Ironclad, but Distrustful
How the United States spies on Israel, its number-one Middle East ally
The NSA has broken Israeli government codes and is listening in on its conversations relating to the country’s political and military intentions, according to documents exclusively obtained by KlipNews.
Every day, United States intelligence agencies receive and analyze more than 50,000 Hebrew-language phone calls, texts, and messages, issuing near real-time reports to the White House and other national security leaders. Some 60 “special intelligence” items from the highest levels Israeli leaders are also disseminated daily, according to the documents.
With Israel’s surprise attack on Hizballah leadership last month, Washington experienced another wake-up call vis-à-vis its closest ally in the Middle East. Israel is going to seek to defeat its enemies no matter what Washington thinks and regardless of the implications for the region. For U.S. intelligence, the question thus looms: Does that include a similar operation against Iran, which could plunge the United States into war?
“Israel has become U.S. intelligence’s top priority,” says a senior defense intelligence official who spoke with KlipNews. Through constant face-to-face meetings with Israeli counterparts, Washington is desperate to discover (and influence) Israeli unilateral plans, the official says.
Despite Israel being one of Washington’s closest military allies, the intelligence take is labeled “adversary communications” by the National Security Agency. According to reporting in the New York Times today, the Pentagon has been struggling to determine the nature of Israel’s plan to attack Iran. It is a particularly tense moment because just last month, American spies resented that Israel kept the United States in the dark about much of its Hizballah plans – from the nature and timing of its pager attack in Lebanon to its readiness to kill Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel is also at the top of U.S. intelligence priorities because of its advanced technologies (air and missile defense, directed energy weapons such as lasers, and unmanned systems), its possession of nuclear weapons, and because its intelligence service is considered one of the five top intelligence threats to the United States, alongside Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. This includes an aggressive Israeli effort to obtain restricted U.S. technologies that might aid its war effort.
“Israel is also a top ‘foreign malign influence’ target,” the senior defense intelligence official says. “It actively seeks to influence U.S. public opinion.” The official says that though U.S. counter-disinformation efforts against Russia and Iran dwarf the anti-Israel effort, they are still significant.
U.S. intelligence also has to closely vet nearly 30,000 visa applications annually of Israeli nationals traveling to the United States for work, study, and personal travel, to look for criminals and undesired visitors, but also to identify clandestine intelligence agents coming into the country.
“Israel is the highest priority intelligence target amongst America’s allies,” says a second senior intelligence official, who spoke exclusively with KlipNews. Much of the U.S. communications intelligence effort focuses on specific individuals (i.e., their cell phones, computers, and other devices) such as Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his associates, as well as Israeli government and intelligence troubleshooters who are involved in hostage negotiations and liaison with Washington.
The NSA and its eavesdropping affiliates have been on heightened alert for a year, with more than 250 advanced Hebrew linguists listening in on the countries’ military activities and political intentions. According to intelligence sources, the number of qualified Hebrew linguists who can “sit position” is programmed to double by next year. Sitting position is traditional NSA lingo for the 24/7 crypto-linguists who sit with headphones and parse target communications.
Though computers do much of the work today, the intelligence intercept effort centers on the linguists and analysts at NSA’s offices in Fort Meade, Maryland, where the most sensitive “adversary" communications are handled in compartmented Top Secret programs, ready to be delivered to the White House almost instantly. The bulk of minute-by-minute military intercepts are handled at the NSA hub located at Fort Eisenhower (formerly Fort Gordon) in Augusta, Georgia.
The collection of Israeli communications – including encrypted communications – takes place on the ground, at overt and covert listening stations, from satellites, and from aircraft and drones flying close to Israel. Over the past three weeks, the U.S. (and its allies) have sent a variety of surveillance aircraft, some even with linguists onboard, to the Eastern Mediterranean to monitor the Hizballah escalation. Some of the U.S. military’s premier assets were involved in these operations, including Air Force RC-135 “Rivet Joint” eavesdropping airliners that operate out of Omaha, Nebraska, and Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals intelligence aircraft flying from Whidbey Island, Washington.
The RC-135 “Rivet Joint” intelligence-gathering planes, first deployed in 1962 and modified to the latest V/W versions, have maintained a constant presence in the Middle East since 9/11, flying mostly out of Qatar and Italy, but also from other forward locations. The language specialty of the 14 intelligence operators onboard can be changed with the mission.
“With sensitive receivers and high-gain dish antennas, the EP-3E exploits a wide range of electronic emissions from deep within targeted territory,” the Navy says of its equivalent planes.
The CIA is responsible for “human intelligence” collection against Israel, that is, inducing high-level military officers, government officials, and Israeli parliamentarians to spy for the United States. But a big part of the human intelligence effort is oriented toward “target exploitation,” another NSA jargon phrase that refers to obtaining information on how key leaders communicate. To spy on Netanyahu, for instance, one would have to know what devices and telephone numbers he uses or how he emails – the operating system on his computers and tablets, the software, and of course, the encryption methods.
Asked if the United States can trust Israel, the senior intelligence official says that trust isn’t the right question. “Our job is to give the President the tools he needs,” the official says. “Where U.S. and Israel interests diverge, we struggle to fill the gaps.”
— Copyedited by Devon Walsh
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So the US knows everthing that Israel is doing, planning and executing. They are also sending the arms. If only the world courts got moving on this a bit more expeditiously , fewer people would get murdered, fewer children would die.