Israeli intelligence and at least one other intelligence service eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East peace negotiations.
According to Spiegel, as Kerry mediated last year between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states, some telephone calls were not made on encrypted equipment, but instead on normal telephones, according to sources.
The German newspaper also claimed that the Israeli Government used the information obtained in international negotiations which aimed to reach a diplomatic solution in the Middle East.
Previously, documents leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA and its Israeli equivalent Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU) “have explored and execurted unique opportunities to gain access to high priority targets” and a dedicated “communications line between the NSA and ISNU supports the exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical corresponce”.
It also states that the “NSA maintains a far-reaching technical and analytic relationship with the ISNU sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”
NSA documents previously published by The Guardian stated that “one of NSA’s biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel.” Another notes that the National Intelligence Estimate ranked Israel as “the third most aggressive intelligence service against the U.S.”
