As President Obama’s secretive efforts to secure a nuclear deal with Iran strain the relationship between the United States and Israel, American media are growing increasingly apprehensive.
The newest cause for concern is a Wall Street Journal report that Israel spied on the Iran talks and leaked the information to congressional Republicans. The apparent effort to influence the outcome of a nuclear deal led some to castigate the White House, others to blame Israel and Republicans, and still others to wonder at the convoluted politics of the situation.
“Is this the first time a country has spied on another on behalf of another branch of that country’s government?” Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders asked in a tweet.
“This is a very bizarre story. I guess in this scenario the Obama administration views Congress as the enemy,” the Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein noted.
“Make no mistake the White House just dropped a bunker busting bomb on the US-Israel relationship,” tweeted Boston Globe columnist Michael Cohen.
Vice News’ Nicholas Linn added simply, “This ain’t going well.”
The White House was livid when it learned of the spying, the Journal’s Adam Entous reported. However, his report continued, it’s not the spying that has the Obama administration furious; it’s that the Israelis supposedly leaked the information to Republicans.
“The espionage didn’t upset the White House as much as Israel’s sharing of inside information with U.S. lawmakers and others to drain support from a high-stakes deal intended to limit Iran’s nuclear program,” Entous wrote.
The Journal quoted an anonymous U.S. official asserting, “It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other. It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy.”
An anonymous Obama official reportedly issued a warning to Israeli officials that a potential future administration — presumably former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s — could continue Obama’s stern stance toward the Jewish state.
“People feel personally sold out,” the official told Entous. “That’s where the Israelis really better be careful because a lot of these people will not only be around for this administration but possibly the next one as well.”
The apparent threat left a few pundits in disbelief.
“Israel spies on Iran talks, shares what it learns with US lawmakers, 414 of 535 express reservations in writing, and [White House] is angry at Israel?” asked HotAir’s Noah Rothman.
Israeli officials have since responded to the Journal report, denying that they spied on the White House.
“There is no such thing as Israel spying on the Americans,” Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, told the New York Times. “There is a strict prohibition on that.”
Yaalon said that the U.S. at no point ever raised concerns.
Yet while many media figures were sifting through the domestic political implications of the Journal report, Politico published a story wherein former Secretary of State James Baker “blasted” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for supposed “diplomatic missteps and political gamesmanship.”
“This is of course a delicate moment in the Middle East, and will require clear thinking from leaders,” said the Reagan administration secretary of state and omnipresent official in the George H.W. Bush administration. “That clear thinking should not be muddled by partisan politics.”
All this comes on the heels of the White House’s downplaying of an undisguised threat from Iran’s leadership. The Shiite theocracy’s “supreme leader,” Ali Khamenei, said, “death to America” this weekend during a political rally. White House Press Secretary Josh earnest explained Monday that Khamenei’s remarks were merely “intended for a domestic political audience.”
The confluence of these stories — declining trust between the White House and Israel and Khamenei’s support for violence against the U.S. — has left more than a few commentators unsettled.
“That sick feeling you get when the White House defines keeping Congress informed as a subversive activity,” Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Doran said.
National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg remarked, “A pro-Israel White House doesn’t blow up a strategic alliance out of inter-personal spite. Obama wants this.”
