Report: Israel Spied On U.S.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015Israel spied on talks the U.S. and its allies are having with Iran over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Espionage among friends is not exactly new. In fact, the newspaper reported that the White House discovered the operation when U.S. intelligence agencies "spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks."
The current and former officials who revealed Israel's spying to the newspaper did not object to Israel's actions. But what they did object to was, in the words of the Journal, "Israel's sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran's nuclear program."
"It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy," a senior U.S. official, briefed on the matter, told the newspaper.