Posted on 08/29/2013 4:46:09 PM PDT by Third Person
The Obama administration views Israel as one of the top spying threats facing its intelligence services, leaked documents reveal. A secret budget request obtained by The Washington Post from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden lumps Israel alongside U.S. foes Iran and Cuba as key targets for U.S. counterintelligence efforts. The document suggests Israel does not believe U.S. assurances that its interests are aligned with Israel's on crucial issues such as Iran and peace talks with the Palestinians. To further safeguard our classified networks, we continue to strengthen insider threat detection capabilities across the Community, reads the FY 2013 congressional budget justification for intelligence programs. In addition, we are investing in target surveillance and offensive CI [counterintelligence] against key targets, such as China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan and Cuba. The White House and the Israeli Embassy did not respond to requests for comment. The revelations come as no surprise to Georgetown University's Paul Pillar, who retired as the national intelligence officer for the Near East in 1995 after a 28-year career in U.S. intelligence. Israeli spying, he said, has remained a major threat since U.S. citizen Jonathan Pollard received a life sentence in 1987 in a massive spying case that gravely strained relations between the two countries. Israel should be assumed to continue to have an aggressive intelligence collection operations against the United States, Pillar said. While much information is collected through traditional political contacts, I would personally have no doubt that that is supplemented by whatever means they can use to find out as much as they can about what we're doing, thinking, deciding on anything of interest to Israel, which would include just about any Middle Eastern topic. The issues of continued Israeli settlement construction and Obama's strong interest in reaching a negotiated settlement to avoid a confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program, Pillar said, are two issues where U.S. and Israeli interests certainly diverge, he said. Spying, he said, could give Israel warning indicators before any public decisions, and enable the country to put its political machine in action and get the United States to reconsider. If I were in [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's shoes and had his perspective, Pillar said, I would spare no effort to try to collect every bit of intelligence I could, in secret as well as openly. He said the public revelations won't impact U.S.-Israeli relations. Everything is trumped by political realities, Pillar said. Don't expect any statement by the White House press secretary tomorrow that says, 'Oh my gosh, we are really upset with the Israelis for trying to spy on us'. You're never going to hear anything like that, because politically it is hazardous for basically any American politician and certainly an incumbent American administration to underscore ... the divergence of U.S. and Israeli interests.
I don’t believe it either.
What’s shocking is the paucity of formatting and paragraphs.
But, one is compelled a very big yawn.
I’m more worried about those losers known as Germans, French, English and the Chinese...
You took the word out of my mouth.
Uh, Israel sees US as spying juggernaut.
This administration sees Israel as the enemy. Period.
I worry about the anti-Israel enemy within, the one who has usurped executive power and abuses it at every turn.
Obama is trying to make Israel seem “the bad guy”...Goes right along with his Muzzie background...An excuse to turn his back on Israel...
Israel knows the truth about Odungo...THEY ARE A THREAT
The religion and culture of the more influential constituents and their politicians today are different from those of the influential constituents from our nation’s first settlements until about 50 years ago.
...Pelosi, Napolitano and all.
Yeah, well, sorry about that. I cut and pasted from The Hill and [in my haste] didn’t preview the copy.
All of the paragraphing was lost in the transition to FR.
On one side are Patriots, Christians, Jews,
the educated, the wise and the caring.
On the other side is Obama, al Qaeda, and the
Moslem Brotherhood with their crucifixions, beheadings,
cannibalism, now armed with WMD.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
>> The document suggests Israel does not believe U.S. assurances ...
This has been the case for a long, long time. Can’t blame them.
>> The document suggests Israel does not believe U.S. assurances ...
This has been the case for a long, long time. Can’t blame them.
When we’re consistently allied with The Muslim Brotherhood and it’s offshoot Al Qaeda, of couse Israel is a threat.
LOL
Dunn it plenty of times myself...
Translation: Obama has plans that he doesn't want Israel to know.
I’m sure that Israeli intelligence is as good as it gets.
My bet is that they have multiple sources inside US intelligence agencies. I bet they have at least a couple of sources inside the white house and several inside the House and Senate.
It’s a sure bet that all of the highly technical operations undertaken by US intelligence agencies have technical experts that report to Israel all details. There are no US national technical means that Israel does not understand.
Israel knows exactly what is going on over here.
I’d sure hate to be tasked with handling 100,000+ US employees of the intel agencies and insuring that no details get back to six million smart Jews in Israel ;-)
Take any highly technical system created in the US for gathering intelligence data and it was probably a group of Jews who built the thing.
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