Israeli Intelligence Eavesdropped on Kerry’s Phone During Palestine-Israel Peace Talks

[Magda Hassan]

Israeli Intelligence Eavesdropped on Kerry's Phone During Palestine-Israel Peace Talks

by Richard Silverstein on August 3, 2014 in Mideast Peace


Ronen Bergman's summary of Der Spiegel article

Der Spiegel reports in today's edition that Israeli intelligence (likely Unit 8200) eavesdropped on phone calls John Kerry made to his Palestinian interlocutors during the peace talks he conducted for the past year. Though Kerry usually talked on encrypted phone lines from his State Department office or Georgetown home, when he was in flight to or from the region he had to use a satellite phone, which was not encrypted. This allowed the Israelis to listen in on everything he said to the Palestinians. It allowed them to know what ideas he was floating and prepared for them to counter them in the negotiation process. When the Israelis really disliked a proposal they knew better how to attack it before Kerry had even brought the subject up.

The Spiegel reporter, who was the same one who first revealed that the NSA was eavesdropping on Andrea Merkel's cell phone conversations as well.

A second country was also listening in on Kerry's calls, though the report doesn't say which one. Either Israel was enabling that country to eavesdrop. Or the two countries were doing it independently of each other. My money is on a shared mission. Which countries might Israel have wanted to know of these secret calls? My money is on the new Israel toady, Egypt. Or possibly Saudi Arabia, which which Israel has a very close intelligence relationship related to the Iranian "threat."
Ronen Bergman published a summary of the article in Yediot yesterday. It has just been published in German by Der Spiegel.

[Tracy Riddle]

http://www.newsweek.com/israel-flagged-t...ign=buffer

Israel was singled out in 2007 as a top espionage threat against the U.S. government, including its intelligence services, in a newly published National Security Agency (NSA) document obtained by fugitive leaker Edward Snowden, according to a news report Monday.

The document also identified Israel, along with North Korea, Cuba and India, as a "leading threat" to the infrastructure of U.S. financial and banking institutions.

The threats were listed in the NSA's 2007 Strategic Mission List, according to the document obtained by journalist/activist Glenn Greenwald, a founding editor of The Intercept, an online magazine that has a close relationship with Snowden, a former NSA and CIA contractor who fled the U.S. with thousands of top-secret documents last year.

In this new document, Israel was identified by the NSA as a security threat in several areas, including "the threat of development of weapons of mass destruction" and "delivery methods (particularly ballistic and nuclear-capable cruise missiles)." The NSA also flagged Israel's "WMD and missile proliferation activities" and "cruise missiles" as threats.

In a section of the document headed "Foreign Intelligence, Counterintelligence; Denial & Deception Activities: Countering Foreign Intelligence Threats," Israel was listed as a leading perpetrator of "espionage/intelligence collection operations and manipulation/influence operations…against U.S. government, military, science & technology and Intelligence Community" organs.

The term "manipulation/influence operations" refers to covert attempts by Israel to sway U.S. public opinion in its favor. In this, Israel has dubious company, according to the NSA: Other leading threats were listed as China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, France, Venezuela and South Korea.

Israel has similar company in threats against U.S. infrastructure, according to the NSA document. Under a section headed "Mastering Cyberspace and Preventing an Attack on U.S. Critical Information Systems," Israel, India, North Korea and Cuba are identified as "FIS [financial/banking system] threats." Israel also appears on the list of countries believed by the NSA to be "enabling" electronic warfare "producers/proliferators."

The new document again underscores the schizoid relationship between the U.S. and Israel, which cooperate closely in military and intelligence operations but also aggressively spy on each other. A previously released Snowden document said that "one of NSA's biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel." Another revealed that a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate ranked Israel as "the third most aggressive intelligence service against the U.S.," behind only China and Russia.

In a series of articles last May, Newsweek reported that "Israel has been caught carrying out aggressive espionage operations against American targets for decades," an allegation vociferously denied by Israeli officials, who insisted that Jerusalem stopped spying on the U.S. after the late 1980s arrest and conviction of its secret agent Jonathan Pollard, a U.S. Naval Intelligence analyst. Over the weekend, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Israel eavesdropped on Secretary of State John Kerry's cellphone conversations during Middle East peace talks in 2013. (According to a July 20, 2014, piece in The New Republic, "The Kerry team spoke more carefully over cell phones, believing the Israelis might be listening.")

The State Department had no comment on the Der Spiegel allegations.

Washington's protective relationship toward Israel is heavily influenced by its close cooperation in intelligence operations against common Middle Eastern threats, such as Iran, Syria, terrorist groups and the Palestinians.

Citing NSA documents, Greenwald's piece in The Intercept says, "The relationship has, on at least one occasion, entailed the covert payment of a large amount of cash to Israeli operatives." The NSA and its British counterpart also "rely on U.S.-supported Arab regimes, including the Jordanian monarchy and even the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, to provide vital spying services regarding Palestinian targets.
"Over the last decade," Greenwald added, "the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC."

[Magda Hassan]

The document also identified Israel, along with North Korea, Cuba and India, as a "leading threat" to the infrastructure of U.S. financial and banking institutions.

.....

Israel has similar company in threats against U.S. infrastructure, according to the NSA document. Under a section headed "Mastering Cyberspace and Preventing an Attack on U.S. Critical Information Systems," Israel, India, North Korea and Cuba are identified as "FIS [financial/banking system] threats."

::face.palm::::::cuckoo::

How demented do you have to be to believe Cuba and North Korea are any threat to the US banking system. Apart from being an example of being an alternative system outside it. What have they been drinking? How can you take them seriously when they come up with this crap?

[Peter Lemkin]

While I agree that Israel has the ability and has certainly electronically and otherwise spied on US and other intelligence and political assets, WE put them in an easy position to do so. Much of the sophisticated components used in electronic communications and many of the high-security companies that get paid to do such things privately [even for the US Government and its agencies] are Israeli companies or Israeli made....so, we let that Trojan Horse in. A case of 'honor among thieves'. The details are complex, but clear. There are several threads on this here on the Forum. ::::::