AP reporter Matt Lee grilled State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki over the ‘anonymous whining’ by the Obama administration about Israel allegedly spying on the negotiations between the US and Israel (h/t: Free Beacon):
Below is the background on this ‘anonymous whining’ as well as responses by Israel to these allegations:
Last night the WSJ reported that Israel had been spying on the US/Iranian negotiations, per some anonymous official in the Obama administration:
Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.
The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.
Soon after the U.S. entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks. Photo: Getty
The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as 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, current and former officials said.“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,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.
Israel today denied it, saying they don’t spy on the US:
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday denied that Israel had spied on the United States during nuclear talks between the US and Iran, hinting it may have kept on eye on the Iranians instead. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon also firmly dismissed the report.
Liberman noted that although Israel has a keen interest in the outcome of the talks, which aim to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for reduced sanctions, Israeli intelligence services doesn’t spy on the US.
“I think this report is not correct, not accurate,” he told Army Radio. “Of course, Israel has a various security interests, and it is clear that we have good intelligence services. But we don’t spy on the United States.
Even Ya’alon, Israeli Defense Minister suggested that someone in the Obama administration is trying to stir up a dispute between the US and Israel:
“We did not receive any complaint. But someone apparently has an interest in stoking conflict, or bringing a negative twist to relations between us, which are strategic relations from our perspective.”