Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a mantra he’s always willing to share with American audiences. "Israel has no better friend than the U.S.," Bibi is fond of saying, "and the U.S. has no better friend than Israel."
Over the last two months, Netanyahu was proven right on the first half of his catchphrase. Despite his unprecedented, all-out effort to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the United States, President Obama nevertheless rewarded Bibi with a White House visit and a pledge to increase the $3 billion in annual American aid to Israel by as much as 50 percent. And just weeks after the release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, Iran as required by the P5+1 deal shipped 25,000 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia.
But with the revelations that the National Security Agency was monitoring Netanyahu’s communications during the Iran negotiations, Bibi’s government and his Republican Likudnik allies are shocked—shocked!—to learn that such surveillance is going on. As Michele Bachmann once explained, that’s some real “chootzpah.” After all, the Netanyahu government has spying on U.S. officials like John Kerry and leaking secret documents for years.
Consider, for example, how Bibi overtly and covertly undermined the U.S. led peace process with the Palestinians. For starters, as Der Spiegel reported in August 2014, Israel listened in on Secretary Kerry’s phone calls:
SPIEGEL has learned from reliable sources that Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East peace negotiations. In addition to the Israelis, at least one other intelligence service also listened in as Kerry mediated last year between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, several intelligence service sources told SPIEGEL. Revelations of the eavesdropping could further damage already tense relations between the US government and Israel.
During the peak stage of peace talks last year, Kerry spoke regularly with high-ranking negotiating partners in the Middle East. At the time, some of these calls were not made on encrypted equipment, but instead on normal telephones, with the conversations transmitted by satellite. Intelligence agencies intercepted some of those calls. The government in Jerusalem then used the information obtained in international negotiations aiming to reach a diplomatic solution in the Middle East.
Even as the Netanyahu government was asking the Obama administration to help protect his country from potential war crimes charges arising from the Gaza conflict, Bibi was leaking classified draft documents to scuttle Kerry’s diplomatic initiative.
While the military-to-military relationship between Israel and the U.S. was operating normally, ties on the diplomatic front were imploding. For the Americans, they worsened dramatically on July 25, when aides to Secretary of State John Kerry sent a draft of a confidential cease-fire paper to Mr. Netanyahu's advisers for feedback.
The Americans wanted the Israelis to propose changes. The U.S. didn't intend or expect the draft paper to be presented to the Israeli cabinet, but that was what Mr. Netanyahu did. U.S. officials say Mr. Netanyahu's office breached protocol by sending back no comments and presenting the paper to the cabinet for a vote.
The paper was also leaked to the Israeli media. U.S. officials say they believe the Israeli government publicly mischaracterized Mr. Kerry's ideas with the intent of buying more time to prosecute the fight against Hamas because Israeli officials were angry over outreach by Mr. Kerry to Qatar and Turkey.
But Bibi’s successful effort to undermine the peace process paled in comparison to his campaign to smother the Iranian nuclear deal.
That onslaught occurred in the United States, on American op-ed pages, on U.S. airwaves and in a joint session of Congress. An unprecedented partisan operation, aided by two former Americans turned Israeli ambassadors to Washington (one once a leading GOP fundraiser), tried to torpedo the national security policy of the sitting U.S. President. And by all indications, the Israelis had plenty of information about what was happening behind closed doors at the negotiations in Geneva.
That was clear by February 2015, just weeks before Netanyahu’s address to Congress. As the AP and the New York Times reported, Obama administration officials acknowledged that the United States was not sharing with Israel all of the details of the ongoing P5+1 negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. That reticence is well-justified. As the Washington Post recently reported on the leaks coming from the Netanyahu government, on January 31, "an unnamed senior Israeli official had told Channel 10 TV news that the United States was ready to allow more than 7,000 centrifuges and had 'agreed to 80 percent of Iran's demands.'" As one American official responded to the Israeli cherry-picking, "What they don't tell you is that we only let them have that many centrifuges if they ship most of their fuel out of the country."
Given Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's all-out blitz to undermine a deal that could prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons short of war, it's no wonder State Department spokesperson had to explain the American response to the Israeli subterfuge:
"I think it's safe to say that not everything you're hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the details of the talks. There's a selective sharing of information."
What is surprising is that the Netanyahu government would complain about "empty" briefings from the U.S. and statements like that from former national security adviser General Gen. Yaakov Amidror, "It makes us question in Israel, are they open with us or are they trying to hide from us?" After all, the Netanyahu government had made it clear for years that he would not warn the U.S. in advance of unilateral Israeli military strikes against Iran. And that attack, one which would be much more likely had Bibi's sabotage succeeded, could leave U.S. forces and American interests in the region unprepared for the Iranian retaliation that would certainly follow.
Word that Israel would not give Washington a heads-up about a decision to unilaterally hit Iranian nuclear facilities first became public in 2011. That November, U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin Dempsey acknowledged the differences between Israeli and U.S. expectations over sanctions as well as differences in perspective about the future course of events. As Reuters reported:
Asked directly whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it chose to go forward with military action, Dempsey replied flatly: "I don't know."
Dempsey’s revelation came just days after the Netanyahu government refused to give the Obama administration assurances it will first notify the U.S. of its intentions. In an October 2011 meeting with Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak, American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also came away empty handed.
Israeli intransigence continued into the election year of 2012. While Netanyahu made no secret of support for his friend and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, his government again told the White House Israel would not seek Washington’s permission before launching operations against Tehran. As The Independent reported on February 29, 2012:
Relations between Israel and its staunchest ally, the United States, appear increasingly strained after Israeli officials said they would not give Washington any advance warning of a decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, according to US intelligence sources…
Far from allowing Washington a veneer of deniability, however, the claims seem likely to drive a deeper wedge between the two countries at a time of deep frustration in Washington over Israel's hawkish intentions towards Iran, which many fear could draw the US into a prolonged Middle East war.
Six months later, USA Today warned, “Israel is unlikely to provide much if any advance notice to the United States if it attacks Iran's nuclear facilities, Middle East experts say.” While most, including President Clinton’s former ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, rightly predicted that Israel would not initiate hostilities before that November’s presidential election, many feared a surprise Israeli strike could catch American assets in the Persian Gulf unprepared and with their guard down:
The assumption is that U.S. warning of an Israeli attack would come "significantly less than an hour" before it began, said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "How much of that would come from Israeli notification and how much would come from sensors we have in the region, I don't know”…
That puts the United States at a disadvantage. Getting a warning would allow the United States to reposition military and other assets to defend against a counterattack by Iran or its surrogates in the Gulf and around the world, says Michele Dunne, an analyst with the Atlantic Council.
It’s no wonder the Obama administration was worried about what Bibi was up to.
Now, with 2016 just around the corner, the Israelis insist they are the aggrieved party. If the allegations of NSA electronic surveillance are confirmed, the Wall Street Journal reported, Israel will formally protest to Washington.
Yisrael Katz, Israel’s intelligence and transport minister, said such surveillance, reported Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal, doesn’t befit two close allies. If the spying is confirmed, he said, Israel should formally demand it stop.
“Israel does not spy in the U.S. and we expect the same from our great friend. If the reports turn out to be true, Israel must submit and official protest to the U.S. and demand to cease such activity,” the minister said in a statement.
While they’re in the U.S. to register their complaint, the Israelis should visit with the recently freed Jonathan Pollard and pick up that $1 or $2 billion in new aid. After all, they’ve got no better friend than the United States.