Why the U.S. Spies on Netanyahu: Should NSA listen in when a foreign government seeks to shape America's foreign policy?

Why the U.S. Spies on Netanyahu

Should NSA listen in when a foreign government seeks to shape America's foreign policy?

By PHILIP GIRALDI • December 31, 2015

The Wall Street Journal story revealing that the Barack Obama administration used the National Security Agency (NSA) to listen to phone calls made by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his aides is being spun in a number of different directions depending on one’s political proclivities. Sen. Rand Paul told Fox News that he was “appalled by it… you could see how it would stifle speech if you’re going to eavesdrop on congressmen and that it might stifle what they say or who they communicate with.”

But whom the congressmen speak to and regarding what is precisely the point, as they were elected to represent their constituents in the United States of America, not the Israeli government. Understanding that, the Obama White House was perfectly within its rights to move aggressively against Netanyahu. The snooping program itself was initiated with bipartisan support towards the end of Obama’s first term, when there were concerns that Netanyahu would order a unilateral attack on Iran that would drag the United States into an unwanted war. In early 2015 its focus shifted to Israeli interference in the U.S. government’s secret involvement in negotiations relating to a possible international agreement with Iran over its nuclear program. It was clear that the Israelis were obtaining classified information on the state of the negotiations and were leaking that information selectively to influence both Congress and supportive organizations within the U.S. regarded as part of the Israel lobby.

Obama was not eavesdropping on American legislators—he was working against a foreign country that was actively spying against the United States and using the information it obtained to interfere with U.S. policy formulation. That was more than sufficient reason to try to find out what Netanyahu was up to. The fact that he was talking to congressmen in an attempt to line them up against the White House is deplorable, but if the congressmen did not exchange classified information with the Israelis then their consciences should be more or less clear, if not completely untroubled.

How dare we spy on the head of a “friendly” government? Cries of outrage are coming from the usual sources—National Review, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal—as this is America’s “greatest friend and closest ally” that we are talking about. Or is it? Israel spies on the United States more than any other ostensibly friendly government does. It has never hesitated to put its own interests first without concern for blowback against the American people. When it is caught out it lies: it did so in the 1954 Lavon Affair, when it would have blown up a U.S. government building; in 1967, when it tried to sink the USS Liberty; and yet again in 1987 to cover up the Jonathan Pollard spy case.

[link to www.theamericanconservative.com]