photo #6320214

•U.S. Sees Israel, Mid-east Ally, As Spy Threat•It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.•Such meddling underscores what is widely known but rarely discussed outside intelligence circles: Despite inarguable ties between the U.S. and its closest ally in the Middle East and despite statements from U.S. politicians trumpeting the friendship, U.S. national security officials consider Israel to be a genuine counterintelligence threat.•The CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat. The CIA believes that U.S. national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.•Israel employs highly sophisticated, professional spy services that rival American agencies in technical capability and recruiting human sources.•Acknowledgment by the FBI that it acquired Pegasus, one of the world’s most sophisticated hacking tools that once deployed, the user of Pegasus spyware can take complete control of a person’s phone, accessing messages, intercepting phone calls and using the phone as a remote listening device.