AMERICA SPIES ON ISRAEL: In America's efforts to spy on Israel, Gregory Levey writes for The New Republic that

...While Israel has certainly spied on the United States in the past (and likely continues to do so), it may actually be the United States that is the nosier country--and the one that enjoys far more license in such covert activities. If one party should be paranoid about prying eyes--and I'm not sure either should--it should be the Israel.

...there have been cases in the past that have been disclosed, only to be quickly hushed by both the Israeli and American governments (in a way that the Pollard issue, a festering wound to both countries, never was). One of the most telling such examples is the 1986 episode of Yosef Amit. Amit was a major in Israeli military intelligence. At one point, he worked in the secretive "Unit 504," which is responsible for coordinating spies in Arab countries neighboring Israel, and he also had close contacts in the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency. In the mid-'80s, Amit was recruited by Tom Waltz, a Jewish CIA officer based in the CIA's station in Tel Aviv. And, until his arrest, he furnished the CIA with classified information about Israel's troop movements and its plans in both the occupied territories and Lebanon.

The incident got little press in either the United States or Israel, whose government barely even complained about it. Waltz stayed at his post in Tel Aviv, and, later, when officials inside the Israeli government considered offering to trade Amit for Pollard (or even to release Amit in exchange for leniency for Pollard), they quickly nixed the idea, because they feared stoking more anger in the United States. To some Israeli government officials I have spoken with, there is a lingering sense that Israel has been subjected to a "double standard," as one of them put it.

...[A senior Israeli diplomat] said that, if Israel is caught spying on the United States, it harms Israel, but if the United States is caught spying on Israel, the Israeli government brushes it under the rug for fear that this, too, will hurt Israel.

And when AIPAC is caught not spying for Israel--that hurts Israel too.

Technorati Tag: Israel.