Ally�s snooping upset White House because information was used to lobby Congress to try to sink a deal


Soon after the U.S. and other major powers entered negotiations last year to curtail Iran�s nuclear program, senior White House officials learned Israel was spying on the closed-door talks.

The spying operation was part of a broader campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu�s government to penetrate the negotiations and then help build a case against the emerging terms of the deal, current and former U.S. officials said. In addition to eavesdropping, Israel acquired information from confidential U.S. briefings, informants and diplomatic contacts in Europe, the officials said.

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, current and former officials said.

�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,� said a senior U.S. official briefed on the matter.

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