# The Israelis are free agents

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The Israelis are free agents," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-israelis-are-free-agents/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's formulation of Israel as an intelligence partner whose cooperation is conditional rather than allied — friendly when it suits, and equally willing to deal with Russia, China or Germany — offered as the reason an Israeli-run source could end up passing American information to a service hostile to the United States, and given each time with an acknowledgement that saying it brings him threats.*

- **The claim:** Israel is a partner of convenience, not an ally in the standing sense
- **The consequence:** Product from an Israeli source may reach a hostile service
- **The cost of saying it:** *"Every time I say something like this, I get threats"*
- **Applied to:** [Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jeffrey-epstein) as an [access agent](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/access-agent)

**The Israelis are free agents** is the phrase [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) uses for a claim he makes about intelligence liaison rather than about politics: that Israeli cooperation with the United States is contingent, and that treating it as an alliance produces bad predictions about where American product ends up.[1]

He states it each time with a preface about what saying it costs him: *"I'm going to get threats from the Israelis again. Every time I say something like this, I get threats — but I'm going to say it again anyway."*[1]

## The claim

> *"The Israelis are free agents. The Israelis are not necessarily our friends. They are when it suits them. But when it suits them to be friendly with the Russians, they go with the Russians, or with the Chinese or the Germans or, you know, anybody. It doesn't make any difference. The Israelis do what's best for the Israelis."*

The operational consequence is the point of the formulation. If an Israeli-run [access agent](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/access-agent) collects something of value, nothing in the relationship prevents it travelling onward: *"if that means using a source like Jeffrey Epstein and passing information on to a hostile intelligence service — or at least one that's hostile to the United States — that's exactly what they're going to do."*[2]

## Where he applies it

He advances it in support of his standing reading of [Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jeffrey-epstein) as an [access agent](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/access-agent) most likely run by [Mossad](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mossad), and it is the premise behind his exchange with [Alan Dershowitz](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/alan-dershowitz) about what an admission of Israeli espionage would actually have done to Epstein's sentence.[3][4]

## See also

- [Access Agent](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/access-agent)
- [Jeffrey Epstein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jeffrey-epstein)
- [MOSSAD](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mossad)
- [Alan Dershowitz](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/alan-dershowitz)
- [Jonathan Pollard](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jonathan-pollard)

## Sources

1. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 06:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=371s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/
2. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 06:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=402s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/
3. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 01:33. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=93s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/
4. How Epstein Was Used by Mossad, CIA & MI6 (2026-02-08), at 07:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUGHG0Yy6BA&t=432s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-08-how-epstein-was-used-by-mossad-cia-mi6/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-israelis-are-free-agents/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt