Oh what a tangled web we weave
by digby
Via WSJ:
Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran’s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.
The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.
The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program, current and former officials said.
“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.
Yeah, I hate when that happens.
That is one shocking situation if you think about it. Israel is spying on the US, with US knowledge apparently. But Israel is sharing what it learns with opposition members of congress in order to influence policy within the US government.
These people want to jail Edward Snowden for espionage while actual members of the US Government are working with a foreign nation to undermine an anti-nuclear peace agreement! WTH?
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