A Jerusalem court Monday sentenced a Jerusalem Arab bus driver to 3½ years in jail for handing over to Hezbollah information about potential targets in the capital for terrorists.

The sentence was handed down three months after the conviction of Issam Hashem Mashahara, who pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy in return for the prosecution’s dropping spy charges, for which he had been indicted.

Mashahara had traveled to Lebanon via Jordan and contacted Hezbollah agents, who later took him to an office of the terrorist organization for an interview.

He informed Hezbollah agents of the address of the official residence of the Prime Minister and of other possible places where terrorists could attack. Mashahara returned to Israel with software camouflaged as a children’s DVD in order to stay in touch with his contacts, who also paid him $1.500.

Headlines of fowl accused of spying for Israel are making the rounds again in Middle Eastern media, with the most recent bird of espionage being an eagle  “arrested” by Hezbollah  in Lebanon.

Local hunters caught the bird in the town of Achkout, who alerted authorities after discovering that the bird had an ID ring attached to its leg with the words “Israel” and “Tel Aviv University” printed on it, according to one Lebanese news site.

The Hezbollah- affiliated Al-Manar TV, whose news site’s Israel section is called “Enemy Entity,” claimed that the eagle was one of many birds sent by Israel to spy and gather information via GPS transmitters across the Middle East. The report pointed to the “arrest of birds carrying similar devices” in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and most recently in Egypt.

Tel Aviv University responded, “This morning, the media reported on an Israeli ‘spy” that was caught by Hezbollah. The ‘spy’ is a predatory fowl that was part of the one the research projects conducted by Tel Aviv University on raptors.”

Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority stated that the eagle was born in a breeding center in southern Israel and had been released a couple of years ago.

Ohad Hatzofeh, one of the Tel Aviv University bird researchers who identified the eagle told Tazpit News Agency that he was “fed up” with the eagle ‘spy’ accusations.

If all of the Arab countries that have “caught” previous spies, such as a stork, a vulture and  pigeon, it only shows how paranoid they really are.

In July, Turkish authorities detained a bird on the suspicion that it was spying for Israel. The kestrel, referred to as the “Israeli agent” by Turkish press because it had metal ring with “Tel Avivunia Israel” on it, was placed in an X-ray machine at a university hospital and underwent a scan for bugging devices. After passing the surveillance, the Zionist spy was freed.

Egypt arrested a stork in late August for spying for Israel because of authorities were suspicious of the tracking device placed by scientists to record its migration. Eventually, the stork, called Menes, was freed but local villagers later ate the spy.

Saudi Arabia apprehended a vulture in 2011, accusing the raptor of being an Israeli spy because of a GPS device with the suspicious “Tel Aviv University” label on its leg. The vulture was eventually freed.

Sudan captured an Israeli hawk last year because tags reading “Israel Nature Authority” and Hebrew University Jerusalem, obvious stooges of the Mossad, were found on its legs.

In May 2012, Turkish authorities were sure they had foiled a Mossad ploy when they caught a European bee-eater.

A police official said during Monday’s court hearing on remanding Iranian-born spy Ali Manosuri that the decision to lift the gag order on his arrest came from high–level government officials.

The decision to go public with news about the spy appears timed to coincide with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s trip to the United States, where he will attempt to combat the recent softening of President Obama and the Western world’s stance toward Iran.

The Petach Tikvah Magistrates’ Court on Monday agreed to extend the remand of Mansouri, who traveled throughout Israel as Belgian businessman Alex Mans, for another eight days.

A gag order on the arrest of Mansouri, which occurred on Sept. 11 at Ben Gurion Airport, was lifted on Sunday.

He reportedly told Israeli investigators that he was recruited by Iranian intelligence, the Revolutionary Guards’ Al-Quds Force, to spy on Israel and was promised about $1 million for his services.

Israeli authorities arrested a Belgian citizen of Iranian origin for taking photographs and carrying out surveillance on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and other Israeli and Americans sites, according to a gag order that was lifted on Sunday.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) identified the man as Ali Mansouri, who landed at Ben Gurion Airport three times in the past 15 months under the name of Alex Mance. He first arrived in Israel in July 2012, and his third visit was on Sept. 2 this year, concluding with his arrest at the airport on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The suspect confessed to security authorities that the Guards’ terror branch sent him to spy.  The Guards offered him $1 million for his pictures and information.

The arrest occurred two weeks before Iran’s new president, Hassan Rohani, delivered his “charm offensive” speech in the United Nations and chatted with President Barack Obama for 15 minutes over the telephone.

Rouhani called the United States a “great nation,” and unless the spy actually was a friendly tourist collecting pictures to show his family how much he enjoyed his visit to the Zionist enemy, it can be safely assumed that the intentions were more in line with traditional Guards activities,  such as blowing up Jewish, Israel and Americans buildings.

That does not exactly fit in with President Barack Obama’s statement last week “while there will be significant obstacles and success is by no means guaranteed, I believe we can reach a comprehensive solution. I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution.”

The basis, of course, is for Iran to continue hoodwink the Americans, and the resolution, just as obviously, is for Tehran to get its hands on a nuclear weapon that can lead to an Islamic peace by annihilating Israel.

Turkey has had the decency to admit that an Israeli bird that flew over its sovereign territory is not an Israeli Mossad spy, as first suspected last year.

The country’s Hurriyet newspaper reported that the dead bird, commonly known as a bee-eater, has been cleared one year later from any charges of spying. A Turkish farmer had found the bird, a dead Merops Apiaster bird, or European Bee-Eater, in his field. Considering Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s paranoia of Israel, it was not surprising that Ankara intelligence started working overtime to expose a Mossad spy.

The bird wore a metallic ring, stamped as “24311 Tel Avivunia Israel.” You would think that if the Mossad were going to spy with a bird, it would not advertise the fact, but Turkish officials obviously figured that the Mossad was using reverse psychology to trick them into thinking that the bird was not a spy.

It took a year for medical personnel ay Elazığ’s Fırat University to admit that the bird was not carrying a microchip.

The innocent bird now shares the same history as the squirrels, sharks and other Zionist animals that Arab countries suspect as being Mossad spies.

In 2007, Iran’s goon squads arrested 14 squirrels that “were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services.”

Three years later, Egypt blamed Israel for a breakout of shark attacks in the Red Sea, charging that the Mossad placed them there to damage tourism.

And there is the famous case of the Mossad vulture, the bird that Saudi Arabia detained on suspicion of spying.

In all cases, Paranoid Arab officials have made monkeys  out of themselves.

“What is going on in the minds of Americans when they  insist on keeping Jonathan Pollard in prison and demand  that Israel free terrorists” who have murdered Jews, Housing Minister Uri Ariel asked on Voice of Israel Sunday. “It really is amazing.”

Pollard has been in jail, despite ill health, for 28 years for the crime of passing on classified information on behalf of Israel when he worked for the Pentagon. He is the onlyAmerican ever to be sentenced to life in prison for the offense, which usually bears a prison term of 2-4 years.

Pollard has been in jail, despite ill health, for 28 years for the crime of passing on classified information on behalf of Israel when he worked for the Pentagon. He is the only person ever to be sentenced to life in prison for the offense, which usually bears a prison term of 2-4 years.

Jewish Press editor Yori Yanover wrote on Friday, “Israel is giving in on the release of Palestinian prisoners with Jewish blood on their hands. ‘There will be some release of prisoners,’ said Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz. ‘I don’t want to give numbers but there will be heavyweight prisoners who have been in jail for tens of years.’”

In case anyone as sleeping  with the bears in hibernation at the time, Israel has freed thousands of terrorists and security prisoners for dead bodies and most recently for the return of one live body – kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

Since the 1000-for-1 exchange  two years ago, dozens of the freed Palestinian Authority Arabs have returned to terror.

Previous releases of terrorists have resulted in more than 120 murders of Jews in Israel by the same Palestinian Authority “resistance fighters.

But their suicide bombings do not compare with the gravity of  Pollard’s crime. If not, why would the American judicial system – which of course is fairer, more modern and more sophisticated than the process in primitive Israel – keep Pollard in jail for life?

Pollard’s crime is obviously so heinous that he was not even allowed to attend the funeral of his father in 2011. Nor was he allowed to leave his cell to attend the funeral of his mother 10 years earlier.

The American government really is not hard-hearted. Officials actually allowed Pollard to call his father a week before his death. His father was too weak to speak on the telephone but so what? That’s not the government’s fault.

Leading American politicians who were in office at the time that Pollard was sentenced have come forth in the past three years to admit that he did not receive a fair trial and  that he was unfairly punished.

Israel, cited every year by the U.S. State Dept. for human rights violations, is apparently ready to free more than 80 terrorists, who have visiting privileges, who received “salaries” from the Palestinian Authority for their previous success in killing Jews, and who are paid by Israel to learn in university.

Israel  perhaps could learn something from the United States, but that will have to wait because  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry needs direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to save his face.

A Saudi court has sentenced a man to 15 years in jail for offering to spy for Israel while he was visiting Jordan, Saudi Arabia media reported Sunday. He allegedly went to the Israeli embassy in Amman to “offer them to cooperate with Israel and provide them with any information they want about Saudi Arabia.”’

The hearing and sentence did not reveal how the man was arrested and if he actually met Israeli diplomats.

The court rejected a demand from prosecutors that the man, who was not identified, be sentenced to death. “The judge refused the prosecutor’s plea on the grounds that deterring the defendant can be done without bloodshed. The judge also banned the defendant from travelling outside Saudi Arabia for 15 years,” Arar Arabic language daily said.

Another Arab with Israeli citizenship has been exposed as a traitor. Zahar Ben Omar Yusfin, of the Arab city Shfaram, located immediately east of Haifa, allegedly handed over to a Hezbollah agent intelligence information of an IDF base.

He was charged with “making contact with an enemy agent, assisting a banned organization, and passing on information that stands to benefit the enemy” when he met with the Hezbollah member while on a pilgrimage to Mecca six years ago.

The indictment states that Yusfin returned to Israel after his pilgrimage and helped find other Arabs vesting Mecca and who might be recruits for Hezbollah. Yusfin was familiar with pilgrimage trips because he and his brother helped organize them since 2000.

During the Second Lebanon War, Yusfin allegedly informed Hezbollah about sites of impact of Hezbollah missiles. He denied the charges.