Next Time Someone Gets Indignant about Israeli Spying on the United States …

... refer him to this little item, "American sub spied on Israel," from Aaron Lerner at the Independent Media Review Analysis:

Israel Television Channel Two military affairs correspondent Ronnie Daniel revealed this evening that the submarine Israel chased from its territorial waters last November was an American spy sub. The vessel was identified by the Israeli Navy 18 kilometers from shore near Haifa, and fled shortly after discovery. IDF commanders admitted it wasn't the first time a Western submarine had been intercepted spying on Israel. Daniel indicated that Israel does not know what the spy sub was focusing on. (June 5, 2005)

May 8, 2007 update: Gregory Levey, Israel's United Nations speechwriter and a senior foreign communications coordinator for Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, has this to say in an article titled "Spy Games: America's efforts to spy on Israel."

While Israel has certainly spied on the United States in the past (and likely continues to do so), it may actually be the United States that is the nosier country—and the one that enjoys far more license in such covert activities. If one party should be paranoid about prying eyes—and I'm not sure either should—it should be the Israel.

Levey then tells a personal anecdote and quotes an Israeli counterintelligence agent whether Israelis are much concerned about American espionage. "Definitely," he nodded gravely. "They're trying to spy on us all the time—every way they can." A former U.S. intelligence official then replied to the question, whether the United States spies on Israel: "As an American, I would certainly hope so." There is "definitely an inordinate amount of focus" on Israel in U.S. intelligence. Are there people in the Israeli government and military who feed information to the United States, reverse Jonathan Pollards, he replied "It wouldn't surprise me at all." Levey gives one specific example, the 1986 case of Yosef Amit.

Amit was a major in Israeli military intelligence. At one point, he worked in the secretive "Unit 504," which is responsible for coordinating spies in Arab countries neighboring Israel, and he also had close contacts in the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency. In the mid-'80s, Amit was recruited by Tom Waltz, a Jewish CIA officer based in the CIA's station in Tel Aviv. And, until his arrest, he furnished the CIA with classified information about Israel's troop movements and its plans in both the occupied territories and Lebanon.

Apr. 24, 2008 update: Reacting to the arrest of 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel that date back 25 years, Caroline Glick offers policy advice for Israel in her Jerusalem Post column:

as the late Yitzhak Rabin once noted, every few years Israel discovers another US agent committing espionage against the state. Rather than make a big deal about it, and in spite of the fact that some of the information being stolen is deeply damaging to Israel's national security, out of a sense of comity with Washington, Israel keeps the scandals quiet and generally deports the spies.

By arresting an 84-year-old World War II veteran …, the US is sadly showing Israel once again that nice guys finish last. If Israel wants to be treated with respect by the US, the lesson of the Kadish affair, of the Syrian raid and of the Pollard affair is that Israel had better start pushing back.

The first thing it should do is arrest officials suspected of transferring classified materials to the US without authorization. It should then publish the names and details of US spies whom Israel previously caught and treated with kid gloves. Then it should publicly demand that Bush release Pollard from the prison where he rots, while the likes of Hizbullah agent Nada Prouty - who penetrated both the FBI and the CIA - is expected to receive a six-month prison sentence for her crimes.

Dec. 10, 2008 update: A Reuters reporter, Dan Williams, got a look at a new official history of Israel's intelligence services due out later this month that contains new evidence of U.S. spying on Israel. Titled in English "Masterpiece: An Inside Look at Sixty Years of Israeli Intelligence," it is as official a document as can be, with prefaces by the chiefs of Israel's military intelligence, Shin Bet, and Mossad and the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center as publisher.

Williams found that "American spy agencies use technologies like electronic eavesdropping, and trained staff from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, for 'methodical intelligence gathering'."

Barak Ben-Zur, a retired Shin Bet internal security service officer, wrote in the volume that "The United States has been after Israel's non-conventional capabilities and what goes on at the decision-making echelons." Asked by Reuters for operational details on U.S. spying efforts, Ben-Zur declined. But he described the American efforts as largely benign, given close defense ties between Israel and the Bush administration. "At the end of the day," he said, "the United States does not want to be surprised. Even by us."

Nov. 29, 2010 update: Israel's ambassador to Washington in 1993-96, Itamar Rabinovich, has revealed that the U.S. government broke an Israeli code and tapped its secure phone embassy line. He did not specify the time period but it appears to have been after his ambassadorial tenure and went undiscovered for years, reports Yossi Melman in Ha'aretz.

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."

Melman continues:

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.

Jan. 19, 2011 update: WikiLeaks reveals, Reuters reports, a secret U.S. Department of State memorandum dated Oct. 31, 2008, signed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Details:

Citing the needs of U.S. analysts, the cable presented envoys in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and several Arab states with an exhaustive and prioritized list of data regarding the "Palestinian Issues" being brokered by Washington.

These included "evidence of Government of Israel support for or opposition to actions to limit and/or reduce settlement and outpost growth" on occupied land where Palestinians want to establish a state. …the cable sought "details on Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations underway or planned" against Palestinian militants, "including targeted assassinations and tactics/techniques used by ground and air units." Diplomats were asked for a comprehensive overview of Israel's high-tech communications, from Internet and cellphones to state-run "information repositories associated with radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled systems used for passports, government badges, and transportation systems." The cable [also] sought updates on the movements and private contact details of Israeli civilian and military officials.

Sep. 5, 2011 update: Scott Shane of The New York Times describes evidence of U.S. government spying on Israeli secure telephone lines in "Leak Offers Look at Efforts by U.S. to Spy on Israel."

Shamai K. Leibowitz, 40, an FBI Hebrew-to-English translator who once legally represented the Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, passed on U.S. transcripts of Israeli embassy conversations to an extreme anti-Israel blogger, Richard Silverstein. He did so in the hopes that Silverstein would use the information to counter Israeli influence on the U.S. Congress and public opinion. Note what Leibowitz was translating: U.S. eavesdrops of Israeli government communications.

Shane adds that "Former counterintelligence officials describe Israeli intelligence operations in the United States as quite extensive, ranking just below those of China and Russia." He quotes Matthew M. Aid, author of the forthcoming Intel Wars, that Washington "started spying on Israel even before the state of Israel was formally founded in 1948, and Israel has always spied on us," adding that "Israeli intercepts have always been one of the most sensitive categories."

Aug. 7, 2012 update: I collect this information in an article today at "Spy vs. Spy, America vs. Israel."

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