Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Trump: I Don’t Believe Reports That Israel Is Spying On United States

(JTA) — President Donald Trump does not believe reports that Israel is spaying on the United States, he said.

Trump’s remark Thursday was about a report that Israel was likely behind the placement of devices in the vicinity of the White House that can capture cellphone calls.

“I don’t believe that. No, I don’t believe that the Israelis are spying on us,” Trump said on Thursday evening from the South Lawn, before heading to a GOP retreat in Baltimore, Fox News reported. “I find that hard to believe,” he added.

Politico in an article published online Thursday cited three unnamed former senior officials with “knowledge of the matter.”

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vigorously denied the report. Israel has pledged since the 1986 capture of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard not to spy on the United States, although since then there have been multiple instances of the countries accusing the other of spying, however.

Amos Yadlin, the former head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, reportedly called it “fake news spiced with anti-Semitism,” stating that Israel bans spying on the U.S.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.