127 lines
27 KiB
Markdown
127 lines
27 KiB
Markdown
---
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aliases:
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- Ari Ben-Menashe
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- Ari Ben Menashe
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category: "Intelligence & Government"
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tags:
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- KeyFigure
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- Person
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- AriBenMenashe
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- Israel
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- Mossad
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- Military
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- PROMIS
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- INSLAW
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- OctoberSurprise
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- IranContra
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- RobertMaxwell
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- JeffreyEpstein
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summary: "Iranian-born Israeli-Canadian, self-described former Israeli military-intelligence official, and recurring source on U.S.-Israeli arms dealing, the October Surprise, PROMIS, Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein; a congressional task force found his claims not credible."
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born: 1951-12-04
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location: "Tehran, Iran; Montreal, Canada"
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)]]"
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start: 1977-08-15
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role: "civilian, External Relations Department (per his 1992 account)"
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fn: 5
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created: 2024-04-25
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updated: 2026-10-14
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---
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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]].[^2][^3] His allegations have been influential in conspiracy literature while being repeatedly assessed as unreliable by courts, congressional investigators, and journalists.[^4]
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### Claimed Intelligence Background
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By his own account, Ben-Menashe moved to Israel in 1966 at age 14, and in 1969, while on Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, was involved in the [[Michael Dennis Rohan]] [[El Aqsa Mosque]] arson incident. He says he was recruited by [[SHABAK]] in 1972 but declined a spying role, was drafted in 1974 and assigned to [[Unit 8200]] (signals intelligence) on the Iranian desk where he claims to have broken the Iranian diplomatic code, and that in 1976 he was involved in uncovering a [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed]] bribe scandal involving [[Shimon Peres]]. After refusing an assignment to the Rome listening station in 1977, he says he was court-martialed and released from military service.[^3] He states that he then worked from 1977 to 1987 as a civilian in the External Relations Department of the Israeli [[Military Intelligence Directorate (Israel)|Military Intelligence Directorate]] (Aman), a role he has portrayed as giving him access to high-level arms-transfer and covert-operations decisions.[^1]
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Ben-Menashe's 1992 book dates his entry into the External Relations Department to August 15, 1977, after his release from military service on May 3, 1977, and describes the department as having four branches: the Special Assistance Branch (SIM), the R branch, a Foreign Liaison branch, and Intelligence 12, a general liaison branch with the [[Mossad]].[^5] He placed his first assignment in the R branch, which handled intelligence exchange with foreign services. From late September 1977 he describes himself as a Middle East commuter working with the Iranians.[^5] In the same book he names [[Shimon Lavee]] as the branch head of SIM who prepared the Israeli version of the [[SIMWA]] agreement with South Africa.[^6]
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The 1992 book reproduces letters of reference dated September 1987 on Israel Defence Forces External Relations Department letterhead. They are signed by Col. [[Pesah Melowany]] (September 4, 1987), Col. Yoav (September 6, 1987), a Dr. A. (September 14, 1987) and Col. [[Arieh Shur]], whose signature block reads "Colonel / Chief of External Relations" (September 14, 1987). Ben-Menashe presents the letters as evidence of his service in the department.[^7]
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The October Surprise Task Force reported that the personnel file maintained by Israeli Military Intelligence records that Ben-Menashe worked in the External Relations Department from 1977 to 1987; that seven of his ten annual efficiency reports list him as a translator and the other three as a staff officer in an armaments unit; that he failed the preparatory training portion of the officer's course and omitted this from his testimony to the task force; and that on July 23, 1987 his superior Arieh Shur warned him about excessive personal leave, on the same day he wrote to his superiors that he wished to leave the Army, on September 9, 1987 he complained before the union of civilian employees of the Israel Defense Forces that he had served ten years as a translator without a significant promotion, and on September 15, 1987 he resigned from the Israel Defense Forces.[^8] The task force added that Israeli authorities interviewed David Kimche, Yehoshua Saguy, Rafi Eitan, a Samuel Moriah, Meir Meir and General Yitzhak Segev, each of whom said he had never met, known or heard of Ben-Menashe until he began making allegations in the American media in 1991, and that Yitzhak Hofi, head of Mossad from 1980 to 1982, told Israeli authorities that Ben-Menashe was never assigned to any mission by Mossad.[^9]
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Critics dispute the seniority he claims. Israel has generally characterized him as a low-level translator rather than a policy insider, and the journalist [[Steven Emerson]], writing in 1991, argued that Ben-Menashe had inflated a minor translating job into a record of "key positions."[^2] The Israeli government acknowledged that he had worked for military intelligence in a translation capacity but denied that he had held the senior operational role he described.[^10] The disagreement over his rank has shaped the reception of all his later claims, because his accounts of arms deals, the October Surprise, and Israeli operations rest on his asserted firsthand access rather than on corroborating documents or witnesses.[^2][^4]
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### Arms Case and Acquittal
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Ben-Menashe first drew wide public attention when he was arrested in the United States in November 1989 and charged under the Arms Export Control Act with attempting to broker the sale of three Israeli-owned Lockheed [[C-130 Hercules]] transport aircraft to Iran, a deal valued at about 36 million dollars, using false end-user certificates.[^11] The prosecution was brought in the United States District Court for the [[U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]], where the related rulings carried the caption United States v. Menashe.[^12] He spent nearly a year in custody before a jury acquitted him and a co-defendant on November 28, 1990, after his defense argued, and the jury accepted, that he had been acting under the authority of the Israeli government in a transaction tied to Israel's arms dealings with Iran.[^11]
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The first count of the indictment charged all three defendants with conspiring to sell American-made C-130 military cargo planes located in Israel to Iran, in violation of the [[Arms Export Control Act]]; a second count charged co-defendant [[Joseph O'Toole]] with conspiring to sell American-made anti-aircraft missiles located in Israel. In an opinion of August 1, 1990, Judge [[Louis L. Stanton]] denied co-defendant [[Richard St. Francis]]'s motion to dismiss on due process grounds, granted severance of the second count and of O'Toole from the first count, and noted that Ben-Menashe joined St. Francis's motions.[^13] The indictment said the scheme was revealed by an undercover Customs Service agent posing as an Iranian buyer.[^14] At the six-week trial, his attorney [[Thomas F.X. Dunn|Thomas Dunn]] contended that Ben-Menashe was a former intelligence operative who represented Yitzhak Shamir in an attempted arms-for-hostages deal in 1988 that was to include the release of four U.S. hostages and fell through when Shamir insisted that three Israeli soldiers also be freed. Prosecutors disputed his allegations of government-sanctioned arms deals with Iran, and Assistant U.S. Attorney [[Baruch Weiss]] said that Ben-Menashe was merely a translator for Israeli military intelligence from 1977 to 1987. After the verdict Dunn said that his client claimed Israel had brokered arms deals with Iran between 1980 and 1988 that the U.S. government had covertly approved, among them the transaction that became the Iran-Contra scandal.[^14]
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Israel denied that he had been authorized to act for it in the transaction. At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Baruch Weiss said that he had been merely a translator for Israeli military intelligence from 1977 to 1987.[^14] The acquittal nonetheless rested on the jury's willingness to credit his Israeli-agent defense, and he afterward cited the verdict as vindication of his broader account, even though the bodies that later examined his substantive claims rejected them.[^4][^15] The acquittal gave him a platform from which he expanded a series of claims about secret United States and Israeli arms networks, set out in his 1992 book [[Profits of War]].[^3]
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### October Surprise and Iran-Contra Claims
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In Profits of War and in congressional testimony, Ben-Menashe alleged that Israeli officials, working with figures around the 1980 [[Ronald Reagan]] presidential campaign, arranged arms sales to Iran in exchange for delaying the release of American hostages until after the November 1980 election, the scenario known as the October Surprise.[^3] He claimed to have witnessed a Paris meeting in October 1980 attended by [[George H.W. Bush]], the campaign manager [[William J. Casey|William Casey]], and Iranian representatives.[^15]
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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.[^3] 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.[^3]
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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."[^15] The task force pinpoints the passport and personnel evidence: records the Government of Israel supplied, with Ben-Menashe's contemporaneous handwritten answers to the questions he was required to answer for the External Relations Department when traveling abroad, showed that he did not travel outside Israel in October 1980, and exit stamps on his civilian passport indicated the same; the task force wrote that his account of the October meetings, "like his other October Surprise allegations, is a total fabrication."[^16] 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.[^10][^15] 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.[^17]
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### PROMIS Affidavits and INSLAW
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After the journalist [[Danny Casolaro]]'s death in August 1991, Ben-Menashe called [[Bill Hamilton]], president of [[INSLAW|Inslaw]], and claimed that two FBI agents from Lexington, Kentucky, had been en route to Martinsburg to give Casolaro evidence that the FBI was illegally using PROMIS software, one of them disaffected because his superiors had refused to indict senior Reagan officials over the October Surprise.[^18] In affidavits submitted to the bankruptcy court in February and March 1991, he claimed personal knowledge of Earl Brian's involvement in international PROMIS distribution, alleging that Brian made a 1987 presentation to Israeli Military Intelligence claiming ownership of PROMIS rights, that [[Rafael Eitan]] received PROMIS from Brian and McFarlane in 1982 for Israeli signals intelligence, and that enhanced PROMIS was sold to the Israeli intelligence community, the Singapore Armed Forces, the Soviet Union, and Canada.[^19] These PROMIS-distribution claims were later amplified by [[Seymour Hersh]] in [[The Samson Option]] and [[Gordon Thomas]] in [[Gideon's Spies]].[^20][^21]
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In the first of two affidavits he submitted to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Columbia in the INSLAW case, dated February 17, 1991, Ben-Menashe said that in January 1989, while serving as a special consultant for intelligence affairs in the Israeli prime minister's office, he was told by [[Carlos Cardoen]], the Chilean arms maker, that Cardoen had brokered a deal between Earl Brian and a representative of Iraqi military intelligence for the use of PROMIS.[^22] A *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* report of February 19, 1991, preserved in the Danny Casolaro papers, says the sale was consummated in Santiago, Chile, where [[Industrias Cardoen]] had its headquarters, and that Brian called the allegations "nonsense."[^23] The report of Special Counsel [[Nicholas J. Bua]] states that Ben-Menashe "makes a number of extraordinary claims, most of which are not subject to corroboration."[^22] The [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] recorded in 1991 that Robert Gates denied specific allegations made by Ben-Menashe at his confirmation hearing and that the FBI and the CIA inspector general, reviewing Gates's calendar and travel records, found no credible evidence to confirm them.[^24]
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The special counsel Nicholas Bua, in his 1993 report on the Inslaw affair, rejected these claims. When interviewed, Ben-Menashe gave a substantially different account, stating that he had no knowledge of the transfer of Inslaw's proprietary software, and that the "PROMIS" in his affidavits referred not to Inslaw's product but to an NSA program he called "Milon," a dictionary-compilation tool developed independently before Inslaw existed; he admitted he had allowed the Hamiltons and others to assume he meant Inslaw's PROMIS "to promote his book."[^19] The NSA confirmed that its own internal Product Related On-line Management Information System, also called PROMIS, was written in M204 rather than COBOL and was wholly unrelated to Inslaw's software. The House October Surprise Task Force, the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee|Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]], and the special counsel all found his testimony fabricated and unsupported.[^19][^25]
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### Claims about Robert Maxwell
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Ben-Menashe alleged that the publisher Robert Maxwell and Nicholas Davies were long-time assets of Israeli intelligence and that Maxwell had close ties to the prime minister's office.[^3] One specific claim concerned the 1986 case of the nuclear technician [[Mordechai Vanunu]], whose account of [[Dimona]] reached the Maxwell-owned [[Sunday Mirror]]; Ben-Menashe said Davies alerted Israeli intelligence to the approach and introduced him to Vanunu's intermediary [[Oscar Guerrero]], and that a Vanunu photograph published by the Sunday Mirror had been flown in from Israel, although the photograph in question had in fact been taken by the [[Sunday Times]] journalist [[Peter Hounam]], undercutting that detail.[^26] Hersh's 1991 book and the parliamentary statements that followed brought the Maxwell allegations into the open shortly before Maxwell's death, and Maxwell sued Hersh for libel.[^20] No declassified material has confirmed the allegations.[^4]
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Seymour Hersh's 1991 book *The Samson Option* states that Ben-Menashe first contacted the author in mid-1990, that interviews began in early 1991, and that Ben-Menashe agreed "as no other Israeli would" to be directly quoted on nuclear issues. The author's note adds that Ben-Menashe left the United States for exile in Australia in June 1991, and that his allegations about Iran arms sales had been strongly denied in Washington and Jerusalem and were still under congressional review in the summer of 1991.[^27] The book's account of the Davies arms firm, Ora Limited, and of Vanunu's 1986 compromise is attributed in the text to Ben-Menashe's account.[^28]
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### Epstein and Maxwell Allegations
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Beginning in 2019, Ben-Menashe gave interviews, including to the journalist [[Whitney Webb]] of MintPress News and to the outlet Narativ, in which he claimed that he had met Jeffrey Epstein and [[Ghislaine Maxwell]] in the 1980s, that he had seen Epstein in Robert Maxwell's offices, and that Maxwell had recruited Epstein for Israeli intelligence and introduced him as pre-approved by figures in Aman.[^29] He characterized the later Epstein operation as a "honeytrap" that gathered sexual blackmail material on powerful figures for Israeli intelligence.[^29]
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No corroborating witness, document, or official admission has been produced to support these specific claims, and reviewers have noted that they rest solely on his own assertions against a documented record of unreliability.[^4][^30] His account also conflicts with the established chronology of Epstein's career, since Epstein's documented entry into Ghislaine Maxwell's circle is generally dated to the period after Robert Maxwell's 1991 death rather than to the 1980s meetings Ben-Menashe described.[^30] He has continued to make related claims, including a 2025 assertion that [[Benjamin Netanyahu]] held Epstein-related files, that likewise remain unverified.[^30]
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### Lobbying and Consulting
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After his intelligence-related notoriety, Ben-Menashe built a lobbying and consulting practice through the [[Montreal]]-based firm [[Dickens & Madson]], representing controversial governments and figures.[^31] His involvement with the government of [[Robert Mugabe]] in [[Zimbabwe]] featured in the treason prosecution of the opposition leader [[Morgan Tsvangirai]], built on a videotape in which prosecutors said Tsvangirai discussed the "elimination" of Mugabe with Ben-Menashe; Tsvangirai was acquitted of high treason on October 14, 2004, by Judge [[Paddington Garwe]] of the Harare High Court, who found no proof of the alleged request, ruled that Ben-Menashe's testimony had to be treated with caution, and called some of it clearly false.[^32]
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He later registered a 2 million dollar contract in March 2021 to lobby for the [[Myanmar]] military junta after its coup, agreeing to advise on evading United States sanctions, and took on engagements connected to [[Sudan]] and its militia leader [[Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo]], a roughly 12 million dollar Zimbabwe land transaction funded by the criminal financier [[Paul Le Roux]] in 2007 and 2008 in which the promised farmland was never delivered, a reported 1 million dollar arrangement with [[Kyrgyzstan]], and work tied to [[Libya]], the [[Republic of the Congo]], [[Venezuela]], and the [[Tigray]] conflict in [[Ethiopia]].[^31][^33] Washington figures quoted in profiles of his career described his reputation as "poisonous."[^31]
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### The McFarlane Libel Suit
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The former national security adviser Robert McFarlane sued Ben-Menashe and the publisher of Profits of War, Sheridan Square Press, for libel over passages that linked McFarlane to the covert dealings Ben-Menashe described.[^34] The case, McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, reached the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which ruled in 1996. Applying the [[actual malice]] standard required for a public figure, the court held that McFarlane could not show the publisher had acted with reckless disregard for the truth merely because Ben-Menashe was a doubtful source, and it affirmed dismissal of the suit. The outcome turned on the high bar a public-figure plaintiff must clear rather than on any finding that Ben-Menashe's account was true.[^34]
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### Footnotes
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[^1]: "Ari Ben-Menashe - Biography," *JewAge.* https://www.jewage.org/wiki/en/Article:Ari_Ben-Menashe_-_Biography
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[^2]: Emerson, Steven. "The Samson Option, by Seymour M. Hersh," *Commentary,* 1991. https://www.commentary.org/articles/steven-emerson/the-samson-option-by-seymour-m-hersh/
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[^3]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992.
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[^4]: "Who is Ari Ben-Menashe, what is his track record as a source," *Factually,* 2025. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/ari-ben-menashe-track-record-israeli-intelligence-source-epstein-claims-evaluation-ec9ba6
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[^5]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*, chapter 3, "Love in the Time of Revolution" ("August 15, 1977. How could I ever forget my first day in the External Relations Department"; four branches at p. 26; "Starting in late September 1977, I became a Middle East commuter"). New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1992; TrineDay reprint, 2015. Lending copy: https://archive.org/details/profitsofwarinsi0000benm
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[^6]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War*, TrineDay reprint, 2015, pp. 209-210 (index "Lavee, Shimon, 210").
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[^7]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War*, TrineDay reprint, 2015, text of the 1989 trial chapter ("Mr. Ari Ben-Menashe has served in the Israel Defense Forces External Relations Department in key positions") and appendix, letters of reference dated September 4, 6 and 14, 1987.
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[^8]: U.S. House of Representatives, *Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force*, January 3, 1993, pp. 97-98. https://archive.org/details/JointReportOfTheOctoberSurpriseTaskForce
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[^9]: *Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force*, January 3, 1993, p. 98.
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[^10]: "Espionage: Con Man or Key to a Mystery?," *Time,* 1991. https://time.com/archive/6718038/espionage-con-man-or-key-to-a-mystery/
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[^11]: "2 Acquitted of Trying to Sell Military Cargo Planes to Iran," *The Washington Post,* 1990. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/29/2-acquitted-of-trying-to-sell-military-cargo-planes-to-iran/2918bfd6-89a7-441a-a124-3b1916e90321/
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[^12]: United States v. Menashe, 741 F. Supp. 1135 (S.D.N.Y. 1990).
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[^13]: *United States v. Menashe*, 741 F. Supp. 1135 (S.D.N.Y. 1990), No. 90 Cr. 010 (LLS), memorandum and order of Judge Louis L. Stanton, August 1, 1990. https://static.case.law/f-supp/741/cases/1135-01.json
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[^14]: "2 Acquitted of Trying to Sell Military Cargo Planes to Iran," *The Washington Post*, November 29, 1990 (dateline New York, November 28; statements of Thomas Dunn and Assistant U.S. Attorney Baruch Weiss; the undercover Customs Service agent). https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/11/29/2-acquitted-of-trying-to-sell-military-cargo-planes-to-iran/2918bfd6-89a7-441a-a124-3b1916e90321/
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[^15]: "Probe by House finds no 'October surprise,'" *The Baltimore Sun,* 1993. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-13-1993013111-story.html
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[^16]: *Joint Report of the October Surprise Task Force*, January 3, 1993, p. 148.
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[^17]: 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. 114. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000021071829
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[^18]: 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.
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[^19]: 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.
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[^20]: "Fact or fiction? The claims of Ari Ben-Menashe," *Green Left,* 1992. https://www.greenleft.org.au/1992/42/fact-or-fiction-claims-ari-ben-menashe
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[^21]: Pipes, Daniel. "Gideon's Spies by Gordon Thomas," *Commentary,* 1999. https://www.commentary.org/articles/daniel-pipes/gideons-spies-by-gordon-thomas/
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[^22]: Report of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua to the Attorney General regarding the allegations of INSLAW, Inc. (March 1993), pp. 73-74.
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[^23]: *St. Louis Post-Dispatch*, February 19, 1991, "Stolen Software Scattered: Affidavits Allege Sales To Iraqis And Israelis," clipping in the INSLAW folder of the Casolaro papers, https://archive.org/download/casolaro-notebooks/InslawIi_djvu.txt.
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[^24]: U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence, *Nomination of Robert M. Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence*, S. Exec. Rept. 102-19 (October 24, 1991), sections 4 and 5, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/sites-default-filesations-10219.pdf (PDF pages 185 to 187).
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[^25]: "No wrong-doing in Inslaw affair, report says," *UPI,* 1993. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/06/17/No-wrong-doing-in-Inslaw-affair-report-says/5482740289600/
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[^26]: "The Vanunu affair and the Sunday Mirror photograph," contemporaneous press reporting noting the photograph was taken by Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam, undercutting Ben-Menashe's account.
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[^27]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991, Author's Note, pp. ix-x, and the note on Ben-Menashe at p. 260.
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[^28]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991, pp. 309-310.
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[^29]: "Former Israeli Spy Ari Ben-Menashe on Israel's Relationship with Epstein," *MintPress News,* 2019. https://www.mintpressnews.com/ari-ben-menashe-israel-relationship-jeffrey-epstein/263465/
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[^30]: "What did Ari Ben-Menashe claim about Jeffrey Epstein," *Factually,* 2025. https://factually.co/fact-checks/media/ari-ben-menashe-claims-jeffrey-epstein-mossad-d56c30
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[^31]: "The Man of Mystery Hustling Myanmar," *Washington Monthly,* 2021. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/03/13/the-man-of-mystery-hustling-myanmar/
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[^32]: "Tsvangirai acquitted of treason in Zimbabwe," *The Globe and Mail,* 2004. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/tsvangirai-acquitted-of-treason-in-zimbabwe/article18275151/
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[^33]: "The Curious Case of Bishkek's $1 Million Deal With Ex-Israeli Intelligence Worker," *Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,* 2021. https://www.rferl.org/a/the-curious-case-of-bishkek-s-1-million-deal-with-ex-israeli-intelligence-worker-/31033365.html
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[^34]: McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 91 F.3d 1501 (D.C. Cir. 1996).
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