Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, treats the United States as if it is a “hostile power”, partly to shift the balance of power in favor of Tel Aviv's interests, an academic has said citing the Zionist regime’s involvement in espionage activities against the US.
Pro-Palestine professor, David Miller, sacked by Bristol University over his criticism of Israel and Zionism, made the comments in Press TV’s Palestine Declassified aired on Saturday.
With $10.4 million US daily foreign aid to Israel, some might think that the US and Israel could not be closer, however, Israel is considered by US intelligence officials to be one of the most aggressive regimes in launching surveillance operations on US soil, targeting even the very seat of power.
Miller explained that while the US is supposed to be an ally, “the way in which Mossad operates is to assume and to treat the US as if it was a hostile power.”
He went on to add that there is no such allegation against other countries’ spy agencies, rather it is only Mossad which is regarded as being the most aggressive of the foreign spy agencies.
“So this is partly about shifting the balance of power in favor of Israeli interests, even though the Americans are already extremely favorable towards the Israelis. It helps to tip the balance against the possibility of any sensible activity in relation to the Palestinian issue, for example,” Miller said.
Miller then mentioned the “extraordinary case” of US Naval Intelligence Analyst Jonathan Pollard as a case in point.
In 1984, Pollard began spying for Israel and handed over the National Security Agency's 10 Volume manual, which lays out how the US obtains its signal intelligence. He also revealed to Israeli intelligence the names of 1000s of US informants.
In 1985, he was caught by the US government and sentenced to life imprisonment for spying for Israel.
It is claimed that Israel attempted to use tapes of former US President Bill Clinton's steamy conversations with intern Monica Lewinsky to leverage the release of Jonathan Pollard.
In 2015, Pollard was granted parole and was let out of prison. In 2020, he moved to Israel, completely “unrepentant” as he was cited by Hayom, an Israeli newspaper, in March 2021 as saying that he did not regret helping Israel.
Moreover, in 2000, an article was published by Insight Magazine, claiming that Israel was able to penetrate four White House telephone lines and relay real-time conversations on those lines from a remote site outside the White House directly to Israel for listening and recording.
In 2019, figures within the US intelligence community accused Israel of planting cell phone surveillance devices around the White House known as StingRays. They are believed to look very similar to cell towers and are able to trick cell phones into interacting with them and passing vital information.
In 2021, the Associated Press reported that at least 11 US State Department officials had iPhones that had been hacked by Israelis' infamous Pegasus spyware. This would have given the NSO Group Company, set up by alumni of Israel's military spy unit 8200, wide access to US government secrets.
“This is a pattern of hostile activity by a supposed ally inside the US,” Miller said of Israel’s espionage activities in the US as a key target for its surveillance operations.