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Former UK prime minister claims he found a listening device in his bathroom after Netanyahu used it

By isabelle // 2024-10-08

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made the shocking claim that Israel placed a listening device in his bathroom during an official visit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his new memoir, Unleashed, Johnson claimed that when Netanyahu visited him at the Foreign Office in 2017, the Israeli Prime Minister used his personal bathroom – and his security team later found bugging devices in the toilets. “Thither Bibi repaired for a while, and it may or may not be a coincidence but I am told that later, when they were doing a regular sweep for bugs, they found a listening device in the thunderbox,” he wrote. He also recounted how he gave Netanyahu a tour of the foreign office and showed him a desk that he claimed a previous foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, used to draft the historic Balfour Declaration that supported establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He said that Netanyahu seemed “genuinely awestruck” until he realized that Johnson was joking around after claiming he had the same pen Balfour used to sign the agreement and then pulled an everyday pen out of his drawer. This excerpt was shared with The Telegraph, but when the publication asked Johnson follow-up questions about it, he replied: "I think everything you need to know about that episode is in the book." Although Johnson did not state whether the UK made a formal complaint to Israel over the incident, it does seem plausible that they were behind it when you consider the fact that American officials also accused the Jewish state of bugging the White House around the same time. In 2018, the Mossad was accused of planting listening devices near the White House so they could listen in on Donald Trump. Several former American officials told Politico that the FBI had identified Israel as the culprit of an operation that entailed placing miniature devices known as international mobile subscriber identity catchers with the aim of spying on Trump, who was president at the time. These gadgets trick devices into thinking that they are mobile phone signal towers so that they can capture their contents and locations. A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. at the time denied involvement, while Netanyahu himself said: “We have a directive, I have a directive: No intelligence work in the United States, no spies.”

Mossad is no stranger to controversy

Despite his insistence, it is not a stretch to believe that the Mossad would have a vested interest in planting listening devices around world leaders like Johnson and Trump to gather intelligence for blackmailing them. After all, many of the spy agency's endeavors are controversial, and Israel desperately wants to hold onto its Western allies even when it makes unpopular moves that earn global scorn. The Mossad is known for carrying out many bold espionage operations over its eight-decade history, and while some have been impressive, others have been an embarrassment, and some have even caused rifts with allies. They provided vital intelligence for the famous raid on Entebbe that freed hijacked Jewish airplane passengers (and resulted in the death of Netanyahu’s brother), and they famously captured key Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann in 1960 in Argentina. However, some of their operations have been very sloppy. The agency is believed to be behind the recent simultaneous explosions of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon used by Hezbollah operatives that caused 3,000 injuries, 37 deaths and plenty of concern from governments around the world for its carelessness. Numerous civilians, children and healthcare workers were among the injured and dead, leading to condemnation from the UN and accusations of violating international law. Sources for this article include: Telegraph.co.uk TheGuardian.com

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