Experts in Israel and the world were not shocked when the
Snowden documents began to be revealed. Senior intelligence officials in the
West, as well as in Russia and China, know that over a decade ago the American
intelligence agencies became devouring monsters that deal in all kinds of
espionage, the scope of which is unmatched by any other country.
The size and capabilities of the systems used by China and
Russia to gather political, economic, military and industrial intelligence do
not come close to the electronic and cyber espionage systems operated by the
National Security Agency in cooperation with Britain, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand.
Since the terror attack on the World Trade Center in
September 2001, the Americans have developed the ability to deal with masses of
information all over the world (they began this process a few years prior to
the attack, but the disaster made the Americans realize they were facing a
third world war in which the enemy is global jihad).
So, now the Americans have digital capabilities (super
computers, for instance) and scientific-technological abilities that allow them
to not only intercept and record the phone conversations and Internet chats of
tens of millions of people, but also to extract from these recordings the
specific details they are interested in.
In addition, the Americans also have speedy
and direct access to the server farms of key elements in the communications and
Internet fields, such as Google. But most importantly, they have a large
appetite for gathering information through technological means to make up for
the difficulties American intelligence agencies have traditionally faced in
their efforts to recruit and activate quality human intelligence sources.
Seeds of paranoia
Another reason for this appetite for technological
intelligence is what can be referred to as diplomatic- intelligential paranoia.
Its roots are in the Cold War era, when often times the CIA could not deliver
the goods and the US was repeatedly caught by surprise. There were also a
number of incidents at the time which justified Uncle Sam's fear that its
allies were transferring to the Soviets sensitive information and secretly
cooperated with them.
One example of this is the spy Günter Guillaume, who in the
1970s operated as a mole in the office of West Germany's chancellor. Guillaume
disclosed NATO's military and diplomatic secrets to his handlers in East
Germany, which passed on the information to the KGB in Moscow. When the affair
was exposed in 1974, Chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign.
But the Cold War ended long ago, and today there does not
seem to be any legal, moral or practical justification for eavesdropping on the
phone conversations of the West's leaders, America's allies.
But the paranoia
and the sense that 'we, the Americans, can eavesdrop without getting caught,'
led former President George W. Bush to authorize the wiretapping, and it has
continued since then without supervision. The absurd part is that the NSA
apparently never made use of the information it gathered from the monitoring of
the phone conversations of friendly leaders.
President Obama was not even aware he had at his disposal
such a goldmine of information. It is important to note that American
intelligence officials do not excel in analyzing the information they gather
and therefore do not produce intelligence of the necessary quality and
accuracy. But that's another story.
They spy on Israel, too
State Department documents leaked by Private Bradley Manning
to WikiLeaks indicate that American diplomats also take part in the wiretapping
game. Condoleezza Rice, who served as secretary of state in the Bush
Administration, instructed her people around the world to ask for the phone
numbers of senior officials in their host countries. It is safe to assume that
these and other phone numbers obtained since then ended up on the desk of the
NSA director and were used until recently by technical teams operating out of
US embassies in friendly European or Middle Eastern countries.
Despite the strong alliance and tight intelligence relations
between the US and Israel, which are based on mutual trust, the Americans
conduct intelligence-gathering operations in Israel which can sometimes be
defined as espionage.
But what's really surprising, and even irritating, is that
on a number of occasions in recent years the US complained to Israeli security
elements that Israel was spying on American diplomats serving in the Jewish
state and in the Palestinian Authority.
The Americans further claimed that
Israeli intelligence personnel were breaking into the homes of American
diplomats to install wiretapping equipment or copy information from their
computers. The Americans did not have sufficient evidence to prove their
claims, while Israeli intelligence and security officials dismissed them as
"ridiculous." There are good reasons to believe the Israelis.
Discin in America
The suspicion of American government officials, which
motivates them to invade the privacy of foreign leaders, is not limited to
wiretapping and intelligence. In another expression of what can only be defined
as paranoia on the part of the Americans when it comes to Israel, in 2011 the
consular department at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv delayed the issuing of an
entry visa for then-Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin, who was invited to speak at
the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington.
Diskin asked for a 10-year visa and declared that he wished
to visit the US for business and travel. He was told that he would be notified as
soon as the visa would be issued, but the notification did not come. Instead
Diskin was asked to answer various questions sent to him via email.
A few weeks
later Diskin, who had just completed his tenure as the head of Israel's
internal security agency, was informed that he would be given a three-month
visa. Uncle Sam's representatives did not bother to explain to Diskin why his
request for a 10-year visa was denied, but the refusal was clearly connected to
the fact that Diskin was a top-notch security official and apparently to his
plans to enter the high-tech field as a second career.
Perhaps the US Embassy employees thought Diskin was planning
to work for a hostile element in Washington. But the real reason most likely
had to do with the stubborn and arrogant adherence of American bureaucrats to
irrelevant rules, particularly when "natives" are involved.
In response to the insult, Diskin told the embassy he was
withdrawing his request for a visa and would not be travelling to the US. The
embassy eventually decided to grant Diskin a 12-month visa, instead of the
10-year visa most Israeli citizens receive. Diskin, who wanted to put an end to
the farce, demanded that the US Embassy return his passport without issuing a
visa.
American Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who respects
Diskin, learned of the affair at a social event. Shapiro, who was apparently
embarrassed and also realized that the affair could become an unnecessary
scandal in the press at a time when the Obama Administration was going out of
its way to convince the Israelis that the relations between the US and Israel
were strong, acted fast, and within a few days Diskin was given a 10-year visa.
Former IDF Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz also had a hard time
getting a visa to the US because he was born in Iran, this despite the fact
that the Americans new exactly who he was.
You don’t have to be a psychologist to notice the state of
mind that connects the claim that Israeli intelligence personnel break into the
homes of American diplomats with the restrictions placed on the entry of a Shin
Bet director to the US and the monitoring of the phone conversations of leaders
and senior officials in countries that are America's allies.
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