Alleged Israeli Spy A U.S. Citizen

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:

lan Grapel, the alleged Mossad agent arrested on Sunday in Egypt, is an American citizen who served in the IDF Paratrooper’s Brigade during the Second Lebanon War and interned last summer at the Israeli Supreme Court.

Grapel, originally from New York, moved to Israel after graduating from John Hopkins University in the US and enlisted in the IDF.

He was wounded during fighting against Hezbollah guerillas in the southern Lebanese town of Taibe in August, 2006. In an interview to the New York Daily News in 2006, Irene Grapel said her son decided to enlist in the IDF since he "didn't want a boring life" and craved some adventure before enrolling in graduate school.

A friend of Grapel’s told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that he had worked as an intern at the Israel Project – an Israel advocacy organization - in 2008 and had studied Arabic and even lived for short period of times with Druse communities in northern Israel. He frequently traveled throughout the Arab world.

In recent years he was a student at Emory Law School and even interned at the Israeli Supreme Court, according to the Emory Law School website.

“You could call him something of an Arabist,” one friend said. Another friend said Grapel was “very pro-Arabic” and liked “hanging out in Egypt.”