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Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say

562 points by MilnerRoute

by throwaway27448

10 subcomments

I don't think I've ever seen in all of my wide understanding of history, such a tiny state successfully make an empire its vassal. Truly an astounding feat. It would be highly entertaining if it didn't bode poorly for humanity.

by 9x39

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Don't miss the attempt of the removal of Section 224 of the US NDAA at the same time, a polarizing development in discussions on Israel, to put it mildly.
https://www.aipac.org/memos/america-israel-defense-ndaa-224
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/06...
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/us-israel-military-congres...

by Sam6late

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This could be 'curiosity' about negotiation with Iran, as there is what could be considered an AI merger between the 2 countries ; the FY2027 NDAA (H.R. 8800) bill text was officially released by Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA) on May 26, 2026. - House Armed Services Committee markup was set for June 4, 2026. https://www.uschamber.com/security/letter-to-house-armed-ser... Section 224 of the FY2027 NDAA, titled “United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” is a draft provision sponsored by Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Adam Smith. It aims to deeply integrate U.S. and Israeli defense industries and militaries through joint R&D, testing, manufacturing, technology sharing, training, information-sharing, network integration, and data fusion. AI is one of several technologies included, not a standalone “AI merger.” The provision is still a House committee draft, not final law, and may be amended before passage.https://www.uschamber.com/security/letter-to-house-armed-ser...

by mentalgear

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> Top U.S. officials often take extra care when traveling to Israel, sometimes using burner phones and computers and taking extreme caution when speaking in hotel rooms during official trips, the current and former U.S. officials and experts said.
> Israel has “a hyper-aggressive intelligence service,” said Emily Harding, vice president of the Defense and Security Department and director of the intelligence, national security and technology program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington. “They are exceedingly interested in what we are up to,” Harding said of the Israelis.
And these are considered their closest allies.
What do they do with others.

by CrzyLngPwd

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I was reading about Israel interfering with US elections and spying on the US decades ago.
Why is this news now?
Us gives Israel money, Israel uses that money to buy people in power in the US, those bought people then ensure US taxpayewr money flows to israel to...and so the cycle continues.
Nothing explains the US being subservient to Israel than this.

by jameslk

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> A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., said in a statement that it is “completely false” that Israel spies on the U.S. “Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials,” the spokesperson said. “Israel intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated.”
Not even a teeny weeny bit of spying on your allies?

by Aboutplants

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Legitimate question, what would Israel need that we don’t already openly provide?

by BirAdam

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If this is such a threat, why are there Israeli offices in the Pentagon via the ODC? I mean… it isnt as if the USA has been fighting wars on behalf of Israel for nearly 30 years or anything…

by basilgohar

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"Government suddenly and confusingly starts acting accordingly to what everyone's already know for a long time." This is really quite scary when you think about it. Why now all of a sudden?

by fuckinpuppers

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I’m confused isn’t there a bill to merge Israel and US intelligence/military together in various ways?

by hedayet

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Putting politics aside, are any tech companies actually taking preventive steps in response to this new risk?

by lobocinza

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Who need enemies with allies like that.

by andrewinardeer

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Like him or not, Kiriakou has been saying for years that Israel is the biggest threat for spying.

by RgrTheShrubbr

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I remember back in 2004 when the pentagon found an Israeli spy in the Pentagon. This has been going on for decades and I'm sure it will go on for decades more at this point.

by gmerc

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Why spy when you can just command to hand over … or else release the files you got on everyone ?

by Georgelemental

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My understanding is that the DIA is generally the least corrupt of America's many intelligence agencies

by basilgohar

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It's important to not frame this as a US vs Israel thing. Israel is, at best, the last of the Western world's settler colonies, and as such, is serving a purpose, a so-called landed aircraft carrier. [0]
The fact that there is tensions in the government regarding Israel means that the entities that found value in Israel are losing out to those that don't. So-called America-first powers no longer see 1st-tier support of Israel as in the interests of the US.
This will not go well with Zionists, who are still supported by massive backing and financial interests. They will spend a LOT of money to keep Israel the US's "top ally" despite it being no such thing in any meaningful way. Israel is a tool of the Western imperial forces.
The fact that this story is breaking means that Zionism is getting more-and-more toxic to people in power.
[0] https://michael-hudson.com/2023/11/israel-as-a-landed-aircra...

by AbuAssar

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The department of homeland security’s twitter account is based in Irsael

by ada1981

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Removing all US financial support for Israel and supporting sanctions and ICJ actions is the only way forward.

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by WhereIsTheTruth

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I remember when orange people would flag your comments whenever you mentioned Mossad spying on people
Mazel Tov!

by laweijfmvo

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if your boss suddenly asks you to carry a pager, do not accept it.

by groan

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Strange, I thought this was well known. See the leadership of most prominent tech companies.

by paulsutter

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The Snowden disclosures revealed that the US was regularly spying on Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, the EU, and the UN. Also of course the CIA was spying on Congress.
One can only imagine that many of these countries were also spying on us in various capacities, albeit with fewer resources. Israel is a bigger concern because they're extremely good at it, but I'm sure it's nothing new.

by pbiggar

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Every Big Tech company employs hundreds of "former" Israeli spies - Google just brought on another 900 via their acquisition of Wiz (to add to their existing 6000).

by karim79

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These threads are always fun.
The mental gymnastics of the Israeli "splainers" will never fail to amaze me. Israelsplainers perhaps.
I want to say that it's just Netanyahu who needs to go away but it's actually much, much more than just him. The tide is shifting methinks and rightly so (and finally).

by JohnTHaller

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President Trump has written a strongly worded check to Netanyahu in response (according to The Onion)

by mooktakim

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They literally merging US military with Israel lol

by himata4113

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I really dislike when a tiny fraction of the conspiracy theories become true since it validates people who believe in them. But I have to admit I do have one of my own, pegasus and related spyware can gain a lot of power over politicians i.e. blackmail which makes me think about how much of our politics are based solely on the fact that politicians often find themselves exploiting their powers and then possibly getting caught by spyware turning them into somewhat of a tool.

by throw310822

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Israel doesn't really need to spy on the US. They can just ask Kushner.

by kumarski

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I had a few GS15s sit down with me in 2019 and explain to me directionally the vibe on Israel. Changed my viewpoint forever.
For ~50 years America has subcontracted to Israel a portion of its intelligence operations and sometimes largely for plausible deniability, other times because we cannot spy on our own citizens - the last part wasn't said explicitly - but what I could grok.
IMHO, the Israeli apparatus has gone far off the reservation in their operations and have lost favor in the past 5 years, especially in DC.
Israel's intelligence apparatus has historically participated in cleaning dirty narco cash via affiliates to finance intelligence operations back home (mostly thorugh hapoalim, safra, leumi, and signature bank), sold hacking tools to narcos, running guns, cleaning blood diamonds, and running kompromat where they deemed it is needed.
Rwandan and Guatemalan genocides probably wouldn't have happened to the stunning degree if the Israelis weren't illegally selling munitions into both. Also hard to get clarity if they were doing this as our subcontractors or going off the reservation.
Signature Bank's collapse was a sign that your local Israeli-intelligence agency linkedin money laundering apparatus was going to have volatility that there would be volatiliy in the middle east.
There was a time in the 90's onwards where one could wlak into signature, hapoalim, leumi, or safra with 10M in narco cash and get it cleaned, or so I'm told. https://www.cnbc.com/2015/02/19/finally-the-us-is-busting-is...
2023: 500k Israelis protesting against Netanyahu, blood diamonds going down in value b/c of lab grown diamonds, and the implosion of their money laundering apparatus cornerstone (Signature bank) probably was a positive signal for disruption in the Israeli way of life in mid 2023.
The large question at play amongst the GS15s that I've heard murmured in DC is if America should subcontract security operations to a non-AUKUS passport holders, and Israel is the vendor in question.
A lot of CIA seems bifurcated on their viewpoint of Israel. No idea when that happened.
Our relationship with Israel costs us $10-$20/barrel in increased fees and 50B-100B/yr to have our military in the region.
One thing that is fascinating - the Israelis are getting blamed for Iran right now - but the Hormuz volatility greatly increases their cost of living - and we are the greatest beneficiary.
We are the largest producer of nat gas, helium, methanol, LNG, and Oil.
I think the "hormuz volatility" has a terminating condition - APAC buying these US products in larger sizes. As it was explained to me, the reason the prices aren't 150 is because while maritime stuff is problematic - the surrounding 5 countries to Iran have ways to get the energy via pipeline and power line.
World is a complex place, they're our subcontractor for now....no clue if they will be in the future but the trend is no.

by shevy-java

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Didn't Trump recently ban Sean Strickland for critisizing Israel?
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/sean-strickland-says-hes-b...
Trump is like the ultimate tool of corruption - whether it is Russia or Israel or whoever, you name it. Dude flops to the highest bidder. No wonder US oligarchs are currently controlling the USA.

by diogenescynic

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It's crazy how the media just intentionally ignores Israel's ethnic cleansing in Gaza but cares about a billion other fake issues. Rachel Maddow gaslighted half the country into thinking Russia was controlling the White House... meanwhile ignoring that we're starting wars at Netanyahu's request/demand. Or how Israel tried to blackmail Clinton over Monica Lewinsky. We can never actually assess our relationship with Israel--anything but slavish devotion is immediately called anti-Semitism.

by jasonlotito

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This is pathetic. Raising this? This is the level of "intelligence" you get when you pretend to remove all DEI/wokeness and just leave the ones that cater to you. Pathetic.

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by oort-cloud9

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by iluvcommunism

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[dead]

by myth_drannon

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[flagged]

by ai_fry_ur_brain

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[flagged]

by throw101010qwe

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[flagged]

by 23david

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[flagged]

by Asooka

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So this is the USA under Trump. Anti-semitism as official government policy. Didn't take long for him to show his true colours as dictator.

by outside1234

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We are all fooling ourselves if we don't consider that Israel is interfering in our elections too.

by mupuff1234

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Israel would be deeply impacted by the results of the negotiations, so is this surprising or unexpected? Any nation including the US would most likely do the same in a similar scenario over what is considered to be almost existential negotiations.

by warumdarum

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They are surrounded by a murderous imperialist religion that is currently purging the remains of all other minorities. The only "ally" they have halfway around the world is split in half, one half abadoning the values the alliance builds on, the other in full blown denial of all reality not fitting into some utopian messianic vision. Man, i would send spies to the ISS to, if i was on a spacewalk and some maniacs in the airlock started a fight on how to cut my lifeline..