Pentagon raised threat assessment of Israeli spying on US to ‘critical’ level — report

The Pentagon in recent weeks raised the counterintelligence threat level from Israel to its highest designation, “critical,” amid growing tensions between the US and Israel over the direction of the wars in Iran and Lebanon, NBC reported Saturday citing current and former US officials.

The officials said the new designation stems from heightened concerns in the Pentagon that Israel is spying on top US officials in a bid to gather information on internal US deliberations about the regional conflicts.

According to the report, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency raised the level for Israel in recent weeks to “critical” in an internal message.

One of the current US officials was cited as saying the Pentagon’s assessment includes a seven-page document that describes a series specific incidents that raised US concern.

Officials told the network that Israeli intelligence-gathering efforts were viewed as exceeding the level of espionage normally expected between allied nations, though they said it was unclear whether any single incident prompted the threat-level increase.

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The White House and Israel’s embassy in the US both vehemently denied the NBC report, while the Pentagon declined to comment, the network said.

A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, said in a statement to NBC that it is “completely false” that Israel spies on the US.

“Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials,” the spokesperson said. “Israel’s intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated.”

A White House official said in a statement, “This entire story is false and sourced to someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on.”

The officials told NBC that the most likely outcome of the new assessment is that US officials will take more precautions when traveling to Israel or meeting Israeli officials.

“The US already takes extra precautions when visiting Israel,” one of the current US officials said. “They’re well-known to aggressively collect.”

However, the officials said that there did not appear to be any impact on the high-level intelligence-sharing that occurs on a daily basis between the two countries, particularly associated with the war in Iran.

Israel also has a long-standing commitment not to engage in any intelligence operations in the US that was put in place amid the damage caused to the relationship between the two countries in the wake of the Jonathan Pollard scandal.

In 1985, Pollard, then an intelligence analyst for the US Navy, was arrested and charged with spying for the Israeli Mossad intelligence service. He pleaded guilty a year later and served a total of 30 years in prison before his release in 2015. The incident remains a source of contention between Israeli and American intelligence services in what is otherwise considered one of the closest defense relationships in the world.

The threat-level reassessment came amid growing friction between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the future of the war with Iran and Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Netanyahu has reportedly pushed for renewed strikes on Iran and disagreed with Trump’s efforts to pursue a diplomatic agreement with Tehran, while also resisting US pressure to scale back operations in Lebanon.

Earlier this week, Trump confirmed that he called Netanyahu “fucking crazy” during a tense phone call about Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah, but added that he respects Netanyahu and works “very well” with him.

Axios’s Barak Ravid cited a US official who summarized Trump’s message to Netanyahu as follows: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

The phone call took place against the background of an escalating conflict in Lebanon, where Israel had threatened to strike the capital, Beirut, in response to deadly drone and rocket attacks by the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group. Iran linked the spiraling situation to its own war with the US, claiming it would not continue to negotiate for a ceasefire if Israel didn’t back off in Lebanon.