"The classified intelligence that President Trump revealed last week when meeting with Russian officials in the White House was provided by Israel," states The New York Times, referring to two unnamed American officials, the incumbent and former. These sources "are familiar with how the US received information". Journalists Adam Goldman, Eric Schmitt and Peter Baker comment: "This revelation adds potential diplomatic difficulties to the episode that once again brought us back to the question of how the White House handles confidential intelligence".
This story can damage American-Israeli relations, and also creates the likelihood of such information being transmitted to Iran, the authors write, referring to Iran as "a close ally of Russia" and "the country that is the main threat to Israel in this region".
"Israeli officials did not confirm that they were the source of information about a certain conspiracy of the" Islamic state "*, which was shared by Trump. In a statement sent to The New York Times via e-mail, the Israeli ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer reaffirmed that both countries will maintain a close relationship in the fight against terrorism, "journalists report..
The publication reminds: "Trump wrote on Twitter that he has the" absolute right "to share information in the interests of combating terrorism, and called his meeting with the Russians" very, very successful "when he briefly appeared before the press in the White House".
The publication returns to the reports of anonymous sources: "The current official said that at a meeting last week, Trump told Foreign Minister Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Kislyak details regarding the conspiracy of the" Islamic state "*, including in which city in Syria an ally Learned this information. At least some of the details of the IGIL * plan, known to the United States, came from the Israelis, officials said, who were not authorized to discuss this topic and spoke on condition of anonymity ".
"The officials said that only afterwards, when memories of the conversation were distributed among the staff of the National Security Council, a signal was received that this information was too confidential and it could not be shared. Intelligence officers were worried that Trump provided details, which are enough to successfully calculate the source of information and the way it was extracted, "reads the article.
For his part, US National Security Adviser Herbert McMaster made a justification for Trump's step. "He said that the president, under the influence of a minute, decided to tell Russians what he knows and did not disclose the source of intelligence, since he was not informed about where they came from," reads the article. McMaster added: "There was nothing here that you would not learn from open sources in terms of reasons for concern. And all this had to do with operations that are already under way, which have been publicized for several months already ".
"Two senior US military officials said the information Trump revealed seems to echo growing fears that militants guilty of such attacks are slowly leaving Rakka (the self-proclaimed capital of the" Islamic state ") and taking refuge in other cities under the control of a group , As Deir-ez-Zor and Meyadin, "reads the article.
"These sources said that they do not know anything specifically about what Trump said in the Oval Office to high-ranking Russian diplomats or how this is related to the expected decision in the near future by the US Department of Homeland Security to expand the ban on the transportation of electronic devices in hand luggage. But the sources noted that the coincidence of these events in time seems to be most likely not accidental, "the newspaper writes.