Last night (Tuesday) ABC news reported that the information president Trump divulged to senior Russian officials endanger an Israeli spy that infiltrated ISIS. The network quoted government officials from the past who claimed the spy provided information to the US regarding ISIS plans to launch terror attacks on passenger planes by using bombs planted in laptops which would easily pass airport security inspections.Because of this information the US prohibited people going on planes with laptops from a list of countries.
The New York times was the first to talk about Trump’s leaked information as coming from Israel. Supposedly Trump shared this info with Russian’s foreign minister and their ambassador to the US.
On the Buzzfeed website there’s an interview with ‘2 anonymous Israeli intelligence officers. In the interview one of the officers said “passing information to the Russians is one of the greatest fears of Israel.” He added, “When the info is shared with others without our previous knowledge is one of our greatest fears.”
He added that “in contrast to other western countries who rely heavily on technological espionage: listening to phone calls, following internet messages and mails; Israeli intelligence invests in a large network of ‘human assets’ who gather information from the field in various different countries.” Human assets means active spies.
Buzzfeed also quotes a worker in the ministry of defense who said: “The human resources of Israeli intelligence provide very precious and very exact information.” He said,” these assets might now be in danger if the information provided gets leaked to the wrong places.”
American security officials told Buzzfeed they have no way to know how the leaked info will influence Israel’s military relationship with the US and intelligence cooperation between the 2 countries.
The Israeli foreign office chooses not to address the issue but Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the US spoke about it and gave the issue little importance. He said: “Israel has full trust in our relationship with the US and we hope to deepen our relationship in the coming years under President Trump.”