Australian officer loses security clearance for being more 'loyal to Israel'

An Australian army officer has been stripped of his security clearance after the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), the domestic intelligence and national security agency determined he was more loyal to Israel than Australia and vulnerable to exploitation by Mossad.

During an Asio interview, the officer admitted he did not consider Israel a foreign government and would disclose classified information to the Israeli army if requested, The Gurdian reported.

Asio also found that the officer, who is Jewish and had served in the Australian military for 19 years, failed to inform Australian authorities about security, self-defence, and firearms training he had undertaken in Israel, despite not being an Israeli citizen.

The report said that the officer, anonymised as HWMW, is "vulnerable to influence or coercion to enable acts of espionage or foreign interference by Israeli Intelligence Services due to his loyalty to Israel.”