Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted what he called another attempt by the country’s legal fraternity to target him, as information began to emerge about a criminal investigation centering on leaks by aides in his office.
As Breitbart News reported, an indictment was unsealed last week in which a secret investigation into Netanyahu’s office was unsealed. Several people close to Netanyahu were arrested, though none who currently work for him. One was his former spokesman, Eli Feldstein, a highly respected figure who also represented the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The substance of the allegations was unclear, but reports suggest that the aides are accused of stealing classified information from the IDF and leaking it to two European publications, the German Bild and the UK Jewish Chronicle.
The essence of the stories they published was already widely known in Israel — namely, that Hamas was abusing Israeli hostages in an effort to exert psychological pressure on the hostage families, and to boost the protest movement against Netanyahu.
The leaks apparently included documents linking the Hamas strategy directly to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza last month.
As Caroline Glick of the Jewish News Syndicate points out (above), the information actually helped Israel’s strategic interests by showing the cynicism of Hamas, but hurt the Israeli left and its patrons in the security establishment.
Netanyahu’s response to the unfolding controversy suggests that he sees it as yet another in a series of politicized investigations.
His office released the following statement, translated from Hebrew:
There is an unprecedented campaign against the Prime Minister’s Office in the midst of a war.
After a year in which there has been a flood of criminal leaks from Security Cabinet discussions and from discussions regarding the hostages and the missing, which have provided our enemies with highly valuable intelligence, the only two investigations that have been opened are directed against the Prime Minister’s Office and not against the wholesale leakers – none of which have been questioned – who have greatly damaged the hostages and the security of Israel.
As with the previous attempts to inflate accusations against the Prime Minister and those around him, the present matter will also not yield anything whatsoever, but will certainly lead to difficult questions regarding arbitrary enforcement, which lacks both precedence and foundation.
Netanyahu is still on trial for corruption, on flimsy charges that have largely collapsed in court. He and his allies view that prosecution as an attempt by Israel’s legal fraternity and national security elite — Israel’s own “deep state” — to remove him from office.
Israel’s “deep state” is said to favor the political left and stronger links with the U.S. Democratic Party. The Biden-Harris administration has hostile to Netanyahu since he was elected in 2022.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.