Many American media outlets report that, according to an anonymous source from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon has identified Israel as the source of the highest level of espionage threat. The reason was the expanded activity of the secret services towards the US. Washington denied it, and Israel described the accusations as "absolutely false".
Nevertheless, the information attracted attention, since Israel is one of the closest partners of the US. At the same time, these reports reveal a decades-old problem: mutual distrust regarding the activities of the services, even between allies.
Espionage among friends - has it always been like this?
In 2013, information was spread that the US secret services had spied on the mobile phone of former Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Espionage between friends - that is absolutely unacceptable", she said at the time. But shortly afterwards it became known that German foreign intelligence had been spying on allied countries, governments and institutions for decades.
German espionage expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom is convinced that friendly countries are routinely spied on - including the US and Israel. "More than once, in the fight against international terrorism, there have been Mossad operations in the US that were not coordinated with the FBI. Israel has always been an interesting target for the US National Security Agency's electronic intelligence - especially during wars."
When did Israel spy on the US?
The most famous case of Israeli espionage against the US to date is that of Jonathan Pollard in 1987. As an employee of the US Naval Intelligence, he provided classified information to the Israeli secret services and, according to the "Times of Israel", received tens of thousands of dollars for it.
After pleading guilty, Pollard was sentenced to life in prison, and leading Israeli politicians advocated for his release. He was eventually released in 2015 and allowed to travel to Israel in 2020, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met him personally at the airport. "It was a real insult to the Americans," Schmidt-Eenboom told DW.
In 2004, it became known that Lawrence Franklin, a political analyst at the US Department of Defense, had passed inside information about US policy towards Iran to Israel. This was denied by Israel, but Franklin was convicted of espionage.
During the Snowden affair in 2013, Israeli espionage against the United States was not among the leading topics. However, the British "Guardian" wrote at the time that among the leaked documents was one from 2008, which claimed that the Israeli secret services were the third most aggressive towards the United States.
Which allies did the United States spy on?
Snowden became famous with his revelations, as he publicized the unparalleled spying on millions of people by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other American secret services. In addition, the documents showed how closely the NSA cooperates with the secret services of friendly countries. At the same time, it was revealed that the United States had also spied on its allies. The then Chancellor Merkel and the French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande were also affected.
From Pentagon documents revealed in 2023, it became clear that the US secret services had spied on the South Korean government. Both sides denied this and said that the documents were largely forged - without going into details.
Why is the current case so scandalous?
The current scandal must definitely be seen in the context of the joint US-Israeli war against Iran and the tense relations between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu: while the US president is clearly trying to resolve the conflict as quickly as possible, he does not believe that the Israeli prime minister is doing enough in this direction.
There are various assessments according to which Israel has indeed crossed a red line by spying on high-ranking government officials familiar with US negotiations with Iran - the names of special envoy Steve Witkoff and many US Department of Defense aides are mentioned.
Raising the threat level would mean a crisis of confidence between the US and Israel. However, the question remains as to why the information - seemingly against the will of the US government - reached the public.
According to Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, the question of whether the information is reliable or not is secondary. He is convinced that it was not released without the approval of the US government - Trump is looking for ways to put Israel under diplomatic pressure.
"With the midterm elections in November, he could not afford to turn the Israeli lobby in the US against him, for example by reducing military aid to Israel," the expert believes. It would be more convenient to do this after the impression has been created that Israel is violating American interests through espionage. "Now the American president has the opportunity to put pressure on Israel to stop the bombing and withdraw troops from southern Lebanon."
Author: Jan Walter