Israel ‘spied on Iran nuclear talks to build case against deal’, says WSJ

Israel has spied on Iran’s nuclear talks with the United States and other major powers, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The Journal report, quoting current and former US officials, said the operation was designed to infiltrate the talks and help build a case against the emerging terms of a deal. Besides eavesdropping, Israel obtained information from confidential US briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials told the Journal. Israel quickly dismissed the report as “not true”, and denied spying on the United States.

It is one thing for the US and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal US secrets and play them back to US legislators to undermine US diplomacy

A senior US official briefed on the matter told WSJ

US intelligence agencies spying on Israel discovered the operation when they intercepted communications among Israeli officials. These communications carried details the Americans believed could only have come from access to the confidential talks, officials said, according to the Journal. Outgoing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed the report, saying there were “enough participants in these negotiations”.

We got our intelligence from other sources, not from the United States. The instruction has been clear for decades now: you don’t spy on the United States, directly or indirectly.

Outgoing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman

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