This article was originally written for TIPP Insights.

It seems absurd that one would even have to address this particular conspiracy theory, but it has become surprisingly widespread: the myth that the Israeli Mossad is behind Jeffrey Epstein’s career is not only preposterous, but unsupported by factual reality.

Photo: Jeffrey Epstein’s mug shot by U.S. Virgin Islands, Department of Justice.

Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019) was an American financier, convicted sex offender, and alleged sex trafficker who manipulated his vast wealth to cultivate an elite social circle of powerful politicians, royalty, and business leaders.

Conspiracy theories about Jews manipulating world events are nothing new, indeed some of those very conspiracy theories led to the Holocaust. Yet this particular myth has received an unwelcome and misleading boost from a recently released recording of Epstein speaking with disgraced, former Israeli politician, Ehud Barak. In a poorly constructed article in The Times, UK, journalist Gabrielle Weininger, jumped to claim that this recording “proves” the involvement of Israeli spy agencies in Epstein’s career. It does not.

Who is Ehud Barak?

Ehud Barak is a disgraced former politician, who served as Israel’s prime minister over a quarter century ago and has not held any government position in over a decade — though he has been tainted by scandal several times in the interim. Barak’s relationship with the current Israeli government is openly hostile and he is generally unpopular among the Israeli public.

Photo: Former Israeli politician Ehud Barak by World Economic Forum/Monika Flueckiger via Flickr.

To claim that Barak has any influence in the Mossad would be like claiming that the U.S. military is currently taking orders from disgraced former politician Anthony Weiner – it is utterly illogical and completely preposterous.

For Epstein’s part, in a widely overlooked email released from the Epstein files, the convicted sex criminal writes “I do not like Israel. AT ALL.”

In the notorious recording, Barak and Epstein discuss racist theories about Jewish immigrants to Israel, something the Israeli public finds utterly unacceptable. Other information indicates Barak may have invested in one of Epstein’s business ventures.

To the Israeli public, this story is completely irrelevant, except for a widely shared feeling of embarrassment that an Israeli had any connection to Epstein at all.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summarized his own thoughts on X:

How does the Mossad work?

The connection between Barak and Epstein simply does not fit the pattern of how the Mossad, or any Israeli intelligence agency, actually functions.

Israeli intelligence operations tend to be highly organized, professional, subtle, and as a result, entirely unknown. However there are a small number of publicly visible exceptions that allow us to identify a pattern:

• Israeli intelligence stunned the world in September, 2024 when it remotely detonated thousands of pagers used by commanders of the Hezbollah terror organization in Lebanon, as they were planning a massive attack on Israel. The general public has since learned about some of the shell corporations that Israel used to fool Hezbollah into purchasing the explosive pagers, but the actual individuals and methods behind the operation remain unknown to this day.

• In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 massacre against Israel, one of the terror organization’s top leaders, Ismail Haniyeh, attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkianin in Tehran. Haniyeh stayed in one of the regime’s most secure locations: the IRGC’s elite “Neshat,” compound, essentially Iran’s “Blair House.” The Mossad assassinated the Hamas terror leader right inside the compound by means of a sophisticated remote control explosive that the agency had somehow planted in Haniyeh’s secure accommodations, months in advance. To this day it remains a mystery exactly how Israel accomplished this feat, or who was involved.

• In the very first minutes of the “Twelve Day War” against Iran’s nuclear program last June, Israel destroyed most of Iran’s ballistic missile chain of command, saving untold numbers of Israeli lives. We know that Israeli intelligence used a combination of DNA as well as official looking text messages and phone calls to “order” the commanders to a specific location where they could be precisely targeted. The rapid assassination was made possible in part by a military drone base that Israel had somehow built and operated inside Tehran for years, without being discovered. To this day it remains a mystery how Israel successfully obtained the relevant information, built the drone base, sent the fake “orders,” and carried out the operations.

One pattern is clear from all these operations: they are professional, subtle and (except for their dramatic conclusions) utterly low key – and these are just the operations we know about. The relationship between Ehud Barak (a disgraced former politician) and Jeffrey Epstein (an infamous sex criminal) would be seen as sloppy, unprofessional, and worst of all, high profile: none of which fit the consistent pattern of Israeli intelligence.

Other “evidence” from The Times article included unsubstantiated claims by Charles C. Johnson, a well known conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier with no inside knowledge of Israeli affairs, as well as a “photograph” of Israeli president Isaac Herzog posing with Epstein: which turned out to be a fake AI generated image.

Author Gabrielle Weininger’s use of known conspiracy theorists as “sources,” as well as fake AI images, should be seen as utterly humiliating both to her and to The Times. It should also serve as a cautionary tale to all of us regarding the importance of critical thinking.

At a time of record breaking global antisemitism, the conspiracy theory that Israel is somehow involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s life or career is not only untrue and unsubstantiated, but potentially dangerous to innocent Jewish communities the world over.