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Report: Trump Revealed Israeli Commando and Mossad Operation in Syria to Russians
Whether an Israeli or a Jordanian source, established intelligence protocol requires obtaining the permission of the source agency/government before sharing classified intel with third [foreign] parties.
Haaretz
Nov 23, 2017
When U.S. President Donald Trump revealed Israeli intelligence*to senior Russian officials in March, he disclosed details of a covert Israeli mission to penetrate an Islamic State cell deep in Syria, claimed*Vanity Fair's Howard Blum on Wednesday. Israel's counterterrorism unit, working along with members of the Mossad, obtained information that a Syrian Islamic State cell had developed bombs that could be placed in laptops and then go through airport security undetected.*Trump allegedly gave this information to the Russian officials. According to the report, this discovery prompted the Trump administration as well as the British authorities to ban laptops and other electronics on airplanes*until airports could comply with more strict security guidelines. Trump reportedly passed the intelligence to the Russians without first notifying and discussing the decision with Israeli principals. According to Vanity Fair, this violation of U.S.-Israeli trust implicated the larger Middle East, as Israel assumed Russia would pass this intelligence information to their allies: the Iranians.
In January, it was reported that Israeli intelligence officials were concerned that the exposure of classified information to their American counterparts in the Trump administration could lead to it being leaked to Russia and onward to Iran. The intelligence concerns, which had been discussed in closed forums, were based on suspicions of ties between Trump, or his associates, and the government of Vladimir Putin in Moscow. While Trump's disclosure of intelligence was non-conventional, the president of the United States has the legal right to disclose intelligence at his discretion and Trump's actions were in no way illegal.
Whether an Israeli or a Jordanian source, established intelligence protocol requires obtaining the permission of the source agency/government before sharing classified intel with third [foreign] parties.