Questioned on growing media reports of Israel’s “unrivaled and unseemly” mass spying on the United States, the US State Department has conspicuously insisted they will neither confirm nor deny anything related to the story.
US officials were quoted in the Israeli press saying that the Obama Administration was deliberately avoiding making any comments because it doesn’t want to “make a habit” of responding to media reports of foreign spying.
Newsweek’s Jeff Stein broke the story earlier this month, leading to furious Israeli condemnations, along with blanket denials to doing any spying at all inside the United States.
Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz insisted that the story is a “malicious” effort to intentionally jeopardize US-Israel relations. He reiterated the denials of any truth to the story.