Israeli False Flags
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John Kiriakou has warned that Israel's intelligence services have a long history of false flag operations and that several recent regional attacks fit the pattern.

A long history

Kiriakou said the Israelis "have been carrying out false flag operations since the founding of the state of Israel, and they're usually very good at it." He recalled being taught "legendary stories" at the CIA about "wonderful, creative, innovative false flag operations" carried out by Mossad.

Recent suspected incidents

As soon as reports emerged of attacks on the Saudi oil field, on Azerbaijan, and on Cyprus, Kiriakou said his first thought was that they were Israeli false flags.

Fear of an attack on Al-Aqsa

Kiriakou said what scared him most was the possibility that Israel would attack the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and blame it on Arabs or Iranians. He noted that Shia Muslims do not consider the physical Al-Aqsa building itself to be Islam's third-holiest site, believing instead that the site is in heaven, but that factions of the Israeli electorate publicly advocate destroying Al-Aqsa to build a third temple. He called Israeli false flags "so prevalent, so dangerous that we all need to be on the lookout for them."

"Almost always the Israelis"

Asked in August 2026 who he would suspect first if a false flag were staged in the Gulf, Kiriakou answered without hedging: "If somebody's going to initiate a false flag operation, it's almost always the Israelis." His explanation is temperamental rather than circumstantial, the Israelis are "one of these high-risk, high-reward kind of countries", and where most states would not accept the exposure, "the Israelis do, and they do it as a matter of routine policy."

What interests him more is the absence of consequence. The orthodox response to a suspected false flag by an ally is to summon the ambassador and warn that "there are going to be prices to pay", a step he reduces to its practical worth as "a strongly worded letter."

He works the Emirati case through as the limit. What he or his interviewer would do on proof, "we're severing relations or we're expelling your ambassador", is what he says the Emiratis would not do, because the relationship is worth too much to them. It is at once energy, defence and trade, and it sits on top of a security dependency he states baldly: they have the Iron Dome, and they are tied to the American dollar system.

The Cyprus relabelling

The commercial depth of that relationship, he says, long predates its public form. Going back to the 1970s, the Arab states of the Gulf were buying Israeli produce through a laundering step: the Israelis "would harvest the fruit, send it to Cyprus, put it in new boxes that say produce of Cyprus, and then send it to the Arab countries." What normalisation changed was the overhead, "now they don't have to do the extra step, so it's cheaper."

He distinguishes sharply between the Gulf states on how far each has travelled: the Saudis and Kuwaitis are "not there yet", the Bahrainis "kind of there but aren't really comfortable with it", the Qataris "aren't going to do it", and "the Omanis just want to be left alone."

See also

- John Kiriakou
- Israel
- MOSSAD
