Netanyahu: No Israeli spies working in United States

May 9, 1997
Web posted at: 8:25 p.m. EDT (0025 GMT)

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says reports that his country has a top-level spy in Washington are baseless.

"I say to you with authority Israel does not activate agents in the United States," Netanyahu told Israel's Channel Two television.

The prime minister was responding to a report in the Washington Post on Wednesday that the FBI has ranking U.S. officials under surveillance on suspicion that one of them may have passed sensitive material to Israel.

The investigation was launched after the FBI intercepted a conversation between an Israeli intelligence officer in Washington and his boss in Tel Aviv, the Post reported.

The conversation reportedly referred to someone code-named "Mega" and indicated this person had passed State Department information to the Israelis in the past.

Israeli officials have denied the allegation, and an Israeli newspaper has reported that "Mega" may have been a mistaken decoding of the word "Elga," which is an Israeli intelligence term for the CIA.

Source: Probe slowed as FBI caught in investigation

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno has confirmed that there is an investigation into the matter. But sources have told CNN that the counter-intelligence probe is being hindered because the FBI officials themselves may be under investigation.

Those sources also say that high-ranking American security officials now believe that that the allegations of an Israeli spy at the top of the U.S. government are less than likely to be true. But selected key officials are being investigated anyway as a matter of routine.

Netanyahu was asked whether it bothered him that the FBI was listening to Israeli Embassy telephone conversations.

"Usually every sane diplomat, in every state where there are Israeli diplomats, has to assume that the difference between a telephone and a microphone is not great," the prime minister said.

The last major case involving Israeli spying in the United States was 12 years ago, when Jonathon Pollard, a Jewish U.S. Navy intelligence officer, was arrested for passing secrets to Israel. He is serving a life sentence.

In February, the FBI seized computers and documents from the home of a Detroit man suspected of having divulged U.S. military secrets to Israel for the past 10 years.

Correspondent Steve Hurst and Reuters contributed to this report.

• CNN Plus Newsmaker Story Benjamin Netanyahu

Related story:

• Report: FBI seeks Israeli spy in U.S. government - May 7, 1997

Related sites:

• FBI home page
• NSA home page
• Haaretz Hebrew language newspaper

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