The Mossad is the primary external intelligence service of the State of Israel. In John Kiriakou’s account — drawn from his fifteen years at the Central Intelligence Agency and his subsequent decades as a commentator — the Mossad is operationally formidable, organizationally distinctive in its near-total focus on operations rather than analysis, and uniformly hostile in its professional dealings with U.S. counterparts:
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 Mossad. Because the Mossad 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 trying to recruit you or telling you to go fuck yourself while they try to recruit 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.[1][2]
Operational orientation
Mossad is described as nearly exclusively operational rather than analytical — “It’s all about ops” — a posture conditioned by the need to manage the heterogeneous Palestinian political environment in Israel’s immediate neighborhood (the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Quds Force, Islamic Jihad, and others). Per Kiriakou, the requirements of “allowing a simmer” among these factions without permitting it to boil compel constant infiltration and active management.[3][4]
CIA prohibition on counter-spying
A categorical CIA prohibition on intelligence operations against Israel was in effect during Kiriakou’s tenure: “We’re not permitted to spy on the Israelis. We’re not permitted. The potential for blowback 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.” The prohibition reflects AIPAC’s political reach and is treated by Kiriakou as the structural exception in the U.S. intelligence community’s posture toward other states.[5][6]
Israeli spying on the United States
In a Piers Morgan appearance in approximately 2024 Kiriakou debated a former Mossad director who denied any post-1985 Israeli espionage against the United States. Kiriakou’s response was that Jonathan Pollard had been caught in 1985 — “and you were spying on the United States in 1998, you know, or 2004.” The former director declined to comment.[7]
Documented operational style
Two operations are routinely cited by Kiriakou as exemplifying the Mossad’s operational character:
- The 2010 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room — including the unresolved question of how the assassins locked the door from the inside after the killing.[8]
- The 1997 attempted assassination of Khaled Mashal by poison in Jordan.[9]
- During the Iran 12-Day War, the Farsi-language phone-call campaign to Iranian nuclear scientists by Iranian-Jewish Mossad and Shin Bet officers, followed by apartment-block strikes that killed fourteen scientists and their families.[10][11]