Shades of Novak and Rove in Israel

Interesting:

Two former officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group were charged in an indictment filed Thursday with illegally conspiring to gather and disclose classified national security information to journalists and an unnamed foreign power that government officials identified as Israel.

The indictment accused Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly senior staff members at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, with improperly disclosing national security information beginning in April 1999. The group dismissed the two men last April.

As the committee's director of foreign policy issues, Mr. Rosen was a highly visible figure in Washington who helped the organization define its lobbying agenda on the Middle East and forged important relationships with powerful conservatives in the Bush administration. Mr. Weissman was a senior Middle East analyst.

The charges in the long-running inquiry were expected, but nevertheless unusual. Neither Mr. Rosen nor Mr. Weissman, who have denied any wrongdoing, held security clearances.

They were not government employees and they operated in a foreign policy world in which private lobbyists, public officials and journalists often trade delicate information about executive branch decision-making that is related to other countries.

The indictment did not accuse any journalist of wrongdoing, but cited several conversations that Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman had with unidentified journalists as "overt acts" that furthered the conspiracy. Government officials have said investigators want to interview reporters who talked with either of the two men. It is not clear who the journalists are or whether any them have been interviewed.

The indictment said the two men had disclosed classified information about a number of subjects, including American policy in Iran, terrorism in central Asia, Al Qaeda and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers apartment in Saudi Arabia, which killed 23 Americans, mainly military personnel.