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US espionage is unacceptable, Netanyahu says
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, commenting on allegations the US had spied on the country’s leaders, said yesterday such activity was unacceptable and had no place in the allies’ close relationship.
Documents leaked on Friday by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden showed the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ had in 2009 targeted an email address listed as belonging to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
They also monitored emails of senior defense officials, according to the documents.
“With regard to things published in the past few days, I have asked for an examination of the matter,” Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks.
He did not elaborate on whether Israel intended to ask Washington for clarifications.
“In the close ties between Israel and the United States, there are things that must not be done and that are not acceptable to us,” Netanyahu said, speaking to legislators from his right-wing Likud party.
On Sunday, several Israeli cabinet members and lawmakers said disclosure of US spying on Israel was an opportunity to press Washington to free jailed Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.
Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst, was sentenced to a life term in 1987 in the US for spying for Israel. A succession of US presidents have spurned Israeli calls for his pardon.
In what appeared to be an attempt to calm the clamor, Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had constantly sought Pollard’s release and did not need any “special occasion” to discuss his case with Washington.
Israeli Officials have played down the importance of any information the US may have gleaned from its alleged espionage activities.
Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel had always assumed that even its allies spied on it.
A statement issued by Olmert’s office, said the reports, if accurate, referred to a public email address, thus the chances were miniscule that any security or intelligence damage had been caused.
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