Revealed: Israeli-American academic Gal Luft’s efforts to help China establish a foothold in Israel

New York – Rashad Alkhader – Homeland News – From- HAARTETIZ -Israeli

Revealed: The Israeli-American Academic Gal Luft’s Efforts to Help China Establish a Foothold
in Israel
Republicans claim Gal Luft is a potential whistleblower against U.S President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Democrats labeled him a ‘villain.’ But the saga of the academic star turned fugitive isn’t only about him. It also sheds light on Chinese tactics being used to meddle in
other countries affairs
Ben Samuels and Gur Megiddo Washington
Jul 20, 2023 8:12 am IDT
WASHINGTON – Israeli-American dual citizen Gal Luft has become the subject of numerous
conspiracy theories after being indicted for aiding the Chinese government without registering as a foreign agent. The Haifa-born academic was arrested in Cyprus last February on U.S. charges of weapons trafficking, but went on the run the following month.
Republican lawmakers and right-wing media have amplified Luft’s allegations that he is being targeted by the White House over his attempts to act as a whistleblower against U.S. President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Democrats, meanwhile, have labeled Luft a “villain” straight out of a James Bond movie, saying Biden’s critics are placing their own animus against the president’s family over U.S. security interests.
Despite being a fugitive, Luft has become increasingly emboldened on social media in recent days. He has amplified GOP claims about the FBI sweeping his attempts at whistleblowing under the rug, while still ostensibly attempting to remain under the radar.

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Luft, 57, actually has a decades-long record of being a widely respected voice on foreign affairs and energy policy, building off his storied career in the Israeli military. This makes his increased
engagement with Chinese companies closely linked to the government – and previously unreported efforts to help China establish a foothold in Israel – all the more astonishing.
Beyond the personal implications for Luft, the saga sheds light on Chinese tactics being used to influence Israel – an issue forcing successive U.S. administrations (both Democrat and Republican) to grow increasingly concerned with Israel’s behavior.

Gal Luft pictured during the opening day of Web Summit 2017 in Lisbon
Luft arrived in Washington in the late 1990s to study after an illustrious stint as a lieutenant colonel in the Israeli military, where he commanded the first battalion for multiple launch rocket systems.
Those familiar with his career say he could have become a two-star general if he have chosen to
stay in the army, both due to his military aptitude and what former associates describe as keen networking skills.
“Gal is no doubt a brilliant and most talented guy. He was an impressive and original student – even a star,” says Middlebury Institute of International Studies Prof. Avner Cohen.
Luft became an American citizen in the early 2000s, obtaining advanced degrees from Johns Hopkins University in international economics, strategic studies and Middle East studies, and started a family in the Washington suburbs.
Around this time, he sought to establish his own think tank, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, placing the onus on himself to fund research and recruit potential colleagues.
“He was viewed as a star in terms of his writing and ability. He took the area of global energy and international geopolitics in an interesting and innovative way. It was always intriguing to listen to him,” Cohen says, “but he tried to accelerate his way to the top. His decision to establish his own think tank was probably most fateful, and probably led to his fall. I read the indictment with a lot of personal sadness. This is not the Gal I knew some 20-plus years ago.”

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Cohen continues: “You need to raise a lot of money and it’s tough if you don’t have a lot of experience. Most people follow the usual progression: you start as an academic, then become an assistant and associate professor, and then you get involved. The burden of fundraising is not new; it’s just such a pressing task.”
Luft began frequently publishing pieces in China Today – a monthly magazine that is an official outlet of the Chinese Communist Party – but told
associates he was essentially doing this for free.

U.S. President Joe Biden walking on the South

Lawn of the White House in Washington last Friday.
In February 2006, he told Haaretz: “China is in a relatively good position because it’s not overinvested in oil. It’s still making its first steps into industrialization, and it can leapfrog oil and move directly to the next sources of energy, instead of becoming dependent like the United States.”
Luft is also known to have spoken at Israel’s Institute for National Strategic Studies on the need for the international community to cut dependence on Arab oil as a security matter – a pressing concern at the time given oil prices toward the end of the Bush administration being forecast to reach nearly $200 per barrel.
In 2011, he became a senior adviser to the United States Energy Security Council, which was co- founded by former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser, Robert C. McFarlane, and with members consisting of military and political officials from both
political parties.
Four years later, in 2015, Luft allegedly agreed for his think tank to receive $350,000 annually from Patrick Ho – a Chinese official who also headed an organization backed by the China Energy Company Limited (CEFC).

CEFC’s Patrick Ho posing a photo during an interview in 2015.Credit: /AP

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Luft accompanied Patrick Ho, who headed an organization backed by the China Energy Company Limited, to Tel Aviv’s annual Fuel Choices Smart Mobility Summit, a confab aimed at Israeli and international startups, financiers and policymakers
“It’s supposedly an energy company, but it has subcompanies who do influence operations. They have a center dedicated to unification of China and Taiwan, which is understandably very unusual,” says Ofir Dayan, a research assistant in the Israel-China Policy Center at INSS.
McFarlane, who died in May 2022, had told The New York Times that his encounters with CEFC were related to research on American dependence on foreign oil, saying: “I have never had any organic or contractual relationship with CEFC.”
After 2015, Luft would accompany Ho to Tel Aviv’s annual Fuel Choices Smart Mobility Summit, a confab aimed at Israeli and international startups, financiers and policymakers in the field of alternative fuels and smart transportation.
“CEFC executives visited Israel on multiple occasions, and it connects to a wider area of influence where Chinese authorities are trying to influence public opinion,” Dayan says. “The fact they managed to have such a deep and well-rooted connection with a prominent Israeli like Gal Luft says a lot.”
CEFC’s foothold in Israel not only began to deepen, but seemingly managed to influence Israel’s foreign relations as well. In 2015, CEFC representatives met with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili alongside Israeli tycoon Mikhael Mirilashvili, to discuss investments in the former Soviet republic’s energy sector.
Mirilashvili, a 57-year-old Russian-Israeli billionaire and philanthropist, is one of many extremely wealthy Jews with substantial business dealings in Russia and other countries who choose to make their home base in Israel.
He is a known associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though gained notoriety after being embroiled in a corruption investigation against then-Interior Minister Arye Dery.
Luft’s associates say they began to fall out of touch with him around the time he began steadily
increasing public appearances in Israel at conferences organized by the Israeli government, alongside both Woolsey and CEFC officials. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, this was the time when Luft began trading arms and Iranian oil.
Luft, meanwhile, used his profile to write a Haaretz op-ed in June 2015 urging Israel and Cyprus to strengthen ties as part of China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative, which “if implemented,” he claimed, “would be the biggest infrastructure development project in history.”
He began steadily increasing public appearances in Israel at conferences organized by the Israeli government, alongside both Woolsey and CEFC officials.
Luft’s associates, meanwhile, say they began to fall out of touch with him around that period, which coincided with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, this was the time when Luft began trading arms and Iranian oil.
According to the indictment against him, he and an unidentified co-conspirator engaged Woolsey, who was then advising Donald Trump, over “information that was favorable to China.” This was then circulated to thought influencers before appearing in a Woolsey-authored piece in the South China Morning Post soon after Trump’s election victory over Hillary Clinton.

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Hunter Biden after arriving at Fort McNair earlier this month
Luft also allegedly “discussed possible roles” for his unidentified co-conspirator inside the Trump administration, additionally discussing the person taking a “’silent trip’” to China.
Embroilment in the Luft scandal is yet another black mark on Woolsey’s now disgraced record. Ironically, he was tapped as CIA director under Bill Clinton on the grounds that he would be tougher on China.
Woolsey gained most notoriety, however, after pitching a $10 million contract to two Turkish businessmen to help discredit dissident Fethullah Gülen while advising on Trump’s 2016 campaign.
He eventually cooperated with the FBI and Robert Mueller’s investigations into alleged meetings between Turkish officials and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn – who owned a private intelligence company of which Woolsey was also a board member – on the possible extraction of the Pennsylvania-based anti-Erdogan cleric.
Unexpected donation
Despite Woolsey’s fall from grace, Luft would continue to push Chinese investments to Israelis – including playing matchmaker for a 13-person delegation consisting of officials from CEFC and the
Cyberspace Administration of China to discuss potential investments in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The project, described by U.S. officials as “debt-trap diplomacy,” fit neatly into Luft’s professional wheelhouse.
Nearly simultaneously, in November 2017, Ho was arrested by U.S. officials in New York and charged with bribery and money laundering, allegedly offering bribes to officials in Chad and Uganda on behalf of CEFC, while attempting to craft CEFC as a middleman with Iran to avoid oil sanctions.
In 2018, Ho’s boss and Luft’s associate, Ye Jianming, notably made an unexpected $1 million donation to Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal, despite no known ties to Israel or the Jewish people.
After his arrest, Ho called James Biden, who later said he believed the call had been meant for his brother Joe’s son, Hunter.
Luft wrote the judge in Ho’s case as a character witness asking for leniency, flagging their meeting with esteemed global leaders such as former-Israeli President Shimon Peres and Alan Greenspan (who also served on the United States Energy Security Council’s advisory board).

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Ho’s boss and Luft’s associate, Ye Jianming, notably made an unexpected $1 million donation to Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal around that time, despite no known ties to Israel or the Jewish people.
On stage alongside Jianming at the May 2017 ceremony in Jerusalem was Mirilashvili and Keren Hayesod’s then-chairman, Eliezer Zandberg – a Netanyahu confidant and one-time minister later convicted for his role in a corruption scandal relating to Israel’s purchase of submarines and patrol boats from Germany.
Jianming himself was soon placed under detention in China on bribery charges, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.
Ho, meanwhile, was convicted in December 2018 and sentenced to three years in prison in March 2019 – the same time Luft claimed he first offered the FBI evidence proving supposed payments provided by Chinese officials to Hunter and James Biden.
Luft would appear on Fox News in November 2019 playing down Hunter Biden’s engagement with CEFC. Republican lawmakers and right-wing media, however, have not only ignored this but also grouped President Biden into Luft’s more recent allegations.
Luft’s outreach to the FBI, and Ho and Jianming’s legal battles, coincided with the Israeli American’s rapidly depreciating financial status.
Donations to Luft’s think tank dried up, falling from $824,000 in 2017 to just $4,000 in 2021. Luft himself took a $200,000 salary cut, to $75,000, supplementing his income by becoming involved in the resale of Turkish COVID-19 masks and protective gear to Israeli hospitals.
Luft and his business partners attempted to expand their business to Italy, signing contracts worth several hundred thousand euros. The venture collapsed, however, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan banned the export of emergency equipment, leaving Luft in dire financial straits – including legal battles with his partners and foreclosure on his home in Haifa.
A 2022 Washington Post investigation into Hunter Biden’s ties with CEFC stated that his father did not benefit or know details about the transactions, which occurred after Joe Biden left the vice
presidency and before he announced his 2020 run.
Luft was eventually charged in November 2022 and arrested in Cyprus last February by authorities acting on an Interpol warrant. He claimed he was arrested to prevent him from testifying before the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee, which has prioritized the alleged Chinese payments to the Bidens.

Rep. James Comer speaking to reporters about Hunter Biden, on Capitol Hill last month

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However, Luft fled Cyprus while awaiting extradition and his whereabouts remain unknown. Republicans such as House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer took this opportunity to paint Luft as a “missing” informant, again attacking Joe Biden over Luft’s alleged criminality.
Despite speculation that he may have fled to Israel, officials at the Israeli Embassy in Washington say they have not received any requests for extradition.
Such requests, if they were to be made, would be delivered to the Foreign Ministry before the justice minister would issue a ruling on whether to respect the request.
Luft had not spent much time in Israel in recent years, though, and in fact spent the majority of his
time in Turkey. His public and academic profile adopted a decidedly pro-Turkish turn, stating that Joe Biden’s decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide pushed Turkey toward China, while also lauding Erdogan’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination.Luft spent the majority of his time in

Turkey in the last few years. His public and academic profile adopted a decidedly pro-Turkish turn, stating that Biden’s decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide pushed Turkey toward China, while also lauding Erdogan’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Luft’s attorney, Mordechai Tzivin
Haaretz has also learned that Luft’s attorney, Mordechai Tzivin, has made six visits to Turkey
during the past two months. Tzivin refused to address the question of whether he met Luft during
his trips.
The Department of Justice eventually unsealed its indictment against Luft last week, accusing him of subverting foreign agent registration laws “to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. Government official.” He also acted as “a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement,” it stated.
U.S. authorities also accused Luft of trying to sell weapons to the United Arab Emirates, Libya and Kenya in his role as a mediator for Chinese companies.
Luft also discussed brokering a deal for weapons to Qatar and said that Israel was “not a good fit” as the middleman for the deal because it had the “[s]ame problem the [Qataris] have [with] uncle [referring to the United States]. Need a third party … I will activate,” according to the indictment.
Despite the charges, Republicans such as Rep. Nancy Mace again accused Biden officials of “trying to silence our witnesses.”

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U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace addressing a news conference to discuss the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s family members, at the U.S. Capitol in May
Democratic lawmakers, in turn, have used the charges against Luft as evidence of a pathological Republican obsession with attacking Biden. “The main committee is working with an indicted Chinese agent, who does business with the Iranian regime and is an illegal arms dealer to Libya – all of this to own Hunter Biden,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz.
Moskowitz’s Democratic colleagues on the committee, Reps. Jamie Raskin and Dan Goldman, called Luft “an apparent con man who, while a fugitive from justice, attempted to fortify his defense by laundering unfounded and potentially false allegations through Congress.”
‘We have to wonder’
Luft’s attorney, Mordechai Tzivin, said in response to this article: “My client was persecuted by the enforcement authorities in the United States, who are afraid of the information he has, which is likely to undermine President Biden’s political status. He has proof of the fact – and it’s enough if we mention an email in which Hunter writes to the Chinese oil company that he is sitting and waiting together with his father for a phone call. And surprise surprise, a few days after the email, $5.1 million was transferred to a bank account connected to the Biden family. My client decided not to
come to the United States, because he believes that he won’t receive a fair trial there.
“My client has never been investigated by the authorities in any country. His meeting with the U.S.
authorities was at his initiative, in order to reveal to them a major corruption affair prior to the
elections, and to warn the U.S. administration about the leaking of very problematic information.
“My client was not involved in the CEFC donation to Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal. My client has been living permanently in Israel since 2008. He traveled to Cyprus on February 9 and was arrested in Larnaca on his way back to Israel on February 16. Any implication that he was in
some kind of trouble in Israel is entirely false.
“Regarding the charges on the subject of weapons and oil, the indictment doesn’t claim that there were actual transactions for which payments were made. Had there been anything, it would have appeared in the indictment, and there were also charges of money laundering. The emails in the indictment were taken out of context in order to construct a fictitious narrative. Other emails that
refute the claims were deliberately omitted.
“We have to wonder why Luft was arrested in Cyprus when Israel has an extradition agreement with the United States, and when he spends 95 percent of his time in Israel. Clearly the Americans didn’t
want to discuss that in an Israeli court,” Tzivin concluded.