Joe Rogan guest makes explosive claims on Israeli spying

[ThatRobGuy]

Joe Rogan guest makes explosive claims on Israeli spying

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou made sweeping allegations about Israeli operations and American political influence during a wide-ranging interview on Joe

www.israelhayom.com

I'm in the process of trying to find a more "well-known" link discussing the matter.

Kiriakou, who served as a CIA analyst specializing in Middle Eastern affairs, described restrictions on Israeli intelligence visits to agency headquarters, claiming security concerns drove policy changes. He described his first encounter with Israeli agents some two months after joining the agency. "I was told to give my very first liaison briefing. So this is going to be the Israeli Mossad and Shin Bet. And I was going to be one of about eight analysts, and I was the most junior, so I would go last. We don't allow the Israelis into CIA headquarters. We used to, but every time they would come, they'd say, 'Hey, we brought gifts. Here's a gift for you.' It's all packed full of listening devices and batteries," he alleged.


Here's another show where he covers some of the same stuff

And this document (that was released via a FOIA request) seems to corroborate some of it

https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp90-00965r000605850002-9

 

[Chesterton]

I'm not sure what's explosive here. Isn't it well known that everybody spies on everybody, and that Israel happens to be particularly good at it?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I'm not sure what's explosive here. Isn't it well known that everybody spies on everybody, and that Israel happens to be particularly good at it?

I think it's considered "explosive" (albeit, a tad hyperbolic) for a few reasons.

1) we're constantly fed the narrative that they're our greatest ally
2) the fact that the CIA had to release a doc, via FOIA, called "Israel doesn't play by the rules" is a tad telling...


I interpret "the rules" to be the general understanding and acknowledgement that "spies gonna spy, it's par for the course and comes with the territory", but that Israel was engaging in methods that didn't necessarily "stay within the expected norms regarding allies".

For example, I'm not aware of any whistleblowers suggesting that Canada's CSIS or the British Secret Intelligence Service are denied entry into CIA facilities for joint-coop strategy sessions and meetings due to dozens of painfully blatant espionage attempts.

 

[Chesterton]

Call me cynical, but I think this Kiriakou fellow may be Israel's most successful spy in America. So he throws out this "I can't be recruited" stuff to throw us off the trail.

...dozens of painfully blatant espionage attempts.

Well I guess they're not always good at it.

 

[Desk trauma]

Explosive, sure, if you are unfamiliar with how Israel conducts themselves.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Call me cynical, but I think this Kiriakou fellow may be Israel's most successful spy in America. So he throws out this "I can't be recruited" stuff to throw us off the trail.

Usually people working for the Israelis don't do any time...

This guy spent 30 months in a federal prison for whistleblowing.

Juxtaposed against someone who we know was working for the Israeli government (Tom Artiom Alexandrovich) who was arrested in a child sex abuse investigation, and was permitted to leave the country (yeah...he's not going to be coming back for any consequences, he opted to skip his Nevada court summons in August) and then Netanyahu lied on state media in Israel and told all of their people he'd never been arrested.

Court records from Nevada’s Clark County show that Alexandrovich was charged with luring or attempting to lure a child online to engage in sexual conduct – a felony that carries up to 10 years in jail in the case of a conviction. He was released on a $10,000 bond, but no monitoring appeared to take place.

Richard Davies, a criminal defense lawyer in Nevada, told Al Jazeera that the apparent lack of conditions on Alexandrovich’s release despite the seriousness of the charges was “fishy”.

“Average Joe gets arrested for this sort of thing, he would appear in front of the justice of the peace within 24 hours. The justice of the peace in that county would issue bail conditions, which very typically would include a GPS device, restrictions on movement, not being allowed to leave the state,” Davies said.

“So the fact that this individual was not only allowed to leave without an ankle bracelet or a GPS device, not only to leave the state, but also leave the country, is highly unusual and suspect.”

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

1) we're constantly fed the narrative that they're our greatest ally

Do you think the US spies any less on Israel than the other way around? Does that make the US not an ally, or a bad ally, to Israel?

 

[Landon Caeli]

There is known evidence that the United States has also spied on Israel.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Do you think the US spies any less on Israel than the other way around? Does that make the US not an ally, or a bad ally, to Israel?

There is known evidence that the United States has also spied on Israel.

We're not going to them with our hand out, looking for billions of dollars ever year.

I don't know to what extent we spy on them, but the donor/recipient dynamic needs to be acknowledged.

We have an understandable interest in wanting to know what other nations are planning on doing with the weapons and money we give them (that they asked for).

Vs. being the one asking another country for money, them accommodating, and then bringing a teddy bear with a tape recorder in it when you go to pick up the check.

If we didn't give them a penny, and still attempted to put listening devices in their intelligence HQ, then I would say we were in the wrong for that.

 

[High Fidelity]

Everyone spies, and the US is probably the worst offenders for spying on allies, so this is nothing to be unexpected.

 

[Friedrich Rubinstein]

We're not going to them with our hand out, looking for billions of dollars ever year.

I don't know to what extent we spy on them, but the donor/recipient dynamic needs to be acknowledged.

We have an understandable interest in wanting to know what other nations are planning on doing with the weapons and money we give them (that they asked for).

Vs. being the one asking another country for money, them accommodating, and then bringing a teddy bear with a tape recorder in it when you go to pick up the check.

If we didn't give them a penny, and still attempted to put listening devices in their intelligence HQ, then I would say we were in the wrong for that.

The opinions understandably differ about this topic, but I think the US receives more in return for their investment in Israel than from any other country that the US supports financially. Unlike countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia or Nigeria (which all received around $1 Billion or more in 2023), Israel invests into the US economy, grants the US access to new technologies, shares valuable intelligence with the US, especially regarding counter-terrorism, and more. It is absolutely not in the US' interest for Israel to share their knowledge and intelligence with countries like Russia or China instead, and the US investment prevents Israel from partnering with those countries that would love to invest into Israel instead.

To portray the relationship between the US and Israel as "donor and recipient" is, in my opinion, a flawed understanding of geopolitics and the dynamics of this partnership. The US-Ukraine relationship is that of a donor and a recipient. The US-Israel relationship is lot more bilateral and benefits both sides in tangible ways.

 

[Desk trauma]

To portray the relationship between the US and Israel as "donor and recipient" is, in my opinion, a flawed understanding of geopolitics and the dynamics of this partnership.

Correct it’s more like an ungrateful ill behaved child and wealthy parent dynamic.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Israel invests into the US economy, grants the US access to new technologies, shares valuable intelligence with the US, especially regarding counter-terrorism, and more. It is absolutely not in the US' interest for Israel to share their knowledge and intelligence with countries like Russia or China instead, and the US investment prevents Israel from partnering with those countries that would love to invest into Israel instead.

To portray the relationship between the US and Israel as "donor and recipient" is, in my opinion, a flawed understanding of geopolitics and the dynamics of this partnership. The US-Ukraine relationship is that of a donor and a recipient. The US-Israel relationship is lot more bilateral and benefits both sides in tangible ways.

Do they invest, or are they spending the money we gave them on our weapons through a "we'll give you defense money, but you have to buy from us" type of deal?

Also to say they "share technology" with us is perhaps a misleading framing.

They make available to us, certain technologies for purchase at full retail market price.

To use a cookout analogy.

When we invite them to our cookouts, we provide all of the food and drink
When they invite us to theirs, they make us bring the burgers, and then charge us full price for the cans of soda


With regards to their intelligence sharing, while that may have been true at some point, that's changed a bit.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-scaled-back-intelligence-sharing-when-biden-took-office-report/

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/19/netanyahu-israel-agencies-ban-us-gaza-war

So they withhold information...

Not to mention,
They were partially responsible for the "Iraq has WMDs" bad intel that got us roped into an unnecessary war.