Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Israel declined comment Wednesday on the spying charges leveled against a New Jersey man.

The 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish, who is Jewish, is accused of passing secret defense documents, including information about nuclear weapons, fighter jets and a missile defense system, to Israel in the early 1980s.

The former U.S. Army mechanical engineer and World War II veteran is charged with four counts of conspiracy in federal court in Manhattan. He is accused of passing classified documents to an employee of the Israeli Consulate from 1979 through 1985.

According to reports, Kadish worked at the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at the Picantinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. While there, he allegedly checked out classified documents, which he took home allowed an Israel agent to photograph.

Kadish reportedly confessed to the FBI that he had given 50 to 100 classified documents to the Israeli agent, but said he did not receive any cash for his efforts, only small gifts and occasional dinners.

The documents allegedly contained information on nuclear weapons, a modified F-15 fighter plane and the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened.

Kadish's case is being compared to that of Jonathan Pollard, a former civilian U.S. Naval intelligence analyst who is serving a life sentence for passing military information to Israel while he worked at the Pentagon.

Kadish is accused of passing his information to the same Israeli official who received Pollard's information at about the same time. The report did not name the official, whom it described as the science attache at Israel's New York Consulate.

State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said that the issue would be discussed with the Israelis but that the U.S. had a "good and friendly relationship" with Israel.

"These kinds of activities, whether they occurred long in the past or...occur present-day are not the kinds of actions we would expect from a friend and ally," Casey said. "We would expect that Israel would not be engaging in such activities."

Former government minister Micha Harish, who was a member of the Knesset committee that investigated the Pollard affair, said Israel has no spies in the U.S.

"We came to the conclusion that the Pollard was an exceptional incident," Harish said in a radio interview. The Israeli government decided that because the relationship between Israel and the U.S. was so important, there would be no spies in the U.S., Harish said.

It is not clear why the affair surfaced at this time or what, if any, damage was done to the U.S. because of the alleged spying.

The Israeli defense establishment is concerned that the affair could have negative fallout with the Pentagon at a time with there are several important deals pending, the Jerusalem Post reported.

But other experts said that the two-decade old affair was not expected to have an impact on Israeli-U.S. relations.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Zalman Shoval said that he knows nothing of the affair except what is in the media. But he wondered about the timing of the announcement more than 20 years after the spying allegedly took place.

Israel has not spied on the U.S. since the Pollard case, Shoval told Cybercast News Service. The responsible people on both sides know that 100 percent, he said.

Shoval said the relationship between the two allies is so important on many levels that a 20-year-old incident would not "spoil and disturb" the relationship now.

He suggested there might be people who are not happy with the close ties between Israel and the U.S. and they might bring up things to put a clog in the wheel.

Everyone will be happy when all the facts come out, Shoval said.

The alleged spy, meanwhile, is free on $300,000 bond following a brief court appearance on Tuesday.