli media reports and former employees, often "blur the
line" between their service to Israel’s defense/intelligence apparatus
and their commercial activity. As this report will reveal, Carbyne is
but one of several Israeli tech companies marketing themselves as a
technological solution to mass shootings that has direct ties to Israeli
intelligence agencies.

In each case, these companies’ products are built in such a way that
they can easily be used to illegally surveil the governments,
institutions and civilians that use them, a troubling fact given Unit
8200’s documented prowess in surveillance as a means of obtaining
blackmail and Israel’s history of using tech companies to aggressively
spy on the U.S. government. This is further compounded by the fact that
Unit 8200-linked tech companies have previously received U.S. government
contracts to place "backdoors" into the U.S.’ entire telecommunications
system as well as into the popular products of major American tech
companies including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, many of whose key
managers and executives are now former Unit 8200 officers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it no secret that
placing Unit 8200 members in top positions in multinational tech
companies is a "deliberate policy" meant to ensure Israel’s role as the
dominant global "cyber power", while also combating non-violent boycott
movements targeting Israel’s violations of international law and
stifling the United Nations’ criticisms of Israeli government policy and
military operations abroad.

As Jeffrey Epstein’s links to intelligence in both the United States and
Israel — the subject of a recent four-part series exclusive to MintPress
— began to be revealed in full, his financing of Carbyne came under
scrutiny, particularly for the company’s deep ties to Israeli
intelligence as well as to certain Americans with known connections to
U.S. intelligence. Ehud Barak’s own role as both financier and chairman
of Carbyne has also added to that concern, given his long history of
involvement in covert intelligence operations for Israel and his
long-standing ties to Israeli military intelligence.

Another funder of Carbyne, Peter Thiel, has his own company that, like
Carbyne, is set to profit from the Trump administration’s proposed
hi-tech solutions to mass shootings. Indeed, after the recent shooting
in El Paso, Texas, President Trump — who received political donations
from and has been advised by Thiel following his election — asked tech
companies to "detect mass shooters before they strike," a service
already perfected by Thiel’s company Palantir, which has developed
"pre-crime software" already in use throughout the country. Palantir is
also a contractor for the U.S. intelligence community and also has a
branch based in Israel.

Perhaps most disturbing of all, whatever technological solution is
adopted by the Trump administration, it is set to use a controversial
database first developed as part of a secretive U.S. government program
that involved notorious Iran-Contra figures like Oliver North as a means
of tracking and flagging potential American dissidents for increased
surveillance and detention in the event of a vaguely defined "national
emergency."

As this report will reveal, this database — often referred to as "Main
Core" — was created with the involvement of Israeli intelligence and
Israel remained involved years after it was developed, and potentially
to the present. It was also used by at least one former CIA official on
President Reagan’s National Security Council to blackmail members of
Congress, Congressional staffers and journalists, among others.

Given recent reports on the Trump administration’s plan to create a new
government agency to use "advanced technology" to identify
"neurobehavioral signs" of "someone headed toward a violent explosive
act" using data collected by consumer electronic devices, the picture
painted by the technology currently being promoted and implemented under
the guise of "keeping Americans safe" is deeply Orwellian. In fact, it
points directly to the genesis of a far-reaching surveillance state far
more extensive than anything yet seen in American history and it is
being jointly developed by individuals connected to both American and
Israeli intelligence.

Demystifying Carbyne

Carbyne911, which will be referred to simply as Carbyne in this report,
is an Israeli tech-startup that promises to revolutionize how calls are
handled by emergency service providers, as well as by governments,
corporations and educational institutions. Not long after it was founded
in 2014 by veterans of Israeli military intelligence, Carbyne began to
be specifically marketed as a solution to mass shootings in the United
States that goes "beyond the gun debate" and improves the "intelligence
that armed emergency responders receive before entering an armed shooter
situation" by providing video-streaming and acoustic input from civilian
smartphones and other devices connected to the Carbyne network.

Prior to Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest in July, Carbyne had been receiving
high praise from U.S. and Israeli media, with Fox News hailing the
company’s services as the answer to the U.S.’ "aging 911 systems" and
the Jerusalem Post writing that the company’s platform offers "hi-tech
protection to social workers and school principals." Other reports
claimed that Carbyne’s services result in "a 65% reduction in
time-to-dispatch."

Carbyne’s call-handling/crisis management platform has already been
implemented in several U.S. counties and the company has offices not
only in the U.S. but also in Mexico, Ukraine and Israel. Carbyne’s
expansion to more emergency service provider networks in the U.S. is
likely, given that federal legislation seeks to offer grants to upgrade
911 call centers throughout the country with the very technology of
which Carbyne is the leading provider. One of the main lobby groups
promoting this legislation, the National Emergency Number Association
(NENA), has a "strong relationship" with Carbyne, according to Carbyne’s
website. In addition, Carbyne has also begun marketing its platform for
non-emergency calls to governments, educational institutions and
corporations.

Yet, what seemed like the inevitability of Carbyne’s widespread adoption
in the U.S. hit a snag following the recent arrest and subsequent death
of sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who exploited underage
girls for the purpose of obtaining "blackmail" on the rich and poweful,
an operation that had clear ties to intelligence. Epstein, after his
first arrest and light sentence for soliciting sex from a minor in 2007,
was tapped by former Israeli Prime Minister and former head of Israeli
military intelligence Ehud Barak, to become a key financial backer of
Carbyne.

Ehud Barak Carbyne

Ehud Barak, center, poses with Carbyne co-founders Alex Dizengof, Amir
Elichai and Lital Leshem. Photo | Yossi Seliger

As a result of increased scrutiny of Epstein’s business activities and
his ties to Israel, particularly to Barak, Epstein’s connection to
Carbyne was revealed and extensively reported on by the independent
media outlet Narativ, whose exposé on Carbyne revealed not only some of
the key intelligence connections of the start-up company but also how
the architecture of Carbyne’s product itself raises "serious privacy
concerns."

MintPress detailed many of Carbyne’s main intelligence connections in
Part III of the investigative series "Inside the Jeffrey Epstein
Scandal: Too Big to Fail." In addition to Barak — former Israeli prime
minister and former head of Israeli military intelligence — serving as
Carbyne’s chairman and a key financer, the company’s executive team are
all former members of Israeli intelligence, including the elite military
intelligence unit, Unit 8200, which is often compared to the U.S.
National Security Agency (NSA).

Carbyne’s current CEO, Amir Elichai, served in Unit 8200 and tapped
former Unit 8200 commander and current board member of AIPAC Pinchas
Buchris to serve as the company’s director and on its board. In addition
to Elichai, another Carbyne co-founder, Lital Leshem, also served in
Unit 8200 and later worked for Israeli private spy company Black Cube.
The only Carbyne co-founder that didn’t serve in Unit 8200 is Alex
Dizengof, who previously worked for Israel’s Prime Minister’s office.

As MintPress noted in a past report detailing Israeli military
intelligence’s deep ties to American tech giant Microsoft, Unit 8200 is
an elite unit of the Israeli Intelligence corps that is part of the
IDF’s Directorate of Military Intelligence and is involved mainly in
signal intelligence (i.e., surveillance), cyberwarfare and code
decryption. It is frequently described as the Israeli equivalent of the
NSA and Peter Roberts, senior research fellow at Britain’s Royal United
Services Institute, characterized the unit in an interview with the
Financial Times as "probably the foremost technical intelligence agency
in the world and stand[ing] on a par with the NSA in everything except
scale."

Notably, the NSA and Unit 8200 have collaborated on numerous projects,
most infamously on the Stuxnet virus as well as the Duqu malware. In
addition, the NSA is known to work with veterans of Unit 8200 in the
private sector, such as when the NSA hired two Israeli companies, to
create backdoors into all the major U.S. telecommunications systems and
major tech companies, including Facebook, Microsoft and Google. Both of
those companies, Verint and Narus, have top executives with ties to
Israeli intelligence and one of those companies, Verint (formerly
Comverse Infosys), has a history of aggressively spying on U.S.
government facilities. Unit 8200 is also known for spying on civilians
in the occupied Palestinian territories for "coercion purposes" — i.e.,
gathering info for blackmail — and also for spying on
Palestinian-Americans via an intelligence-sharing agreement with the NSA.

Unlike many other Unit 8200-linked start-ups, Carbyne also boasts
several tie-ins to the Trump administration, including Palantir founder
and Trump ally Peter Thiel — another investor in Carbyne. In addition,
Carbyne’s board of advisers includes former Palantir employee Trae
Stephens, who was a member of the Trump transition team, as well as
former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Trump donor and
New York real-estate developer Eliot Tawill is also on Carbyne’s board,
alongside Ehud Barak and Pinchas Buchris.

Yet, privacy concerns with Carbyne go beyond the company’s ties to
Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence contractors like Peter Thiel.
For instance, Carbyne’s smartphone app extracts the following
information from the phones on which it is installed:

Device location, video live-streamed from the smartphone to the call
center, text messages in a two-way chat window, any data from a user’s
phone if they have the Carbyne app and ESInet, and any information that
comes over a data link, which Carbyne opens in case the caller’s voice
link drops out." (emphasis added)

According to Carbyne’s website, this same information can also be
obtained from any smartphone, even if it does not have Carbyne’s app
installed, if that phone calls a 911 call center that uses Carbyne or
merely any other number connected to Carbyne’s network. [...]

Israeli intelligence, Blackmail and Silicon Valley

Though many of the individuals involved in funding or managing Carbyne
have proven ties to intelligence, a closer look into several of these
players reveals even deeper connections to both Israeli and U.S.
intelligence.

One of Carbyne’s clearest connections to Israeli intelligence is through
its chairman and one of its funders, Ehud Barak. Though Barak is best
known for being a former prime minister of Israel, he is also a former
minister of defense and the former head of Israeli military
intelligence. He oversaw Unit 8200’s operations, as well as other units
of Israeli military intelligence, in all three of those positions. For
most of his military and later political career, Barak has been closely
associated with covert operations.

Prior to the public scrutiny of Barak’s relationship to Jeffrey Epstein,
following the latter’s arrest this past July and subsequent death, Barak
had come under fire for his ties to disgraced film mogul Harvey
Weinstein. Indeed, it was Ehud Barak who put Weinstein in contact with
the Israeli private intelligence outfit Black Cube, which employs former
Mossad agents and Israeli military intelligence operatives, as Weinstein
sought to intimidate the women who had accused him of sexual assault and
sexual harassment. Former Mossad director Meir Dagan led Black Cube’s
board until his death in 2016 and Carbyne co-founder Lital Leshem is
Black Cube’s former director of marketing.

After Barak put him in contact with Black Cube’s leadership, Weinstein,
according to The New Yorker, used the private spy firm to "‘target,’ or
collect information on, dozens of individuals, and compile psychological
profiles that sometimes focused on their personal or sexual histories."
In addition, The New Yorker noted that "Weinstein monitored the progress
of the investigations personally" and "also enlisted former employees
from his film enterprises to join in the effort, collecting names and
placing calls that, according to some sources who received them, felt
intimidating."

Yet, more recently, it has been Barak’s close relationship to Epstein
that has raised eyebrows and opened him up to political attacks from his
rivals. Epstein and Barak were first introduced by former Israeli Prime
Minister Shimon Peres in 2002, a time when Epstein’s pedophile blackmail
and sex trafficking operation was in full swing.

Barak was a frequent visitor to Epstein’s residences in New York, so
often that The Daily Beast reported that numerous residents of an
apartment building linked to Epstein "had seen Barak in the building
multiple times over the last few years, and nearly half a dozen more
described running into his security detail," adding that "the building
is majority-owned by Epstein’s younger brother, Mark, and has been tied
to the financier’s alleged New York trafficking ring." Specifically,
several apartments in the building were "being used to house underage
girls from South America, Europe and the former Soviet Union," according
to a former bookkeeper employed by one of Epstein’s main procurers of
underage girls, Jean Luc Brunel.

Barak is also known to have spent the night at one of Epstein’s
residences at least once, was photographed leaving Epstein’s residence
as recently as 2016, and has admitted to visiting Epstein’s island,
which has sported nicknames including "Pedo Island," "Lolita Island" and
"Orgy Island." In 2004, Barak received $2.5 million from Leslie Wexner’s
Wexner Foundation, where Epstein was a trustee as well as one of the
foundation’s top donors, officially for unspecified "consulting
services" and "research" on the foundation’s behalf.

In 2015, Barak formed a limited partnership company in Israel for the
explicit purpose of investing in Carbyne (then known as Reporty) and
invested millions of dollars in the company, quickly becoming a major
shareholder and subsequently the company’s public face and the chairman
of its board. At least $1 million of the money invested in this
Barak-created company that was later used to invest in Carbyne came from
the Southern Trust Company, which was owned by Jeffrey Epstein.

In July, Bloomberg reported that Epstein’s Southern Trust Company is
identified in U.S. Virgin Islands filings as "a DNA database and data
mining" company. Given Carbyne’s clear potential for data-mining and
civilian profiling, Epstein’s investment in Carbyne using this specific
company suggests that Carbyne’s investors have long been aware of this
little advertised aspect of Carbyne’s product.

In a statement to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Barak asserted:

I saw the business opportunity and registered a partnership in my
control in Israel. A small number of people I know invest in it…Since
these are private investments, it wouldn’t be proper or right for me to
expose the investors’ details."

However, Barak later admitted that Epstein had been one of the investors.

MintPress’ recent series on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal noted in detail
Epstein’s ties to CIA/Mossad intelligence assets, such as Adnan
Khashoggi; CIA front companies, such as Southern Air Transport; and
organized crime, through his close association with Leslie Wexner. In
addition, Epstein’s long-time "girlfriend" and alleged madam, Ghislaine
Maxwell, has family links to Israeli intelligence through her father,
Robert Maxwell. While it appears that Epstein may have been working for
more than one intelligence agency, Zev Shalev, former executive producer
for CBS News and journalist at Narativ, recently stated that he had
independently confirmed with two unconnected sources "closely connected
to the Epstein story and in a position to know" that Epstein had "worked
for Israeli military intelligence."

Zev Shalev @ZevShalev

Exclusive: We have two independent sources confirming Jeffrey Epstein
worked for Israeli military intelligence. In each case the source is
closely connected to the Epstein story and in a position to know. You
can take it to the bank. @narativlive
http://narativ.org/2019/07/27/building-big-brother/ … [...]

Last year, Netanyahu was asked by Fox News host Mark Levin whether the
large growth seen in recent years in Israel’s technology sector,
specifically tech start-ups, was part of Netanyahu’s plan. Netanyahu
responded, "That’s very much my plan … It’s a very deliberate policy."
He later added that "Israel had technology because the military,
especially military intelligence, produced a lot of capabilities. These
incredibly gifted young men and women who come out of the military or
the Mossad, they want to start their start-ups."

Netanyahu again outlined this policy at the 2019 Cybertech Conference in
Tel Aviv, where he stated that Israel’s emergence as one of the top five
"cyber powers" had "required allowing this combination of military
intelligence, academia and industry to converge in one place" and that
this further required allowing "our graduates of our military and
intelligence units to merge into companies with local partners and
foreign partners."

The direct tie-ins of SUNC to Israel’s government and the successful
effort led by SUNC and other companies and organizations to place former
military intelligence and intelligence operatives in strategic positions
in major multinational technology companies reveal that this "deliberate
policy" has had a major and undeniable impact on the global tech
industry, especially in Silicon Valley.

Mossad gets its own In-Q-Tel

This "deliberate policy" of Netanyahu’s also recently resulted in the
creation of a Mossad-run venture capital fund that is specifically
focused on financing Israeli tech start-ups. The venture capital fund,
called Libertad, was first announced by Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office
and was created with the explicit purpose of "increasing the Israeli
intelligence agency’s knowledge base and fostering collaboration with
Israel’s vibrant startup scene" It was modeled after the CIA’s venture
capital fund In-Q-Tel, which invested in several Silicon Valley
companies turned government and intelligence contractors — including
Google and Palantir — with a similar goal in mind.

Libertad declines to reveal the recipients of its funding, but announced
last December that it had chosen five companies in the fields of
robotics, energy, encryption, web intelligence, and natural language
processing and text analysis. In regard to its interest in web
intelligence, a Mossad employee told the Jerusalem Post that the
intelligence agency was specifically interested in "innovative
technologies for [the] automatic identification of personality
characteristics – personality profiling – based on online behavior and
activity, using methods based on statistics, machine learning, and other
areas." (emphasis added)

According to Libertad’s website, in return for its investment, now set
at NIS 2 million (~$580,000) per year per company, "the Mossad will
receive access to the IP [initial product] developed during R&D
[Research and Development] while under contract, and a non-commercial,
non-exclusive license to use it. Libertad’s contract with the company
will not provide it with any additional rights." In an interview with
Calcalist Tech, Mossad Director Yossi Cohen told the paper that the
Mossad’s partnership with civilian companies in Israel is "excellent"
and that the agency will continue to strengthen those ties.

Israeli intelligence has a documented history in placing "backdoors"
into technology products for the purpose of surveillance, with one
well-known case being Israel’s repurposing of the PROMIS software,
discussed in Part III of MintPress’ series on Jeffrey Epstein.
Furthermore, given that U.S. intelligence, specifically the NSA, had
"backdoors" placed into the products of major Silicon Valley companies
(a service performed by Israeli intelligence-linked tech companies no
less), Mossad may very well plan on doing the same with the technology
products of companies it backs through Libertad. [...]

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