BICOM

Israeli political leaders responded yesterday to reports that US and UK intelligence had spied on former-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former-Defence Minister Ehud Barak while in office.

The claim was made in a report published by the New York Times, Guardian and Der Spiegel, based on the documents leaked by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. The documents suggest that both the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ monitored e-mail addresses belonging to Olmert and Barak. The report also claims that the Hebrew University’s Institute of Physics was a target of the surveillance, as it is a significant centre for research in atomic and nuclear physics.

The office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave no official response to the reports. Channel Two television reported that Israeli officials were not surprised that there were attempts to spy on the country’s leadership and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz commented there is a “working assumption… that even friendly countries try to listen in, and [Israel] takes the necessary security measures.” Olmert responded, saying that the e-mail account mentioned was handled by staff and that “This was an unimpressive target.”

However, Steinitz also added criticism, saying that given the high-level intelligence cooperation between Israel, US and UK, “Under these conditions, it is unacceptable to behave this way.” Tourism Minister Uzi Landau struck a similar tone, saying “It’s quite embarrassing between countries who are allies.”

Meanwhile, some Israeli leaders contrasted the allegations of US spying with the fate of Jonathan Pollard, a former US intelligence analyst who leaked information to Israel and has been imprisoned for the best part of three decades for espionage. Jewish Home faction head Ayelet Shaked MK accused the United States of “a blatant double standard by continuing to keep Jonathan Pollard in prison while at the same time conducting systematic espionage against Israeli officials.”