The Honey Trap Theory: Ari Ben-Menashe Speaks on Epstein (Part 1) (9/3/25)

Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence officer, has long claimed that Jeffrey Epstein was not merely a wealthy predator but an intelligence asset, operating what he describes as a classic honey-trap operation. According to Ben-Menashe, Epstein’s private island, jets, and mansions were not only indulgences but controlled environments designed for surveillance and kompromat collection. The young women Epstein exploited were bait, he argues, and the true currency was secrets—leverage over the powerful figures who entered Epstein’s world. This interpretation reframes Epstein’s unusual legal leniency and elite connections as signs of protection, not just influence or money, suggesting his utility to intelligence agencies made him untouchable for years.

Ben-Menashe links Epstein’s story to that of Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, who he has also alleged was a Mossad asset, framing both men as part of a broader tradition of cultivating access to elites for covert purposes. While his claims are controversial and remain unverified, they persist because they provide a framework for understanding the unanswered questions around Epstein: how he gained such reach, why he escaped real consequences for so long, and why his downfall ended with his sudden death. Whether or not one accepts Ben-Menashe’s account, it shifts the focus from Epstein as an isolated criminal to Epstein as a possible cog in a larger intelligence machine.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
Epstein Chronicles. Whenever anybody talks about Jeffrey Epstein and has
alleged ties to the Massad, they all refer to the
same source as that source of information that confirms that
Epstein was in fact working with the Massad, and that
person is Ari Ben Manash. So in this episode, we're

(00:22):
going to take a look at who Ari Ben Manash is,
and we're going to take a look at his original
claims about Jeffrey Epstein and Glen Maxwell and Glen Maxwell's father,
Robert Maxwell. But before we dive into the article, why
don't we start with a basic background on who Ari is.
Ari ben Manash was born in December nineteen fifty one

(00:44):
in Tehran, Iran, to an Iraqi Jewish family. His early
life was shaped by the turbulent politics of the Middle
East in the mid twentieth century, where regional instability, shifting alliances,
and covert dealings between states created fertile ground for those
involved in intelligence and military affairs. When he was still
a teenager, his family relocated to Israel, where he quickly

(01:07):
assimilated into Israeli society and served in the military By
the seventies, ben Minosh had joined the Israeli Defense Force,
serving between seventy four and seventy seven. His focus was
in signals intelligence, a field that required a sharp mind
for languages, communications, and pattern recognition. From there, he was

(01:28):
recruited into the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, where he worked
from seventy seven to nineteen eighty seven. This role gave
him a front row seat to some of the most
sensitive Israeli intelligence operations of the Cold War era. During
his time in Aman, ben Omash claimed to have been
deeply involved in Israeli arm transfers to Iran, particularly during

(01:50):
the period when the Islamic Republic was officially hostile towards
Israel but still covertly dependent on its weapons supply during
the Iran Iraq War. According to his own accounts, he
was part of the shadowy arms network that blurred the
lines between Israeli policy, private contractors, and clandestine US interests.
One of his most sensational claims is that he had

(02:12):
insider knowledge of the October Surprise conspiracy of the eighties.
This theory suggests that members of Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign
negotiated with Iranian officials to delay the release of US
hostages until Jimmy Carter lost the election, an arrangement that
allegedly tipped the scales in Reagan's favor. Ben Minosh insisted

(02:33):
he had first hand knowledge of Israeli involvement in these negotiations,
though his claims have never been conclusively proven and remained
hotly debated. In nineteen eighty six, during the height of
the Iran Contra scandal, Ben Minosh reportedly became a source
for journalists, helping expose covert US and Israeli arm cells

(02:53):
to Iran. This information not only embarrassed multiple governments, but
also furthered his reputation as an insider willing to go
public with intelligent secrets. Yet his credibility has always been
under scrutiny. Some saw him as a whistleblower willing to
risk his career to reveal truth, while others painted him
as an opportunist inflating his importance within the Israeli intelligence establishment.

(03:18):
Ben minash life took a dramatic turn in eighty nine
when he was arrested in Los Angeles for allegedly attempting
to sell three C one thirty hercules military transport planes
to Iran in violation of US export laws. He spent
eleven months in jail awaiting trial. His defense centered on
the argument that he had been acting under the authority
of the Israeli government, it was not freelancing for personal profit.

(03:42):
In nineteen ninety a jury acquitted him after testimony suggested
that his actions had been linked to Israeli policy rather
than personal criminality. Nonetheless, his standing in Israel's intelligence community
had collapsed, and he found himself essentially exiled. This marked
the beginning of his reinvention as both an author and
a consultant for hire. In nineteen ninety two, Ben Manosh

(04:05):
released Prophets of War Inside the Secret US Israeli Arms Network.
In this book, he chronicled his decade inside Israel's intelligence world,
detailing covert arms deals, espionage, and his interpretation of how
US Israeli clandestine ties functioned. Among the most explosive revelations
were his allegations at Robert Maxwell, the British media tycoon

(04:29):
and father of Glen Maxwell, was working as an agent
for the Massad. Ben Manash tied Maxwell to the betrayal
of Mordechai Vananu, the Israeli whistleblower who exposed Israel's secret
nuclear weapons program. Venunu was abducted by Massad in Rome
and smuggled back to Israel in eighty six. According to

(04:49):
ben Minosh, Maxwell played a role in facilitating Venunw's exposure
and arrest. He went further suggesting that Maxwell's mysterious death
at sea in nineteen ninety one was not an accident
but a Masad assassination carried out because Maxwell had become
a liability. After his acquittal, Ben Minosh struggled to find
safe footing. He briefly moved to Australia before eventually settling

(05:12):
in Montreal, Canada, where he remarried a Canadian woman and
gained citizenship in the mid nineteen nineties. From there, he
began offering services as a consultant and lobbyist, often for
controversial clients across the world. Canadian intelligence agencies reportedly interviewed
him multiple times, taking advantage of his knowledge of Middle

(05:33):
Eastern networks, but he also gained notoriety for his business dealings.
He positioned himself as a political broker who could leverage
his intelligence contacts for governments and figures willing to pay
in later decades, ben Minosh became known less for his
intelligence past and more for his work as an international
lobbyist and consultant. He was involved with clients ranging from

(05:56):
Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabi to factions in Sudan, Libya, Kyrgyzstan, and Tunisia.
Often these were regimes of political actors isolated from Western governments,
and ben Manash marketed himself as a fixer who could
open doors in Washington, Moscow and Jerusalem for the right price.
In one instance, he registered a foreign agent in the

(06:18):
US after being hired by Sadir Japarov, the leader from Kyrgyzstan,
in a one million dollar contract to promote his government abroad.
Similar deals with African and Middle Eastern leaders brought him
both money and controversy. Critics accused him of working as
a mercenary lobbyist willing to defend authoritarian figures for profit,

(06:40):
and to this day, Arib ben Manash remains a polarizing figure.
His supporters view him as a courageous whistleblower who exposed
government lies in deep corruption, while detractors see him as
an unreliable, fableist who mixes truth with embellishment. To create
an aura of importance. His reputation has been further complicated
by the fact that many of his claims, though dramatic,

(07:03):
remained difficult to independently verify. Still, his life intersects with
major historic flashpoints, the Iran Contra scandal, the October Surprise,
Robert Maxwell's downfall, and Israeli nuclear secrets. Whether one sees
him as a hero, a hustler, or something in between,
Ari Ben Manash continues to loom in the shadows of

(07:25):
intelligence history. So what did Ari Ben Manash have to
say about Robert Maxwell? Ari ben manash most enduring and
certainly most controversial claims revolve around the late media baron
Robert Maxwell, the father of Glene Maxwell. In his nineteen
ninety two memoirs Profits of War, Ben Manash declared that

(07:45):
Maxwell was not merely a powerful pressed icoon with political connections,
but in fact the long standing Masad asset recruited decades
earlier and used the funnel sensitive information and intelligence to Israel.
He painted Maxwell not his the media magnate who occasionally
dabbled in espionage, but is someone deeply embedded in Israel's

(08:06):
intelligence infrastructure, trusted enough to handle some of its most
sensitive operations. One of the most striking allegations Ben Manash
leveled concerned the case of Mordecai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear
technician who revealed Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program to The
Sunday Times in nineteen eighty six. According to Ben Manash,

(08:27):
it was Maxwell who tipped off the Massad about the
new news contact with British journalists. This tip allegedly helped
Israeli intelligence set in motion the operation to lure Venunu
to Rome, to seduce them through the honeytrap agent Cheryl
ben Hove, and then kidnap them back to Israel in
a covert mission. Ben Minosh claimed that without Maxwell's intervention,

(08:49):
Venunu might have escaped Israel's grasp and lived freely after
disclosing the nuclear secrets. In ben Manosh telling, Maxwell's relationship
with Massad was not a casual one, but rather symbiotic
and mutually beneficial. Maxwell's global media empire gave him access
to elites in politics, finance, and intelligence. Massad in turn

(09:12):
used him as both a conduit of information and a
trusted operative for specific missions. His newspaper could shape narratives
very inconvenient stories or ampli TI messages that aligned with
Israeli strategic interests. Ben Minosh suggested that Massad had cultivated
Maxwell for years, precisely because of the unusual combination of wealth, influence,

(09:34):
and plausible deniability. Another explosive claim made by Ben Manash
was that Maxwell's sudden death in November of nineteen ninety one,
when his body was discovered floating in the Atlantic Ocean
off the Canary Islands, was no accident, nor was it
a suicide as some speculated. Instead, he asserted that Maxwell
was assassinated by Massad operatives. The motive, he claimed, stem

(09:57):
from Maxwell's growing financial troubles is increasing on predictability. Facing bankruptcy,
Maxwell allegedly tried to leverage its past services and sensitive
knowledge of Israeli operations to secure bellouts to Massad. Ben
Manash suggested this made him a liability rather than an asset.

(10:17):
The official story of Maxwell's death has always been riddled
within consistencies, which provide fertile ground for conspiracy theories. He
was reported to have fallen from his yacht, the Lady Lelaine,
but no definitive explanation was ever reached. Ben Manash took
those ambiguities and tied them directly to his claim that
Maxwell's usefulness to Massad had expired, and that he knew

(10:40):
too much about Israel's covert operations, including its nuclear program,
arms deals, and deep political connections. In such circles, liabilities
are rarely tolerated. Ben manash betrayal of Maxwell painted him
as a man who lived a double life, a public
figure of wealth and power and a clan destined intelligence

(11:01):
operative whose dealings went far deeper than any outsider imagined.
According to him, Maxwell had been instrumental in helping Israel
acquire technology and secure influence in Western capitals. His role
in Venunw's downfall was merely one of the most visible
pieces of a long career spent in the shadows of espionage.

(11:21):
Venunu had leaked photos of Israel's secret nuclear facility at
the Mona, proving the existence of a nuclear weapons program
long denied by Israeli officials. This revelation could have seriously
embarrassed Israel and changed his relationship with the Western allies.
Ben Manash argued that Maxwell stepped in at the critical

(11:42):
moment to prevent further damage by ensuring Massad could neutralize
Venunu before more information reach the public domain. This claim,
if true, would put Maxwell directly at the center of
one of Israel's most sensitive intelligence operations of the twentieth century.
For critics of Maxwell, Ben Minosh's allegation seemed plausible because

(12:03):
Maxwell had long courted power and was notorious for his ruthlessness.
He was known to move effortlessly between governments, corporations, and
media circles, often blurring the line between journalism, politics, and
back channel diplomacy. His empire gave him leverage, and his
financial scheme often left him in need of powerful allies. Massad,

(12:25):
in Ben Manash's narrative, offered both protection and utility, creating
a relationship that spanned decades. The question of motive in
Maxwell's alleged assassination looms large. In Ben Minosh's account, he
argued that Maxwell's precarious finances, heavily indebted his empire teetering
on collapse, led him to threaten exposure. Maxwell, he claimed,

(12:47):
tried to use his intelligence ties as bargaining chips to
save off Ruin, but to an agency like Massad, which
prizes secrecy and controls above all, else such threats were intolerable.
From their perspective, it was safer to silence them permanently
than risk the exposure of sensitive operations. Ben Minash also

(13:08):
linked Maxwell's relationship with Masad to broader patterns of Israel's
espionage and influence operations. According to him, Maxwell was far
from the only figure cultivated in this way, but he
was among the most successful, operating at the nexus of business,
media and intelligence. This made him uniquely valuable, but also

(13:29):
uniquely dangerous when his empire began to crumble. Critics of
Ben Manash have dismissed his claim as sensational, pointing out
that he has a history of making bold assertions that
are difficult to verify. Yet his stories about Maxwell persist
because they align with the suspicion that already existed about
the publisher's sudden death, his shadowy dealings, and his reputation

(13:52):
as a man who thrived in secrecy. Even decades later,
Maxwell's drowning has never been definitively explained, and keeping speculation alive.
The Maxwell Venunu connection has also remained a point of
intrigue because Venunu himself was such a high profile case.
His kidnapping and subsequent imprisonment dru worldwide attention and condemnation.

(14:15):
If Maxwell truly played a key role in exposing Venunu,
as Ben Manash insisted, it would place him at the
heart of one of Israel's most controversial intelligence operations, further
cementing his legacy as a covert actor rather than a
mere bystander. Ben Minosh did not portray Maxwell as a
simple villain or victim, but as a man consumed by

(14:36):
ambition and ultimately undone by the very system that he served.
In his view, Maxwell's ego and greed pushed them too far,
first into financial ruin, then into dangerous confrontations with his
intelligence handlers. The fatal night aboard the Lady Glaine was,
in this telling, the inevitable outcome of years of playing
both sides of a dangerous game. Now the assassin nation

(15:00):
theory also fits within a larger pattern of mysterious deaths
tied to intelligence work. Ben Manosh emphasized that Maxwell's body
was recovered under ambiguous circumstances and that the inquest into
his death left lingering questions. His funeral in Israel attended
by top political figures, including then Prime Minister Yitzak Shmir

(15:22):
and President heim Herzog underscored his importance to the State
of Israel, further fueling suspicion that his ties to Masad
were deeper than officially acknowledged. In the decades since Maxwell's death,
Ben Minash's claims have been cited in books, documentaries, and
investigative reports, While mainstream institutions remain cautious about endorsing them.

(15:45):
His narrative is shaped how many interpret Maxwell's life and death.
Even skeptics can see that Maxwell's influence, his ties to
Israeli leaders, and his mysterious end invite legitimate scrutiny. Another
aspect Ben Manosh highlighted was Maxwell in manipulating information flows
through his media empire, he could steer a coverage favorable

(16:06):
to Israeli interests or suppress damaging stories. This power, combined
with his intelligence connections, made him one of the most
formidable figures in late Cold War geopolitics. When he died,
the sudden collapse of his empire revealed not just financial crimes,
but also the intricate web of political and intelligence connections
that he cultivated. Banunu, who spent eighteen years in prison,

(16:31):
many of them in solitary confinement. Later confirmed that he
believed he was betrayed by someone close to the media
or political establishment, though he never directly accused Maxwell. Ben
Minosh's story provides a name and a narrative to explain
how MASADNW to target him for Venunu supporters. This remains
a chilling reminder of the global reach of Israeli intelligence.

(16:53):
Ben minosh narrative about Robert Maxwell is not universally accepted,
but it is one of the few that ties together
the strands of espionage, media, nuclear secrecy, and sudden death.
Whether one sees him as a whistleblower or a liar,
his account has ensured that Maxwell's name is forever linked

(17:13):
not only to financial scandals and family disgrace, but also
the clandestine world of Masad operations. In the end, what
ben Manash offered was a portrait of a man who
thrived in shadows, who built a fortune on manipulation, and
who ultimately died under circumstances befitting the clandestine life he
allegedly lived. Robert Maxwell, and his telling was more than

(17:37):
a disgrace press lord. He was a spy, a betrayer,
and finally a casualty of the very secrets that he carried.
All right, So that's going to do it for the
first episode. In the next episode, we're going to continue
the conversation, but we're going to spin to what Ari
Ben Manash had to say about Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell.
All of the information that goes with this episode can

(17:59):
be found owned in the description box.