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CIA director Bill Burns to visit Israel, Palestinian Authority

09 August 2021
Dan Ackermann

CIA director Bill Burns will visit Israel on Tuesday for the first time since assuming office for talks that are expected to focus on Iran, Israeli officials tell me. He's also expected to meet Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah.

Why it matters: Burns will arrive in Jerusalem with tensions running hot between Israel and Iran over an alleged Iranian attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker and amid escalation between Israel and Hezbollah on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

  • He'll meet David Barnea, director of the Mossad intelligence agency, and is expected to meet Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other senior defense and intelligence officials.
  • Israeli officials say the talks will focus on Iran's nuclear program and regional activity, and that Israel hopes to hear more about U.S. policy toward the new Iranian government and a possible return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Burns is also expected to visit Ramallah to meet Palestinian intelligence chief Majed Faraj.

  • He's also expected to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli officials say.
  • A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment on Burns’ trip.

The big picture: Apart from the Five Eyes intelligence allies — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and U.S. — Mossad is the foreign intelligence service with the closest ties to the CIA. During the Trump presidency, the CIA and Mossad worked jointly on many operations against Iran.

  • The CIA also has very close cooperation with the Palestinian intelligence service on counterterrorism, which the agency maintained even after all other communications between the Trump and Abbas governments broke down.

Flashback: Burns developed close relationships with many Israeli and Palestinian officials — including new Israeli ambassador to Washington Mike Herzog — during his long State Department career.

  • In 2013, Burns and national security advisor Jake Sullivan led the backchannel talks with Iran that preceded the nuclear deal, flying secretly to Oman to meet their Iranian counterparts without notifying Israel or other allies.
  • News of the talks sparked a deep crisis between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.