JERUSALEM — Not just in espionage thrillers, but in real life as well, it can be difficult to tell trusted friend from double-crossing spy.
That's especially true between close allies such as Israel and the United States, in a world where government officials, lobbyists, diplomats, think-tank analysts and intelligence veterans from both sides often move in overlapping political and social circles -- a pattern that can blur the line between cordially informal exchanges of information and espionage.
After U.S. authorities disclosed that a Pentagon analyst specializing in Iranian affairs is under investigation for possibly spying for Israel, the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flatly denied that it had illicitly acquired any classified American material.
But cases such as these are not always open and shut. Longtime observers of the intelligence scene note that the U.S. and Israel often share sensitive data, particularly when one has assets the other lacks.
For example, the ranks of Israel's diplomatic and intelligence corps are honeycombed with native Arabic speakers, many of them Jews whose families emigrated from elsewhere in the Middle East. They are in many cases far better equipped than their relatively sparse U.S. counterparts to carry out sophisticated analyses of political and military developments in the region, and the fruits of such labors are routinely handed over to America.
Before and during the war in Iraq, Israel and the United States engaged in intensive sharing of intelligence -- some of which turned out to be tainted, military and intelligence officials on both sides have said.
Among American Jews, the subject of Israeli spying is fraught with tension because of fears of being tarred as a "fifth column" that puts Israel's interests ahead of America's. Some activists for Jewish and Israeli causes believe that it took years to recover from the damage done by the case of U.S. naval intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard, who was convicted of spying for Israel and sentenced in 1987 to life in prison.
In the current case, such concerns are complicated by investigators' suspicions that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the foremost lobby group in Washington for Israeli causes, may have served as a conduit for information improperly passed to the Israeli government. AIPAC has denied any wrongdoing.
