Pentagon on alert after Israeli espionage threat raised to critical level
The Pentagon has raised its security assessment of suspected espionage activity conducted by Israel against the United States to the highest level ever recorded.
NBC News quoted two senior government officials as confirming that the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has issued a confidential and rigorous internal memo raising the threat level to "critical" levels, an unusual move that reflects deep concern and growing concern within US security and sovereign institutions that highly secret military lines of communication could be breached.
In its report, backed by the testimony of officials, the network linked this sharp intelligence rating to the escalation of diplomatic and strategic tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv over how to manage the regional war against Iran and its associated armed groups in the Middle East.
The divergent visions on the ground and strategic goals between the two parties prompted the US security services to tighten their assessment of the risks surrounding their files and to scrutinize the procedures for protecting their information and decision-makers, fearing proactive attempts to gather information to influence the US position.
List of objectives and details of the seven-page document
The New York Times reported that a number of senior US administration and defense officials have been included in a list of potential targets for eavesdropping.
The newspaper obtained information that the list included Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Pentagon policy chief Elbridge A. Colby, and Defense Department Chief Official Michael B. DiMino IV.
The editorial explained that the Defense Intelligence Agency's assessment included a detailed presentation enhanced by graphs in seven pages, reviewing the geography and timing of the supposed breaches.
This shocking security assessment was based on official and documented reports filed by U.S. officials and diplomats working on the ground in Israel, in which they spoke openly about the discovery of sophisticated technological tools and devices suspected of being used to eavesdrop on and jam their private telephone and radio communications.
The disclosure of the memo coincided with the Pentagon's refusal to send an official comment, while the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence remained silent, while a White House official was quick to describe the reports as "inaccurate and based on sources that lack real information."
Israeli denial
The Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., categorically and firmly rejected these accusations, stressing in an official statement that Israel abides by international laws and norms and does not collect intelligence information on U.S. officials or institutions.
In its clarification, the embassy stressed that Tel Aviv's intelligence and security activity is limited to monitoring and confronting what it considers to be direct and surrounding security threats to its entity, and considered that any allegations made in this context are "not based on concrete facts," attributing them to technical misunderstandings or internal political motives and tensions aimed at influencing the strength of the joint coalition.
The Struggle for Intelligence Influence and the Caveats of the Fragile Alliance
These sensitive security leaks recall a long and complex history of mutual intelligence concerns between Washington and Tel Aviv, which has historically been regulated by strict protocols that prevent mutual espionage between allies.
Despite the close security partnership and real-time information exchange between the Pentagon and the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the conflict of vital interests in some regional files, such as the level of the military response to Tehran and the determination of a bank of strategic objectives, has always created gray areas that push the parties to try to explore the real intentions of the other side behind closed doors.
Observers in Washington believe that the threat assessment reaches a "critical" level reflects a qualitative shift in the US intelligence community's tough view of the Israeli ally, and sends a very strong warning message of the need to respect US information sovereignty, especially at a time when the region is going through critical military crises that require the highest levels of transparent and public coordination.