Thoughts on the Obama Admin Spying on Israel (Including Conversations Between Israeli Officials & Members of Congress)

I have just the read The Wall Street Journal's report detailing NSA's monitoring of (or more accurately spying on) Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concerning the Iran nuclear deal. The NSA was directed to do so by President Obama with approval of both Democrats and Republicans on the House & Senate Intelligence Committees. What Congress wasn't counting on was the NSA monitoring conversations between Israeli officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Allies, of course, spy on each other all the time. Indeed, it is widely believed that Israel spied on the nuclear negotiations with Iran. At the time, I made a point of saying that I hoped Israel had done exactly that. Of course, this would have been unnecessary had the Obama Administration seen fit to keep Israel in on the loop.

If the Obama Administration had expended half the effort on monitoring Iran as they have monitoring Israel then perhaps there would be no deal with Iran. But then again that is precisely the point. Bringing Iran back into the global community through a nuclear deal was the centerpiece of Obama's foreign policy. It was their foreign policy equivalent of Obamacare and it was going to be done come hell or high water. Like Obamacare, the Iran nuclear deal has proven to be every bit as disastrous and will be left to the next White House to clean up.

If a Republican is elected to the White House in 2016, I harbor no illusions that we will cease spying on Israel nor do I think Israel will return the favor. We can only hope that a Republican administration's spying of Israel will be not done for the purposes of undermining Israel's efforts to defend herself or to enter foolish agreements with countries that seek to do harm to both the United States and Israel.