Asked in February 2025 whether the United States might one day get proof of Israeli espionage inside its own government, John Kiriakou answered that the proof already exists.
The proof
“Oh, we’ve got the proof. It’s just a question of releasing it, and it hasn’t been in our interest over the course of all these years to embarrass the Israelis.”[1]
He sets that against the closeness of the relationship: “spying aside, we’re very very close to the Israelis. We give the Israelis just about everything they want. They have the most advanced weaponry — every time we invent something new the Israelis are the first to get it.”[1]
Why they spy anyway
The puzzle Kiriakou sets himself is why a partner treated that way still runs operations against its patron. His answer is that no amount of access can settle the question in an Israeli mind.
“They’re always afraid that we’re holding something back and they just want to know for themselves if we are holding something back. And if they find that we are, they’re going to approach us and they’re going to ask us for it. We’re not holding anything back — but this is just the way the Israelis operate.”[2]
The reason he accepts
What is notable about the passage is that Kiriakou declines to condemn it. “And I’m not even saying that I blame the Israelis.”[2]
The reason he gives is geographic and existential: “they have nowhere to go. If they’re pushed anywhere, it’s going to be into the Mediterranean, and they can’t risk that. And so they will do literally anything to maintain their security.”[2]
The formulation is characteristic of how Kiriakou treats the relationship elsewhere. He describes it as genuinely special rather than merely allied — not a Five Eyes arrangement, but one in which the United States provides a great deal — while maintaining that it is hard to work as a partner with a country when you know it is spying on you and actively trying to recruit your colleagues, because “deep down they really don’t want to be your friend. They just want your secrets.”[3][4]