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.[1]
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.[1][2]
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.[2]
Three homecomings
Kiriakou lists three incidents, each following a function at the American ambassador’s residence.[2]
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.[2]
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.[3][4] Kiriakou describes the effect as feeling violated and the harassment as totally unnecessary.[4]
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.[4][5]
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.[5] 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.[6]