Blake Hall
The United States and Iran thought they were alone when they sat down to negotiate cutting down the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear program.
According to the Wall Street Journal, however, they weren’t at all.
Israel was listening.
In particular Israeli spies and their leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who were eavesdropping on the private talks to gain an edge and build opposition toward a potential deal.
The espionage attempt — which has since been denied by Israel officials — was intercepted by American spies, who then alerted the White House.
According to the report, the Obama administration was infuriated even further when they learned that Israel shared the stolen information with U.S. lawmakers.
“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,” an unnamed senior White House official told the Wall Street Journal.
While Israel denied snooping, they didn’t deny receiving the information through other sources — like European officials and Iranian leaders — and passing it along.
It’s no secret that President Obama and Netanyahu don’t particularly like each other, both politically and some say even personally. However, in his recent push to seek reelection, Netanyahu has tried to cool the feud by speaking publicly about Obama and the U.S. in a positive, promising light.
“America has no greater ally than Israel, and Israel has no greater ally than the United States,” he said Thursday.