US spied on Israel's embassy in Washington?
I guess this is the week for disclosures even outside the framework of Wikileaks. No, this one did not come from Wikileaks.Former Israeli ambassador to the US Itamar Rabinovich (pictured with Bill Clinton and Ariel Sharon) told Army Radio on Monday that the United States tapped the phone lines at the Israeli embassy in Washington for many years.
Rabinovich did not say exactly when the code was broken and when Israel found out about it, but it was understood from his remarks that the tap started after his 1993-1996 tenure in the U.S. capital and was discovered only years later.And Pollard still languishes in jail?
The former envoy said that every staffer at the Israeli Embassy in Washington is warned about possible leaks of conversations held in the building and on ordinary phone lines, but also on the secure phone line.
After the Americans broke the code, Israel's deepest policy secrets were apparently exposed.
"Every 'juicy' telegram was in danger of being leaked," Rabinovich told Army Radio's Razi Barkai. "We sent very few of them. Sometimes I came to Israel to deliver reports orally. The Americans were certainly tapping the regular phone lines, and it became clear that in later years they were also listening to the secure line."
...
As far as is known, American spies have not been caught by Israel's intelligence services, although there have been instances when U.S. intelligence operatives contacted Israeli citizens and explored the possibility of recruiting them.
The Americans have also used their military attaches to gather information.
Israel believes that over the years, U.S. intelligence services have been listening - or at least attempting to listen - to conversations between key people in Israel and staff at its missions around the world.
For that reason, diplomats going abroad are instructed by the Shin Bet security service to treat every conversation as if it is being tapped and to make sure not to reveal secret information.
However, the assumption was still that the secure phone line could not being tapped.
Labels: Israeli embassy, Itamar Rabinovich, Jonathan Pollard, wiretaps
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:42 AM
3 Comments:
Like I'm shocked.
NOT! The upside to the WL and other disclosures this week is the fact that most people are finally seeing the Middle East as it always has been, not the fantasy one constructed by the State Department, European governments, NGOs and the mass media.
That's not news to me but it will come as a revelation to those who've lived in the MSM bubble for a long time now.
now if we'd only apologised for the USS Liberty incident all those years ago we could have been the best of friends and the US would never have done this.
we are our own worst enemies
/sarc off
I've said it before. You want Pollard released to Israel? Capture and hold an American spy. I have no doubt there are hundreds in Israel.
If America will trade for Russian spies, kol v'chomer, they'll trade for an Israeli spy.
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