Obama administration officials are claiming that Israel spied on international negotiations over Iran's nuclear program and leaked acquired classified information to U.S. lawmakers in an attempt to undermine talks with Tehran, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Citing current and former senior administration officials, the report claims the Israeli espionage operation began shortly after the U.S. began secretive talks with Iran in 2012. American officials expected Israel to spy on the negotiation process because even the closest of allies spy on each other. According to the WSJ, U.S. intelligence agencies actually found out about the spying because they were already spying on Israel.
"The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said," wrote the WSJ, who also corroborated its story with unnamed European and Israeli sources.
The real issue, according to administration officials, is that Israel used that stolen intelligence to deliberately politicize the negotiation process.
"It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other," an unnamed senior official told the WSJ. "It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy."
According to the report, Israel shared the stolen information with Republican leaders hoping that they could use it to persuade more Democrats to support new sanctions against Iran - something President Barack Obama has repeatedly insisted would harm the negotiation process.
Israel denied the allegations, claiming it obtained the information by monitoring Iranian leaders and other sources.
"These allegations are utterly false," one senior Israeli official in the Prime Minister's office told CNN. "The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel's other allies."
Another Israeli official, outgoing Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, told the country's Army Radio on Tuesday that Israel "reached a decision a long time ago not to spy on the US and I haven't come across anyone who has violated that instruction in several decades," the Guardian reported.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki commented Tuesday saying, "We will continue our close military intelligence and security cooperation with Israel and that hasn't changed," USA Today reported.
Psaki said that the U.S. briefs members of Congress on the Iran talks, adding that it's "an absurd notion that Congress would have to rely on any foreign government to gain insight on the administration's nuclear negotiations with Iran."
"We have spoken in the past of our concern about leaks of sensitive information, and our concern that sensitive information remain private," Psaki added.
Obama said Tuesday that he won't be commenting on the reports, according to the Associated Press.
