Israel doesn’t spy on or in US, one could expect others to do the same: Israeli minister
Israel doesn’t spy on or in US, one could expect others to do the same: Israeli minister
The United States continues to spy on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s communications despite promising to curtail the hacking of its allies, media reported on Wednesday.
Contacted by AFP, the White House did not deny the report, which cites several serving and former US officials, but stressed the importance of its ongoing close ties with Israel.
Mr Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem as well as the spokesman of the Israeli foreign ministry declined to comment on the report.
An Israeli minister and close ally of Mr Netanyahu sought Wednesday to play down revelations the United States monitored the Premier’s private communications.
“I didn’t fall off my chair from the Wall Street Journal report,” Yuval Steinitz, minister of energy and a former intelligence minister, said on public radio.
“Israel does not spy on or in the United States; we adhere to that rule, and one could expect others to do the same,” said Mr Steinitz, who was in charge of the Iranian file while intelligence minister between 2013 and 2015.
“But we are not naive. We know that countries — even friendly ones — try to collect intelligence on us, and we conduct ourselves accordingly,” he said.
Two years ago, after rogue intelligence contractor Edward Snowden revealed the vast extent of the National Security Agency’s online surveillance, President Barack Obama promised to limit spying on US allies.
But, according to the Wall Street Journal report, Mr Obama decided there was a “compelling national security purpose” in continuing to monitor some leaders, including Mr Netanyahu and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Instead, the report says, Mr Obama ordered that some of the hacked systems used by close allies would not be routinely monitored by the NSA, while others would continue to be mined for intel.
“Going dark on Bibi Of course we wouldn’t do that,” one senior US official told the Journal, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In Mr Netanyahu’s case, Washington was concerned that Israel was itself monitoring US negotiations with Iran and might try to derail the effort to reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
