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Israelis assume NSA is spying on them

JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A large majority of Israelis assume the United States is spying on their government and ordinary civilians, a poll released Monday indicates.

A poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 90 percent of Israeli Jews said they think the U.S. government is spying on them. Sixty-two percent of Arab Israelis said the same, The Jerusalem Post reported.

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Still, a substantial majority of Jewish Israelis said they would support their own government's efforts to spy on friendly countries, with 65 percent approving of the practice in theory and 73 percent believing such efforts are already taking place.

The polling data was collected before Sunday's revelation by The New York Times that the U.S. National Security Agency had tapped into many foreign leaders' cellphone conversations. The scoop came as another in a long line of news originating from the documents leaked by former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden. The NSA documents previously released showed the NSA tracked Israeli military targets and passed information onto Israel's military intelligence service.

The poll surveyed 600 people Oct. 28-29. Its margin of error is 4.5 percentage points.

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