Was Israel spying? Or was the StingRay story an anti-Bibi sting? - Washington Examiner

Israeli voters in the “very exciting” Sept. 17 Israeli elections should be skeptical of the weird story in recent days accusing the Israeli government of spying on the White House.

American experience shows that if a news story toward the end of a close campaign seems outlandish, odds are that’s because it’s not true. Think of Dan Rather’s false story in 2004 about George W. Bush’s supposed draft dodging. Less famously, allies of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana planted fake news in a Mexican paper in the closing days of her very close 2002 reelection campaign, to the effect that the Republican Bush administration had made a secret deal with Mexico adverse to Louisiana sugar interests. By speaking as the supposed defender of her state’s cane farmers, Landrieu narrowly won her race.

So now we come to the Politico story that cites unnamed former officials claiming that cellphone surveillance devices found near the White House last year were “most likely” the work of Israel. My well-informed colleague Tom Rogan thinks the allegation is true. I don’t.

First, as noted, consider the timing. As Rogan notes in yet another excellent piece, the upcoming Israeli election is another nail-biter. Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a big selling point of his closeness to the current American administration, one which his opponents want to undermine.

Logic says that if the surveillance devices, known as StingRays, were found way back last year, it is rather suspicious that they are suddenly now being blamed on Israel, and therefore on Netanyahu, just as the election approaches. There is no good reason for Netanyahu’s government to have been spying on the Trump team, especially in such a ham-handed way, when Trump has been openly supportive of Netanyahu ever since taking office.

As it is, both the Netanyahu team and the White House have denied that the StingRays were an Israeli operation, and the White House has conspicuously refused to take any public action showing the slightest hint that it suspects Israel.

I am certainly the furthest thing from a tech guru, but Jeff Dunetz, proprietor of The Lid blog, has through the years struck me as reliable both with regard to technology and especially with regard to matters Israeli. He wrote on Friday that the accusation against the Netanyahu government is “nonsense” and a “hit job.” In addition to the reasons I’ve offered for doubt about the allegations, Dunetz writes this:

“StingRay is old technology, U.S. police forces have been using it since 2006 or earlier. In technology years, StingRay is ancient. If Israel were to mount an operation to spy on the pro-Israel Trump administration after eight years of the anti-Israel Obama White House, there is no way they would use ancient technology which can be easily detected. Israel is one of the leading sources of cell phone technology.”

This sounds like a reasonable assessment to me. Frankly, Israel is, if anything, probably ahead of the United States technologically. Its intelligence agency, Mossad, is considered the world’s best, and Israel developed the remarkably effective Iron Dome anti-rocket defense, outpacing U.S. efforts.

The point is not that we can be sure Israel was not behind the StingRay spying. The point is that there is ample reason for skepticism — and that until more is known, Israeli voters would be wise to avoid letting it affect their thinking, either against Netanyahu or for him.

More importantly for Americans, we should withhold judgments against our Israeli allies. Anonymous sources are a far thing from proof.

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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/was-israel-spying-or-was-the-stingray-story-an-anti-bibi-sting

2019-09-14 13:28:00Z
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