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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Ari Ben-Menashe.md
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@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ summary: "Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian who describes hims
born: 1951-12-04
location: "Tehran, Iran; Montreal, Canada"
created: 2024-04-25
updated: 2026-06-20
updated: 2026-09-22
---
Ari Ben-Menashe is an Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian businessman, author, and lobbyist who describes himself as a former official of Israel's military intelligence, and who became a recurring source for claims about covert United States and Israeli arms dealing, the [[October Surprise]] theory, [[PROMIS]] software, [[Robert Maxwell]], and, in later years, [[Jeffrey Epstein]].[^1] He was born on December 4, 1951, in Tehran, [[Iran]], to an affluent Iraqi Jewish family; his father Gourdji was involved with [[LEHI]] (the Stern Gang) and knew [[Yitzhak Shamir]].[^3][^5] His allegations have been influential in conspiracy literature while being repeatedly assessed as unreliable by courts, congressional investigators, and journalists.[^2]
@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ In Profits of War and in congressional testimony, Ben-Menashe alleged that Israe
His detailed account named a sequence of secret meetings. He described [[Miles Copeland]]'s group of CIA-connected officers, Casey, [[Robert McFarlane]], and [[Earl Brian]] entering negotiations with the Iranians, and [[David Kimche]] of Mossad initiating an arms supply to Iran via [[South Africa]] in 1979. He placed first and second Madrid meetings in March and May 1980 involving [[Mehdi Karrubi]], Casey, McFarlane, [[Donald Gregg]], [[Robert Gates]], and Brian; an Amsterdam meeting in August 1980; and the October 1980 Paris meeting at which he says the hostage-release deal was sealed and after which he received 56 million dollars in [[Guatemala]] in December 1980, with 4 million for Brian and 52 million for the Iranian intermediary Kashani. The hostages were released on Reagan's inauguration day, January 20, 1981.[^5] He further alleged a 1980 to 1981 [[Iran-Israel Joint Committee]] arms pipeline, a role in the June 7, 1981 [[Israel Air Force]] strike on Iraq's Tammuz nuclear reactor, the recruitment of [[Daily Mirror]] foreign editor [[Nicholas Davies]] by Mossad, and the use of a slush fund (the [[Ora Group]]) to finance the [[Likud Party]] and "black" operations including, in his telling, the 1985 [[Achille Lauro]] hijacking.[^5]
No official body endorsed this account. The [[House October Surprise Task Force]], chaired by Representative [[Lee Hamilton]], published its joint report on January 3, 1993, and rejected it, saying it had conclusive evidence from travel and passport records that Ben-Menashe was not in Paris when he claimed to have witnessed the meeting, and describing his testimony as "totally lacking in credibility," "demonstrably false from beginning to end," and "a total fabrication."[^6] A separate review of the Iran-Contra-related allegations conducted under Attorney General [[William Barr]] likewise found no credible basis for his key claims, and an earlier Senate examination reached similar conclusions.[^6][^7]
No official body endorsed this account. The [[House October Surprise Task Force]], chaired by Representative [[Lee Hamilton]], published its joint report on January 3, 1993, and rejected it, saying it had conclusive evidence from travel and passport records that Ben-Menashe was not in Paris when he claimed to have witnessed the meeting, and describing his testimony as "totally lacking in credibility," "demonstrably false from beginning to end," and "a total fabrication."[^6] A separate review of the Iran-Contra-related allegations conducted under Attorney General [[William Barr]] likewise found no credible basis for his key claims, and an earlier Senate examination reached similar conclusions.[^6][^7] The Senate Foreign Relations special counsel, Reid H. Weingarten, reporting to Senators [[Terry Sanford]] and [[James Jeffords]] on November 19, 1992, found that Ben-Menashe "undoubtedly had real connections with Israeli intelligence and had access to some highly classified information," but that his "insistence upon placing himself in the middle of numerous scandals and adventures" and his contradiction of credible witnesses and documents made him "a wholly unreliable witness," and did not rely on his testimony without independent corroboration.[^21]
### PROMIS Affidavits and INSLAW
@ -92,3 +92,4 @@ The former national security adviser Robert McFarlane sued Ben-Menashe and the p
[^18]: McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 91 F.3d 1501 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
[^19]: Seymour, Cheri. *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal.* TrineDay, 2010, on Ben-Menashe's call to Bill Hamilton after Casolaro's death.
[^20]: U.S. Department of Justice. *Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General of the United States Regarding the Allegations of Inslaw, Inc.* March 1993, on the PROMIS affidavits, the "Milon" recantation, and the finding that Ben-Menashe's account offered no evidentiary support for the Inslaw allegations.
[^21]: U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. *The "October Surprise" Allegations and the Circumstances Surrounding the Release of the American Hostages Held in Iran: Report of the Special Counsel to Senator Terry Sanford and Senator James M. Jeffords,* S. Prt. 102-125, November 19, 1992, p. 113. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000021071829