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

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-raised-threat-israeli-spying-us-highest-level-sources-say-rcna348565

by MilnerRoute • 2 months ago

612 456 2 months ago

nbcnews.com

JohnTHaller• 2 months ago

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

shrubby• 2 months ago

Seems legit.

trumpdong3• 2 months ago

It's the most reliable source of news these days.

lostlogin3• 2 months ago

Is even dumber than that.

Funds for Israel flow. Trump was yelling expletives down the phone at Netanyahu this week. Trump has been leading an Israeli war.

It’s dizzying, and it’s almost as though there is a lack of sound minds involved.

Has the US ever been easier to manipulate or spy on?

lazystar• 2 months ago

or more likely, like we the public do not have the full context of whats going on behind the scenes.

pvaldes2• 2 months ago

Trump was yelling expletives

We can assume that the conversation didn't went the way that Trump wants us to think.

When somebody annoys Trump, even slightly, he assures to appear on video broadcasted to the whole planet calling infantile expletives to that "ugly" and "incompetent" person. It does not matter if he called "beautiful" and "expert" that same person on the previous hour. As a good narcissist, he will force himself in the middle of the picture every-single-time (and push off the road anybody that would dare to speak for him). Trump is 120% predictable in that sense. Is known to have one of the thinnest skins in the planet and to be easily triggered.

But with Netanyahu curiously we enter in a totally different game, a plausible deniability game of: he-said-that-she-said-that-somebody-has-seen-trump-yelling-on-phone.

Trump must be approved the message but is afraid to emit it personally. Otherwise we should accept the nonsense that such freak of control, the most videotaped man in the planet, became so out-of character that is now allowing leaks, forgiving the whistleblowers, and hiding a video that he personally would absolutely love, LOVE, to show to his fans. A video of him showing dominion assertion over Bibi. The only logical explanation for this save facing move, is that this dominion does not exist and that Israel do what they want.

pandaman5• 2 months ago

Has the US ever been easier to manipulate or spy on?

Yes, at least nowadays Israel does not try to sink American warships, killing dozens of sailors in the process and then having the US government to cover it up.

mupuff1234• 2 months ago

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.

sndgndgndgndy• 2 months ago

It would be a massive scandal if any of our other allies were conducting this level of spying on our country's senior leadership, for the sole purpose of manipulating their decision processes to the foreign ally's benefit. Israel needs to learn to play by the rules.

basilgohar6• 2 months ago

From its start Israel's existence has been about not playing by the rules. The days are numbered for Israel because it's not and never has been a sustainable enterprise and its exploitation of the American people and US taxpayer money is catching-up to it faster than it can damage control it away or come-up with more and more creative ways to pay people to call label criticism of Israel a hate crime.

toasty228• 2 months ago

Oh, does it apply when the US spies on Europe too? Or only when it's against the US?

make33• 2 months ago

I don't think we can assume that easily that it's perfectly normal to spy on allies, especially when one ally is the biggest military power in history, & their direct sole protector

lazyasciiart2• 2 months ago

The US has consistently spied on allies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_espionage_in_Aus...

onemoresoop2• 2 months ago

Dude, the Epstein scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. It goes way deeper than that

Aboutplants• 2 months ago

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

jarym• 2 months ago

Protection from the risk that the tide might turn on them despite their extensive political lobbying? Just taking a guess here but probably not far off.

make33• 2 months ago

there's currently disagreements with Israel on their approach to Lebanon being way more aggressively and murderous than "necessary", whatever that means. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5904899-trump-ne...

anonu• 2 months ago

The well publicized disagreements are just diplomatic cover. The USA can look tough. Israel might back off for a little bit. Everyone looks good for a moment. Reason has prevailed. Then it'll all go back to Israel's criminal "gaza policy" in South Lebanon, continuing the wanton murder of 1000s of civilians under the guise of "they use children as shields". Well yeah, it's endless guerilla warfare and now hezb has drones. Diplomacy is the only way.

rolph• 2 months ago

combat is a dynamic situation, if you have no idea what its participants can/cant/will/wont do, you cant formulate prevailing tactics.

situational awareness is best when first hand, as someone may be lying to you, or may not even know what they are doing in the first place.

bawolff• 2 months ago

I mean, they did just start a war with iran as a joint venture with trump.

I could understand why anyone who starts a joint venture with trump would be nervous about trump selling them out. It is trump after all. Probably is a logical thing to be concerned about.

CommanderData• 2 months ago

The vessel state now fully controls its host, but I think public sentiment is reversing it just a little.

ceejayoz5• 2 months ago

Dirt on anyone proposing that we stop openly providing such assistance?

Animats2• 2 months ago

"The designation stems from concerns within the Pentagon that Israel is making a particular effort to surveil top U.S. officials to get information on the Trump administration’s internal deliberations and decision-making on the conflicts in the Middle East, the officials said."

So Israel wants to know what Trump is going to do next.

YZF6• 2 months ago

Don't we all.

Arodex• 2 months ago

Trump doesn't let Bibi bomb Lebanon and doesn't fight to the last American in Iran

ceejayoz5• 2 months ago

Trump doesn't let Bibi bomb Lebanon

Sure he does. They did it today!

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0g8jymg92o

jasonlotito3• 2 months ago

Trump doesn't let?

Trump is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room of any negotiation he's in. He's weak at best.

gosub1005• 2 months ago

One of the YouTube "CIA former spies" explained it very well (paraphrasing): "we shared the F-35 with them, but we kept about 10% of the technology to ourselves and sold them a variant. That wasn't enough for them, they ran an espionage operation to get the remaining 10%".

basisword• 2 months ago

New blackmail material in case Trump starts to turn on them?

Terr_2• 2 months ago

Anything that the chief-executives of either government can exploit to keep themselves out of jail.

himata41135• 2 months ago

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.

colordrops3• 2 months ago

[flagged]

himata41135• 2 months ago

It's mostly about X conspiracy theory turned out to be true, so the Y conspiracy must be true! The fact that it even has to be a conspiracy theory that later gets validated is what annoys me, asking questions is okay, claiming conspiracy as fact is not.

lazyasciiart2• 2 months ago

I hate that people will take “political blackmail is real” and jump to “the moon landing wasn’t real”

Cyph0n5• 2 months ago

Astounding to watch the mental gymnastics at play.

It’s like how Israeli lobbying orgs state that “claiming Zionist orgs control the media is antisemitism”, and then the solution is literally “we should use our contacts & supporters in the media to stop this kind of rhetoric”. Beautiful.

dang• 2 months ago

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

Also, please don't use quotes to make it look like you're quoting someone when you aren't. That's an internet snark trope, and thus breaks the "Don't be snarky" guideline too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

vintermann• 2 months ago

I don't believe blackmail is the most effective thing. The problem with blackmail is that even if you do as the blackmailer says, they still have the threat hanging over you forever. That increases the risk that they do something desperate.

What is effective, isn't blackmail, but complicity. Doing bad things together. Then you get a shared interest. The people Epstein had blackmail on, knew that he wouldn't use it casually, because after all there would be no way to use it without implicating himself. But if he were desperate, he might. So the victims had an interest in keeping Epstein not desperate.

So it's the bad things they do together which is dangerous. Even things they do in full view of the public can work, because the threat isn't necessarily that the public finds out, it's that if one is held accountable, then all are at risk.

gosub1005• 2 months ago

I think what made Epstein effective was balancing the blackmail with favors for complying. If all you do is get dirt on people, eventually it will fail. But if you give them something too, they are less resentful.

himata41135• 2 months ago

I think it's closer to dragging them into a conversation. Something along the lines of: "Hey I know you did X, let's talk about Y and maybe to Z since you're already in deep shit."

an0malous• 2 months ago

Why did you not believe this particular theory before? It never seemed like an outlandish idea to me at all that some US politicians could be blackmailed by foreign interests.

I don’t get this blanket rejection of “conspiracy theories”, it’s like the moment you describe something as a conspiracy theory a large group of self identified intellectuals just dismiss it offhand. It doesn’t make sense as a category, of course people conspire.

If I could propose a lesson to be learned, maybe stop categorizing things as “conspiracy theories” and take each theory on the merit of its evidence and how it fits the facts.

himata41135• 2 months ago

It was too "popular" of a conspiracy theory to be true, it was the cognative conclusion that was attributed to israel without any real backing behind it. I think it's telling that it took this long and this much pressure to ever consider it a "threat".

pbiggar• 2 months ago

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).

basilgohar6• 2 months ago

This is well known and documented. It should not be downvoted. Zionism in Big Tech is a huge issue. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese documented this extensively in her report that got her sanctioned by the US. [0]

TurboTax had IDF soldiers in uniform in their offices. [1]

[0] https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5923-... [1] https://thegrayzone.com/2026/04/28/tech-giant-employees-idf-...

FunnyUsername4• 2 months ago

Presumably he's a reservist who was drafted after his country was invaded, and tried to attend a few work calls (although he should have been on paid leave) while drafted. What's the issue?

Also one reservist is not "soldiers", and a video call is not "in their offices".

stale200212• 2 months ago

The vast majority of people in the USA do not want to destroy the state of Israel so I am not sure why you are making some conspiracy about (((zionists))) controlling big tech companies.

Basically everyone in the US is a zionist. Especially once you point out that Israel has 200+ nuclear weapons and it would be a horrible idea to try and destroy them.

opsnooperfax3• 2 months ago

Well, I for one can’t imagine someone more qualified to work in content moderation at Meta than someone who spent his or her formative years murdering unarmed children in the Gaza Strip. These companies need morally grounded, paragons of decency to set the example for us all.

paulsutter• 2 months ago

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.

wefarrell• 2 months ago

From the article:

While it is commonplace for allies and adversaries across the globe to spy on each other, the current and former U.S. officials said Israel’s recent efforts have gone well beyond what is typical and expected espionage.

impossiblefork• 2 months ago

It should also be noted, that the EU countries which this espionage targeted were not happy about it at all, and did not find it one bit normal.

basilgohar6• 2 months ago

Ah, the whole, "Everyone does it, why are you picking only us?"

They used to for their warcrimes, genocide, apartheid, and literally every other thing they are guilty of.

parthdesai4• 2 months ago

How many of those countries openly lobby politicians in USA though?

StriverGuy• 2 months ago

Every single one.

derektank2• 2 months ago

Yes, espionage is not an act of war and is a regular occurrence, even between allied nations. You can see this clearly during WW2 now that much of the information has been declassified. Great Britain ran an extensive intelligence operation in New York prior to US entry into the war.

basilgohar6• 2 months ago

"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?

delecti• 2 months ago

Maybe this is a bit glib, but it's because attacking Iran (which everyone knew was a bad idea but which presumably seemed useful as a distraction) turned out to be a bad idea. So the administration is taking it out on Israel, who wanted us to do it.

petcat3• 2 months ago

everyone knew was a bad idea

It was a good idea if it was also timed during the popular uprisings. But the 20,000+ die-hard citizens that would have effected regime change were slaughtered months ago. So now it's just a scared populace hunkering in place while USA warships and jets dominate their country.

And the Iranians fire off the occasional drone swarm on UAE.

EA-31674• 2 months ago

Along these lines, but with a bit more:

Israel definitely wanted us to do this, but they've been trying to sell US presidents on this for decades without success. MBS and the Saudis also want this, but you rarely read about that in the news; likewise with the UAE and quite a few others who have even been running their own direct strikes on Iran.

The thing is, and I realize this is a rough climate to say this into: Jews have been the official scapegoats for the Middle East and Europe for what... 1500 years now? That doesn't just go away, and the political expediency of Trump covering his ass and the ass of his Saudi/UAE sources of billions (through Jared, Ivanka, Eric, etc) can't be thrown under the bus to do it.

Meanwhile Israel is being run by a universally loathed man who can't shut up, so it's just easier to pretend that's it all their fault.

screye3• 2 months ago

How can a vassal state with 1/60th your GDP 'influence' your nation into a war ? It's a rhetorical question. It can't.

Makes the MAGA military look incompetent. The US has a history of botched wars around the globe, most of which have little to do with Israel. If I'm drawing from data, then the Iran conflict is consistent with the post-war military movements of the US.

Now that the communists are no more, Israel is the next best scapegoat. The way I see it, Israel's current leaders are happy to be scapegoats because the war benefits Ben Gvir and a radicalized Likud. It allows them to consolidate domestic power and pursue aggressive foreign objectives under shadow of the Iran conflict.

I hope Netanyahu has thought this through. He has burned through 100 years of western guilt in the span of 3 years. To break even, Israel's military excursions must secure outsized outcomes, to the tune of decades of security. Because, I believe we are entering a couple of decades of bipartisan & unprecedented* anti-semitism.

* Figuratively speaking. Historically ofc, anti-semitism is pretty precedented.

shevy-java2• 2 months ago

So the administration is taking it out on Israel, who wanted us to do it.

Well, it is clear to see that this is Netanyahu's ploy, but the thing is that Trump constantly lies about this. "There are negotiations", but then the US bombs again. To me it seems as if Trump operates in a way that makes it impossible to have anything else but drop bombs onto Iran. In this way he resembles Putin, who tries to occupy more and more land belonging to Ukraine. Putin has no alternative to this either, similar to Trump. (Yes, Putin could in theory stop his war, but he tied his identity to it. I don't see how he can stop it, without having achieved officially stated goals of his genocidal invasion.)

thisislife26• 2 months ago

Both Netanyahu and Trump have a vested interest in promoting the idea of how much influence Israel has over US foreign policy. For Netanyahu, the propaganda that he manipulated Trump into waging a war against Iran boosts his political image with some Israelis. (And it is near election season in Israel).

watwut4• 2 months ago

Isreal wanted it. Strong and influential amrrican political actors wanted it too. Hegseth wanted it too.

Now that it is shitshow, the same people want to put blame on Israel only.

vkou5• 2 months ago

Or, because different factions in the regime are at odds with eachother - there's MAGA, who are a sock puppet for whatever Netanyahu wants, and who spearheaded the idiotic war with Iran, and there's the entire military, which thinks that this war is by far the dumbest thing they've been asked to do... This year.

Did this announcement come from the military side of things, or the MAGA side of things?

elictronic• 2 months ago

Israel keeps actively going against US goals. The beginning of the conflict generally had both sides in general agreement. The moment Israel killed the US’s intended replacement, and now continues promoting conflict while the US admin is pushing hard for a peace deal is showing the cracks

karim795• 2 months ago

Because now the manifestation of all this crap has reached a nuclear stage of undeniability.

It has literally been simmering for a long time and now it finally comes out. Taking it out on Israel is not wrong and that's not to say that they (the Israeli government) hold the sole responsibility for this. The US had a say in this as well. But now the US is questioning the benefits of this complete and total asshattery and rightly so. Better late than never I suppose.

petcat3• 2 months ago

USA almost certainly spies on Israel (and everyone else) far deeper than anyone spies on them.

croes• 2 months ago

Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi

hammock7• 2 months ago

Since the 1951 Angleton-Harel Secret Pact, there has been an unwritten agreement that CIA and Mossad will not spy on each others countries. Kiriakou (who is a wonk) confirmed as much in recent remarks.

But no one without at least a TS really knows

parthdesai4• 2 months ago

They sure do, but looking at recent events, you can make an educated guess on which country has more influence over the other. Part of it can be attributed to spying and knowing dark? secrets.

Bender• 2 months ago

Who knows who's telling the truth these days. [1] I just assume it's always spy-vs-spy every which way from Sunday.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vukPEDWaBHg

screye3• 2 months ago

It's hilarious listening to CIA insiders talk about spying.

John Kiriakou [1] will spend 3 hours talking about the CIA's torture program (illegal) and NSA spying on Americans (illegal). In the same conversation, he will insist that the US would never spy on Israel because it is illegal.

Who is this fooling ?

[1] Senior ex-CIA official, whistleblower & internet meme phenomenon.

hammock7• 2 months ago

Same reason that FISA Amendments Act (2008) was passed less than two years after Mark Klein revealed Room 641A.

Same reason that CISA (2015) was passed less than two years after the Snowden revelations.

Once the secrets are open, the feds can codify them into law. They were never going to change their behavior.

rag_wlk• 2 months ago

One reason is that blaming Israel for the Iran FUBAR situation is very convenient, especially for keeping MAGA on board.

The right wing pundits are already working overtime on X and elsewhere to blame Israel and concoct all sorts of explanations why Trump authorized the strike (the most amusing is that he "was possessed by demons").

Blaming Israel may have been coordinated with Netanyahu, who has nothing to lose and is probably perfectly fine with the blame as long as he gets his war and parts of Lebanon.

Blaming Israel has many historic precedents from Clinton to Trump, often through planted leaks or deliberate hot mics.

krona• 2 months ago

One reason is that blaming Israel for the Iran FUBAR situation is very convenient, especially for keeping MAGA on board.

Polling shows support for Israel is far greater among Trump loyalist voters than non-loyalist Republicans, so this is surely false.

Perhaps you're confusing "MAGA" with actual American nationalists, who are statistically irrelevant.

metalman• 2 months ago

maybe someone in China, put 2 million and 2 million together and hired themselves a zionist genocider baby killer on the make!

dyauspitr• 2 months ago

Probably because Trump had a heated conversation with Netanyahu and this is some sort of “consequence”.

lazide• 2 months ago

The base is complaining, and they need a scapegoat.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the talking points start being ‘Israel caused high gas prices!’ soon.

godelski• 2 months ago

  > Why now all of a sudden?

The government already considered them a threat. Just like everyone else, including themselves (the gov isn't a single entity).

What changed is geopolitics. Official and publicly calling them a threat.

What this also changes is how gov works with companies. How these companies can subcontract and to who. Which, let's be honest, most companies don't give a rats ass if they are hacked. Sure, they lose money, but it's almost always a slap on the wrist and since every company works this way there's no market signal to express that you care even if you do. (I'd still encourage people to install apps like Signal, degoogle, and all that. Your individual choices still do matter, even if it's only us nerds)

tcp_handshaker• 2 months ago

"GOP lawmaker wears Israeli military uniform to Capitol Hill" - https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4254384-brian-mast-israel...

urams• 2 months ago

It boggles the mind just how egregious this was.

I would not classify myself as anti-Israeli, fwiw. I just think wearing the military uniform of a foreign nation to your job governing our nation is despicable and borderline treasonous.

thisislife26• 2 months ago

"You're fucking crazy": Trump fumes at Netanyahu in call on Lebanon - https://www.axios.com/2026/06/01/trump-netanyahu-israel-leba...

Elections. The Trump administration joined the war hoping that any positive outcome in the Iran war would boost its mid-term prospects. Netanyahu attacked Iran and Lebanon because he faces elections in a few months and he wants to prolong all his wars till the election is over - apparently Israeli electorate don't tend to vote out a PM during a war. Trump has now realised the Iran war has been a political disaster and is looking to extricate out of it, through temporary ceasefires (which means he can resume the war later - which is standard US policy with a weaker foe). That doesn't work for Netanyahu because if he loses this election, he could also find himself behind bars due to some corruption conviction. Thus, he is working to sabotage Trump's ceasefire deals as he needs the wars to go on till October, when the elections will presumably be held ...

doom2• 2 months ago

It's amazing how many people have died just to keep Netanyahu out of jail.

windexh8er• 2 months ago

Between Israel and Russia is anyone surprised that all of the memes about a certain party being infiltrated by the Russians and then also all of them being bootlickers of Israel have merit to them?

I've worked for a couple Israeli startups and what I will say is: never again. I've experienced all of the stereotypes and more, firsthand.

marcosdumay3• 2 months ago

I think supporting Israel has crossed the threshold from "a heavy political dead-weight" into "political suicide" for any politician on the US.

ted_bunny• 1 month ago

Israel is going to be a marvelous scapegoat. If dispensationalists are really in charge, the US will turn its back on them for 3.5 years, the first half of the tribulation.

outside1234• 2 months ago

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

nico• 2 months ago

AIPAC publicly brags about this.

https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/aipac-says-it-was-pro...

https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/comments/1ry8tha/aipac_ope...

gosub1005• 2 months ago

The Thomas Massie situation is extremely suspicious.

9x39• 2 months ago

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...

laweijfmvo• 2 months ago

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

mthoms• 2 months ago

Trump already accepted a gold pager from his boss (Bibi).

I wish I was joking.

WhereIsTheTruth• 2 months ago

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

Mazel Tov!

Sam6late• 2 months ago

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...

catigula• 2 months ago

The parasite completes its lifecycle, consuming the host.

throw3108223• 2 months ago

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

mentalgear• 2 months ago

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.

bushbaba• 2 months ago

The top U.S. officials do the same when traveling to any country. Everyone does this to everyone else.

morby2• 2 months ago

Not true. Israel has a reputation for being exceedingly intrusive and aggresssive with US personnel. Just go watch intel community interviews online.

like_any_other• 2 months ago

That's a big reason why they're "allies" - if Israel can identify which US politicians are pro/against Israel, they can promote or impede their rise to power accordingly.

basilgohar6• 2 months ago

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...

fuckinpuppers• 2 months ago

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

opsnooperfax3• 2 months ago

I’m more confused by your username. Wow.

generj2• 2 months ago

I believe it’s in reference to the humor TV show Letterkenny which has a beer brand called Puppers. Characters on the show often ask for another fucking puppers.

sokka_h2otribe• 2 months ago

"dang! Those fuckin puppers ate the shoe again"

I would assume simple

shevy-java2• 2 months ago

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.

jameslk• 2 months ago

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?

baq2• 2 months ago

They want to spy on the enemy, but they need to spy on everyone to know who is the enemy, obviously

stephbook• 2 months ago

Where did it say they consider the US an ally?

nerfbatplz4• 2 months ago

The rumor is that this hornet's nest got kicked because Netanyahu called Trump to complain about a classified cabinet meeting that the Israelis had not been briefed on.

ada1981• 2 months ago

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

JumpCrisscross15• 2 months ago

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

Or at least starting with ceasing financial aid to Israel. If they want our weapons, they should have to pay for them. This has broad, bipartisan support in a way sanctioning Israel doesn't yet.

mooktakim• 2 months ago

They literally merging US military with Israel lol

jasonlotito3• 2 months ago

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.

CrzyLngPwd• 2 months ago

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.

throwaway2744813• 2 months ago

The reason it's news today is because intelligence services, which are venerated by american journalism, brought the issue forward.

...but in general, the conflation of Israel with Jewishness, and the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-semitism, has allowed the entrenchment of Israel's interests in broad daylight against our best interests.

jraby32• 2 months ago

US gives Israel weapons not money.

bigyabai5• 2 months ago

US taxpayers buy the weapons.

throwaway2744813• 2 months ago

We give both. We currently have an MOU to provide Israel with $3.8B a year, including $500 allocated for missile defense, through 2028. This is distinct from direct military aid. In total we have furnished nearly $100B since Israel's founding.

groan• 2 months ago

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

derektank2• 2 months ago

What are you referring to? The only major tech company I’m aware of that had (until recently) an Israeli leading the company was Oracle, but Safra Catz stepped down as CEO last year.

np_tedious• 2 months ago

It's pretty clear that he doesn't just mean Israelis

throwaway2744813• 2 months ago

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.

ruggeri• 2 months ago

I don’t agree with the assessment, but in terms of a great power being very interested in the interests of a small country, consider Serbia and Russia before WWI.

throwaway2744813• 2 months ago

I agree vassal is the wrong term... but we are currently committing global economic suicide on behalf of Israel's interests. I'm not sure what word is appropriate. Perhaps we need a new one.

I'll look at Serbia, thank you.

solenoid0937• 2 months ago

In part it's because they have the best intelligence apparatus in the world. I'm very impressed at how far above their weight they're punching.

Chu4eeno• 2 months ago

If you can see enough of what an intelligence apparatus is doing to be impressed I'd say they're not doing a very good job.

What they seem to be most unique in is the impunity of their operations, like when they assassinated a completely innocent guy in Norway, of all places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair

m-ee• 2 months ago

The best intelligence apparatus in the world missed the Oct 7 planning which Egyptian intelligence noticed, told the Israelis about directly, and still went ignored?

ALLTaken2• 2 months ago

France has the best intelligence apparatus. Recommend checking it, that's also why they are way under the radar. If achieving intelligence by any means was the goal, yeah then Mossad.

Let's compare facts: There's only 10M people there. I think PR skews reality massively

Population metrics deskew this distorted reality: France has 69M, China has 1.4B, Russia 143, Germany 83M people. Mathematically and from a technological sophistication standpoint, these governments must have higher advancements and frequency of successful Intel vs Israel. Mathematical probability speaks against Israel.

kumarski2• 2 months ago

Where was that apparatus on october 7th?

ed_balls• 2 months ago

it's not, they have a good PR. Best intelligence is quiet.

Any man who must say, 'I am the king,' is no true king

WarmWash• 2 months ago

Really it comes down to religion, and Israel being the bastion of anti-islam in the Middle East. Doesn't hurt that they are also liberal democracy and have advanced economy as well.

Terr_2• 2 months ago

liberal democracy

With a big honking caveat-asterisk that it only applies if you're on the right side of the apartheid.

lokar• 2 months ago

What’s wrong with Islam?

slg• 2 months ago

I don't like how Americans dismiss their own agency in this all. This is not being forced on us by Israel. A huge and underdiscussed reason why the US and Israel have the relationship they do is because of the roughly 100m American Evangelicals that want it that way. That's also why the GOP is seen as the party more favorable to Israel (not that the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole).

vmchale• 2 months ago

It's not American evangelicals. It's been a long campaign and the evangelicals are still being targeted by Israel because no one else is left, but there aren't enough American evangelicals to swing things.

Not to mention, it often comes down to primary voters, to say nothing of Hollywood/media blacklists

the Democrats are necessarily adversarial, but they clearly aren't as agreeable as a whole).

Democrats only changed recently. For some decades before that, the Israel lobby had significant sway over them (including allowing dems to publicly admit certain things).

afpx4• 2 months ago

That's really interesting. I am an Evangelical, and no one that I know supports Israel. Could it be something else?

zuzululu• 2 months ago

I think there's parallel valid points on all sides. GOP is also split over Israel. Young Republicans/conservatives do not care at all to continue the relationship. There's those evangelicals that also do not represent Americans who increasingly question and neutral/negative towards US-Israel relationship.

I do wonder how long this can continue. American people should have the final say on which relationships are beneficial to them not special interest groups. The fatigue is very real and palpable and its growing to be an ugly force that is also being exploited by extremists.

This trend change in how American youth view Israel is also a big reason why so many social media platforms are exchanging hands, ex. TikTok by blaming some other scary foe like Russia or China. These are mere attempts to buy time at the inevitable in that America is going their own way and it will be ultimately the American people that will decide.

Look at what's happening in South Korea right now. Election fraud has triggered both the left and the right. The usual opportunists and politicians tried to exploit the situation and they were rejected. The fatigue from the people and the current arrangement is turning into visible anger in countries which face serious structural problems due to the huge wealth gap parity and falling birth rates.

One need not look far at places like Quebec or Paris or Belgium to see exactly where this is headed for people who have nothing to do with Israel but are associated by guilt.

Georgelemental3• 2 months ago

OP didn't say it was being forced! American politicians are 100% to blame, Israel just acting in its own interest as it should

pandaman5• 2 months ago

Yeah, I've seen that show too. It's not real. You could tell by the fact they've never mentioned AIPAC in the entire run of the show.

jmyeet2• 2 months ago

This is a hotly debated topic.

The John Mearsheimer view is that "The Lobby" [1] has effective control over US foreign policy. There's a lot of evidence for this such as AIPAC indirectly unseating anti-Israel candidates. The Thomas Massie primary was the most expensive in history. $35 million. For a primary.

Noam Chomsky on the other hand rejects the notion of "the lobby" [2], instead arguing that Israel is an tool of American imperialism. Then-US Secretary of STate of Alexander Haig is widely believed to have described Israel as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" [3] in a resource-rich region even though that term originated in the Pacific in WW2. The US has had an interest in disrupting Pan-Arab Nationalism [4], preferring a divided Middle East to guarantee access to oil.

The truth lies somewhere in between. There are clearly material interests and the US could shut down Israel in a day if it so chose. But the US has taken actions that clearly aren't in its national interest and the perfect example is the current Iran war.

Under no circumstances was this ever going to end well. The military knew it. General Caine tried to stop it when Trump didn't heed his warnings [5]. The US intelligence community was against it. also saying Iran wasn't developing a nuclear weapon [6]. Trump instead listened to Miriam Adelson, Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad, who collectively (allegedly) convinced him it would be a Venezuela-like regime change operation.

This move will (IMHO) go down as the largest strategic blunder in US history and it will reshape geopolitics in the Gulf, Europe and Asia for decades. Even other wars that were lost (eg Vietnam, Korea) didn't have this kind of impact. The US could essentially walk away from those at little cost.

My point is that you can't take the Chomsky view as this being purely materialist. It just doesn't fit the evidence.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Fore...

[2] https://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/chomsky-materialism-and-the-i...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_aircraft_carrier

[4] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v12...

[5] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/25/politics/caine-iran-hegse...

[6] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-intel-community-agreed-b...

giancarlostoro• 2 months ago

Only roughly half of evangelicals in the US actually support the state of Israel. I've never even heard of any of my local reps mentioning Israel when running, course maybe I either wasn't looking for it, or the target audience?

I have friends from all walks of life, and trust me when I tell you, the GOP isn't all in on Israel. Which is weirder to me, because I'll hear about how antisemitic the right is, and then in the same breath hear people blame them for Israel's support? When you factor in that roughly half of evangelicals (which can be Democrats too mind you) support Israel, I guess that kind of pans out with why you hear both angles? It's just bizarre to me either way.

I know we benefit militarily from Israel when you factor in all the technology we've designed for them, that we can use for ourselves (Iron dome comes to mind), there's also special ops we otherwise might have never heard of like Stuxnet, which is the coolest thing I ever heard about (I mean really, it was impressive). I'm never blindly a supporter of any nation, because all nations can mess up, but I don't like blindly hating people or nations either. Not everyone is so black and white as everyone seems to believe nowadays, often it feels like the truth is somewhere in between.

kevin_thibedeau• 2 months ago

It's the only nation on earth that can't be criticized without the victim card being played every time. Utter a discouraging word about the secular leadership? You're labeled a bigot.

expedition32• 2 months ago

Ah but this is were the Temple will fall a second time!

Because the interests of Jews and Christians do not and never will align. Already there are reports of orthodox Jews harassing Christians...

throwaway2744813• 2 months ago

Voters—democrats especially—are voting against politicians that don't speak out against Israel. But that's a very recent phenomenon. Democratic leadership strongly supports Israel to this day, including both Schumer and Jeffries. Cory Bush and Jamaal Bowman, both outspoken in criticism of Israel, were each primaried by democrats with support from leadership, and Bell (who ousted Bush) promptly lost in the general. That is—they willingly gave up a house seat just to ensure a pro-Israel party line.

As I said, things are changing, but it's still largely verboten to speak baldly against Israel as a democrat. In the senate, there are people who oppose arms sales to Israel, largely because of the Leahy law prohibiting arms sales to countries who commit war crimes, but few speak strongly against the clear slaughter (let alone describe it as a genocide as the rest of the world seems comfortable doing), or ascribe it solely to Netanyahu. This, when democratic voters mostly do not have a favorable view of Israel, seems to be a fundamental failure of representation.

On the republican side, Massie and previously MTG were opposed. Only about 43% of republican voters strongly support Israel. I don't believe any senator opposes arms sales to Israel. Again, this seems like a failure of representation.

To characterize this as a symptom of evangelicalism is historically understandable, but young evangelicals do not follow this trend, and even historically it's only a small part of the story.

But, americans rarely vote based on foreign policy (something like 3-5% of americans depending on the election). That we well and truly are culpable for.

puskavi• 2 months ago

People will believe what is told to them, such as "greatest ally" story.

trumpdong3• 2 months ago

I always thought it was because of Jeffrey Epstein that politicians don't want their dirty laundry aired.

gosub1005• 2 months ago

This is not being forced on us by Israel.

somehow the narrative has been able to conflate Israel with jews. so the first person who says something about halting aid to Israel or stopping the genocide is called "anti semite". The fear from this alone is enough to keep almost everyone quiet, especially journalists. It's a perfect byproduct of cancel culture.

4er_transform• 2 months ago

It’s reminiscent of Dune: - Small devoted religious sect seeds messiah myths in the distant land for generations, so that in their time of need, they can tap of this devotion from “the people in the south” to fight on their behalf

lobocinza3• 2 months ago

Let's not forget the asymmetry. If someone calls that modern Israel isn't the biblical Israel and that in biblical terms it's closer to the "synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9) it risks being persecuted, ostracized, fired, prosecuted, jailed, murdered.

You shouldn't dismiss Israel power in cultural warfare, financial and political ties. Epstein was probably the tip of the iceberg.

And that can be recognized without diminishing the intrinsic dignity of every human being that live in Israel and outside of it independently of race, nationality, religion, etc.

frollogaston3• 2 months ago

All of it was done by Americans. It's just that most of them weren't really loyal to America. All those pro Israel lobby groups are over here, not there.

gunsle• 2 months ago

There is no where near 100m American evangelicals. There’s less than 60m almost certainly. It doesn’t account for everything.

CMay3• 2 months ago

The US is neither a vassal of Israel nor simply doing its bidding. That is poor propaganda.

If you operate with a lens that forces you to ask "how is this Israel's fault?" without ever asking any other question, you're going to end up mostly with answers that are only for entertainment value the same way you would if you asked any LLM a leading question that already assumed a desired answer.

whyage• 2 months ago

The US is neither a vassal of Israel nor simply doing its bidding.

This is propaganda as well, only more agreeable to you.

Georgelemental3• 2 months ago

It's not Israel's "fault" that American leaders are slavishly loyal to them. Israel is just putting their country first, as is their duty. It's 100% on American politicians for failing in their duty to put America first

IAmGraydon• 2 months ago

Can you list the measures by which you believe that Israel has made the US its vassal?

solarhoma3• 2 months ago

American companies must sign a document signifying they will not boycott Israel if the company wants to get government contracts, it was illegal to burn the Israeli flag in the US before it was illegal to burn the US flag, 99% of congress votes in favor of Israel (as evidenced by Thomas Massie’s recent primary Israel will spend $$$ to buy a US politicians seat if they do not support Israel).

bsaul• 2 months ago

if this was the case, there would be no state sponsoring palestinian terrorism for a long time.

Look at what happened after 9/11, it's pretty clear there's a wide difference between how US consider its own security matter vs israel's one.

andrewinardeer• 2 months ago

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

nullpoint420• 2 months ago

I wanted to like him, but then after watching a few podcast appearances I realized he loves to play every side. He usually just reflects the hosts beliefs back to them.

It also doesn’t help that he’s trying to line up a pardon from Trump, as well.

karim795• 2 months ago

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).

bigyabai5• 2 months ago

Israelsplainers perhaps

The Israeli wumao: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara

  Hasbara has no direct English translation, but roughly means "explaining". It is a communicative strategy that "seeks to explain actions, whether or not they are justified".

  [...]

  In its 2025 budget, Israel planned to spend $150 million on hasbara, a 20-fold increase.

  In the 2026 budget, NIS 2.35 billion (about $730 million) has been allocated to hasbara.

karim795• 2 months ago

I appreciate the comment and I'm well aware and fully clued up on the history of Hasbara and the rest. I actually thought the word "Hasbara" was closer to "explanation". Close enough lexically I guess.

I just find this really depressing and I hope that there will be an end in sight. The happenings of right now is the stuff of horror novels.

But still, it is fucking disturbing shit which somehow has a place in the world.

karim795• 2 months ago

I mean 730 million isn't a lot, right? It's all good all safe. 730 million dollars. Which could solve hunger in parts of Africa. But let's just use it to protect our image.

gib444• 2 months ago

How convenient using a term that can't/won't be translated to "propa ganda" . How meta lol.

That page is probably the most perfect demonstration of any concept which exists on Wikipedia

sph• 1 month ago

If one wants to see them in blatant action, just head to Reddit's /r/worldnews

kumarski2• 2 months ago

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.

RgrTheShrubbr• 2 months ago

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.

AbuAssar• 2 months ago

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

BirAdam• 2 months ago

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…

Georgelemental3• 2 months ago

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

diogenescynic• 2 months ago

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.

gmerc• 2 months ago

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

warumdarum• 2 months ago

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..

Asooka• 2 months ago

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.

beernet3• 2 months ago

Bots in full effect now?

This guy literally helped killing thousands of Israel's "enemies", out of which a majority are innocent civilians. Above everything, you are showing your true color.

hedayet• 2 months ago

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

lobocinza3• 2 months ago

Who need enemies with allies like that.

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

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