The Jerusalem harassment campaign
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The Jerusalem harassment campaign is John Kiriakou's account of three break-ins suffered by a close CIA colleague and that colleague's wife while they were posted to Jerusalem, which he dates to a couple of years after his own posting to Bahrain with the State Department.

The rotation

Both couples were on the same programme: a two-year rotation to the State Department. Kiriakou explains that to be promoted into the Senior Intelligence Service a CIA officer must complete a rotation in another directorate and a rotation in a policy position, and that these assignments satisfied the policy requirement.

Both officers were declared to the Israelis, so, as Kiriakou puts it, there were no secrets: the station chief tells the Israelis that these are his people, that one will be doing State Department work and the other will be learning Arabic at the university.

Three homecomings

Kiriakou lists three incidents, each following a function at the American ambassador's residence.

Shortly after the couple arrived they attended a party at the ambassador's residence, and when they got home somebody had rearranged all of their living room furniture. Kiriakou reads the message as deliberate: we can break into your house any time we want, and we are watching you.

Several months later they went to the ambassador's Christmas party, and when they got home people had defecated in all three of the toilets in the house. Kiriakou describes the effect as feeling violated and the harassment as totally unnecessary.

Before the couple left the post the ambassador held a going-away party for them. When they got home their dog was whimpering under the dining room table: the Israelis, in Kiriakou's account, had broken in and cut the dog's tail off, then wrapped it in gauze and medical tape.

Kiriakou's reading

Kiriakou frames the episode not as an aberration but as ordinary practice, observing that these are supposed to be friends and that this kind of harassment happens absolutely constantly. He offers it alongside the "spell your name" briefing and the Israeli listening devices ban as evidence for his broader verdict on the liaison relationship with Mossad.

See also

- MOSSAD
- The "spell your name" briefing
- The Israeli listening devices ban
- Bahrain Posting (1994,1996)
