[00:00] The Israelis are not like anybody else. They killed a guy in a hotel room in Dubai and then after they killed him, they were somehow able to lock the door from the inside of the hotel room. >> There was like 26 people that the Dubai CCTV footage picked up, >> right? >> Weren't the cameras Israeli made? >> I got a tour of the whole facility and the cameras were German. >> What facility? >> There's an underground. Let's move into the MSAD a little bit.
[00:31] >> You've talked about in interviews that the Israelis are ranked critical threat for counter intelligence a little bit about our relationship with them, but something that I'm really interested in is the MSAD operationally because I think again correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you'd be hardressed to argue with the fact that they are really, really good, >> best in the world. So yeah, I guess broad question like what has been your experience while at the agency talking to other case
[01:02] officers, working with the Israelis? What stands out? My experience is universally negative. Universally negative. I've never had a positive encounter with Mossad. I have never met a CIA officer who has had a positive encounter with MSAD because the MSAD doesn't give two shits what you think or what you are trying to focus on in your job. They care only about Israel. And if that means shoving their fists up your ass or
[01:33] trying to recruit you or telling you to go [ __ ] yourself while they try to recruit, you know, the guy sitting next to you or the guy in the defense contractor's office, they don't care what you think of them because for them it's an issue of survival. They they have nowhere to go if they if they don't survive. The thing is, you know, the Israelis, this was covered in the Washington Post um uh just a couple days after the 12-day war started. And what the Israelis did is
[02:03] that they have a lot of Farsy speaking Jews in Israel. These are Iranians who are Jewish and who immigrated to Israel and a lot of them work from Wasad and Shinbet. And what the Israelis did was they got the cell phone numbers of literally every uh Iranian nuclear scientist. And they had these Israeli Jews, I'm sorry, these Iranian Jews call on their cell phones, call the scientists and say, "Listen, you're going to die tomorrow, right? We're going to kill you tomorrow.
[02:35] You have no hope. You're going to die. Just ex accept it. Or you can defect to us right now." And they're like, "Ah, [ __ ] you." and they hang up the phone. Then they call the wives and say, "Listen, we're going to kill your husband tomorrow. So tell them this is his only chance. He's going to die tomorrow." And what they ended up doing is just taking out the entire the entire block of apartment buildings. They killed 14 nuclear scientists. That devastates the entire program
[03:06] and um and uh and family members as well. They wiped out entire families. And now they're gathering intelligence on the next generation of Israeli scientists and they're going to start killing them. The the US would never have a policy like that. We'll try to do, you know, some pin prick thing or or, you know, do it in person, but never just, you know, kill. They killed 300 people in in um
[03:39] southern Lebanon when they went after Hassan Astrala, the former head of uh Hezbala. Just blew up the entire complex. It decapitated Hezbala. It was also a war crime. I mean to be fair, the MSAD does do the close-in stuff, too. >> Yeah, they do. >> Um like the like the Michelle one in Jordan. And then what about that one uh in Dubai? Do you remember that? >> Classic. You know, we studied that for a long time.
[04:09] >> They killed a guy in a hotel room in Dubai and then after they killed him, they were somehow able to lock the door from the inside of the hotel room. And we tried like magnets and different ways. We couldn't figure out how they did it. >> Like a latched door. >> It was they did the latch and the this one and the guys in there dead and the hotel couldn't even get it open. Yeah. They ended up sending somebody in from the balcony. How do they do that?
[04:43] Very impressive. Wasn't there also something? Okay, first of all, the Israelis never officially claimed responsibility for that. But there was um there was like 26 people that the Dub the Dubai CCTV footage picked up. >> Right. >> And >> Right. And and in Dubai they have the most CCTV coverage in the world. More than the Chinese, >> but none of them were picked up. >> No. >> And number one, people speculate
[05:13] disguises. But I also I don't know if this is true, but weren't the cameras Israeli made? Oh, I wouldn't be surprised. When I was in Dubai, I got a tour of the whole facility and the cameras were German. What facility? >> There's an underground. [Music] They have this very sophisticated. Maybe we should clip that. >> Oh, are you sure? I'd like to keep it in. >> Okay. Okay. I'm going to be serious.
[05:45] There's an underground facility that the government of Dubai has that completely created by Seammens, the big German company. It's like walking into an IMAX theater, but instead of one fivetory uh screen, it's five stories of TV monitors. So, you have hundreds of TV monitors that cover every inch of Dubai. every inch. So, we're watching these.
[06:16] They gave us a tour. We're watching these and we see um a taxi driver looking at his phone while he's driving and he crashes into a telephone pole and they were like, "Uh, there's a taxi accident at the intersection of this and that and the taxi driver's rattled and he gets out of the out of the cab and he's trying to gain his, you know, composure and somebody runs up to him and we're watching all this on the screen. somebody runs up to him and then they call, you know, I think it's 115 is their version of of 911. And um well,
[06:49] the ambulance is already on the way because we we watched it happen in real time. So the operator is like, yes, yes, the ambulance is on the way. The whole country is covered. Now, you can't do that in a country like the United States, but you can do it in other places and then you can intercept what's happening in those other places. So, um, to come back to the MSAD, >> I told this for for people that listen to the I had a historian, Rick Rick Spence. He's a Oh, you know Rick? Sure. >> Um, so for people that heard me tell the
[07:21] story on that podcast, sorry about that, but I want to get John's take on it and you'll hear why. >> So, um, there was a this was a a documentary that was that came out of Israel. So, it was all on the up and up. And there was a MSAD officer that told a story about um they recruited an asset who let's say he was like some sort of you know goat herder or something in I believe let's I think it was Syria and so they recruit the guy and eventually the Palestinians come to
[07:51] the guy and they wanted to recruit him because his he was in close proximity to the Israeli border. >> Sure. >> Um again I don't know if it was Syria but whatever let's just say there was. So the Palestinians come to him and then he goes and tells uh the MSAD and they're like, "Hey, I got approached by these guys. They want to know about some either border setup or movement of the IDF." And what the MSAD said is, "Okay, give them the information because let's just assume what you can see they can see and it's all out there. Build a relationship. Give them the information." Gives it to him.
[08:23] >> So then they come back to him and they say, "Okay, we want you to find a spot in the border wall for us to cross into Israel." >> Oh boy. So he goes to the MSAD and he tells him this and they say, "Okay, let's let's go find a spot in the border wall together and then when they come through there'll be a warm welcome waiting for him." So they pick a spot, he goes and tells the Palestinians and they say, "Okay, great. Thanks." The night before the operation, they tell him, they say, "Oh yeah, and by the way, as an insurance policy, you're coming with us." >> Oh [ __ ] Yeah.
[08:53] >> So he tells this and they said, "Well, if you if you say no, they'll get spooked and they'll either you'll blow your cover or they'll kill you." >> Mhm. >> So go with them and when you cross the border, hit the deck and we have ways to make sure that you don't get shot. And essentially that was all [ __ ] And the way that the MSAD officer described it was sacrificing a a pawn off the chessboard. And so I don't say that to illustrate the fact
[09:24] that oh my god the MSAD is so bad. Like intelligence is is a dirty game. I think we're all well aware of that. But the point what I got from that is >> why the hell would they be saying this? Number one to to speak to the ruthlessness of MSAD. Sure. The mystique. I think that that is beneficial to an intelligence agency. But >> you're a Palestinian. >> That's what I'm saying. Why would you want to work with any agency? >> Volunteer. Yeah. >> Do they burn assets like that? Oh, I'm sure that they do. I'm sure that they do. But I'll tell you, no no no other no
[09:55] other intelligence service would would send somebody send a recruited asset to his death like that. That doesn't make any sense. But the Israelis are not like anybody else. They're not. It's just another Palestinian to them. >> So, what's an example operationally like that that you can think of when you're like, the Israelis are different? When I was the first time I went on Pierce Morgan, I debated a former director of the Mossad
[10:25] and the guy just couldn't stop chuckling all through the I mean it was ridiculous. I said things like the Israeli spy on the United States. Oh no, no, not since Jonathan Pard. And I said, 'Well, Jonathan Pard was caught in 1985, and you were spying on the United States in 1998, you know, or 2004.
[10:57] No comment. It's like, what? What is that? We would never We're not permitted to spy on the Israelis. We're not permitted. The potential for blowback is is outrageous. Can you imagine if we spied on the Israelis and got caught? Every member of Congress would be demanding the CIA director's head. >> Do you think that we really don't spy on the Israelis? >> That was verboten when I was there. >> I was surprised to hear you say that in that interview because I figured it's this gentleman's game, so to speak.
[11:31] >> With most other places post 911, you know, we develop the five eyes and we don't spy on each other in the five eyes. Uh the five eyes being US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. You know, we literally sit next to each other in each other's headquarters. I remember when George Tennant ordered us to open the files, he said, and he meant literally open the files. And so, we've had this five eyes relationship ever since. And of course, we have very, very close relationships with other countries. Not a ton, but a lot. But the
[12:03] Israelis are special. Yeah. We do not spy on the Israelis. >> What's up, guys? Thank you so much for taking the time to watch the interview. If you got anything out of this video at all, please like the video, leave me a comment, tell me what you thought of the video, uh, tell me who you'd like to see on the show. I really appreciate the support. It goes a long way on these platforms, as you guys know. Most importantly, I have some excellent interviews coming up in the future that I'm really, really excited about. So,
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