Occupied Jerusalem - The issue of leaking secret documents from the military intelligence unit "Aman" has returned to escalation in Israel, after the Magistrate's Court allowed the lifting of the publication ban on a large part of the leaks that were behind Eli Feldstein, the spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The issue of stealing secret documents from the Israeli army and transferring them to Netanyahu's office and then leaking them to foreign media outlets has sparked widespread controversy in Israel, after it was revealed that the goal of stealing the documents, manipulating their content and leaking them was to influence Israeli public opinion to reject accepting a swap deal, and to create an atmosphere hostile to the protest movement against Netanyahu's government, claiming that the protests strengthen the power and position of the Hamas movement.

According to the information that the court allowed to be published, secret documents were transferred last April from a reserve officer in military intelligence to Netanyahu's spokesman, via social media, and in September Feldstein sought to publish the content of the document via Israeli media outlets, with the aim of negatively influencing Israeli public opinion regarding the negotiations related to the prisoner exchange and return deal.

Top Secret

After Israeli media outlets refused to publish the secret documents in response to the ban imposed by military censorship, Feldstein turned to foreign media outlets with the help of another person, which published them. After the leak raised doubts about the credibility of the documents whose content had been manipulated, Feldstein requested an original copy from the officer in the intelligence unit to prove its authenticity.

Despite the publication ban by military censorship, the officer continued the leaking process, and handed the original document to Netanyahu's spokesman, as well as other copies of documents and papers that military intelligence classified as "top secret", as these documents were stolen from the 8200 electronic eavesdropping unit in military intelligence, while the General Security Service (Shabak) continues to investigate the circumstances of the theft of the documents and the leak of information.

The investigator in the case said during the court session to extend the suspects' detention that "there is no dispute that the transfer of classified material and information was for the benefit of the Prime Minister's Office," noting that the Shin Bet has arrested five people suspected of involvement in the leak, and the Israeli Attorney General's Office is preparing to file indictments against them.

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According to the deliberations to extend the detention, Feldstein asked the intelligence officer for classified information for "supplementary material" for the prime minister's speech, where Feldstein presented himself as very close to Netanyahu and that he holds a "security classification." To clarify this, he also presented a draft of a planned speech to Netanyahu.

Network of Agents

“The right-wing media’s attempts to downplay the scandal of leaking classified documents are doomed to failure,” says Amos Harel, a military analyst for Haaretz. He adds that lifting most of the gag orders in the case of Feldstein’s arrest and officers and soldiers from the Military Intelligence Unit reveals that the leak is part of a campaign to influence Israeli public opinion, a campaign that was prepared by Netanyahu’s inner circle.”

The military analyst pointed out that what was allowed to be published in the investigation file shows that Netanyahu’s spokesman – who the Prime Minister’s Office tried to disavow at the beginning of the scandal – was running a network of agents who, through his position, passed him classified documents and information from the Military Intelligence Unit during the war.

According to Harel, the information accumulated from the investigation file showed that the documents stolen from the IDF’s intelligence unit were apparently transferred to Netanyahu and his team, who reviewed them, and then Feldstein leaked them to foreign media outlets with the help of at least one other partner, bypassing military censorship.

“None of this reaches Netanyahu himself at this stage,” he says. The military analyst added that throughout the more than 13 months of war, the prime minister not only remained in power and prevented the formation of a commission of inquiry into the failures of October 7, 2023, but also succeeded in turning the issue of the kidnapped soldiers into a political issue that divides the public and deepens the rift in Israeli society.

Serving interests

The same readings were reviewed by the political analyst in the newspaper "Maariv" Ben Caspit, who seemed more critical of Netanyahu, and held him fully responsible for the scandal of leaking secret documents and accused him of being behind it, in order to serve his personal and political interests by refraining from concluding an exchange deal, to avoid the disintegration of his government coalition and continuing the war without end, to ensure remaining in the prime minister's seat.

The political analyst strengthened his position through the narrative being promoted by the right-wing camp supporting Netanyahu, which is that they "hid important secret materials from the prime minister, and he was not aware of the matter," noting that this narrative aims to distance Netanyahu from the issue of stealing secret materials from the Israeli army and leaking them to foreign media outlets while bypassing military censorship.

Ben Caspit described Netanyahu's attempt to evade the scandal of leaking secret documents and manipulating their content as "a mockery of reason," noting that the documents reached Feldstein's hands last April, but were not used until after August 31, when 6 detainees were killed in Gaza and widespread protests erupted in Israel. At that point, it was decided to leak them in order to "convince the general public to oppose the demonstrations demanding the return of the detainees."

A fraud operation

The Israeli writer Avi Issacharoff also described the issue of leaking the documents as "dangerous from a security and moral standpoint," as it caused serious damage to the intelligence sources of the Israeli security establishment, and aims to blackmail the Israelis who took to the streets to demand the release of the detainees held by Hamas.

In an article in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, he pointed out that the most dangerous thing about the leaks scandal, which is considered the first of its kind in Israel's history, "is that the person behind it is an official in the Prime Minister's Office, whose job was to manage the relationship with military correspondents."

He pointed out that the main suspect - Netanyahu's spokesman - exploited his position to leak secret documents that he carefully selected and manipulated their content, with the intention of weakening the position of the families of the detainees, and inciting Israeli public opinion against the protests calling for a prisoner exchange deal, in order to ensure the stability of Netanyahu's government coalition.

Issacharoff said, "This is an unprecedented fraud, and it is still hard to believe that someone on behalf of the prime minister is participating in such a campaign at the height of the war, and why? Because of the fear of the end of the war, and the agreement to release the kidnapped and a temporary or long-term ceasefire, which will perhaps lead to the dissolution of the government."

The Israeli writer explained that Netanyahu and his men are betting on the short memory of the Israeli public, which has almost forgotten who was in charge of the government when he recorded the worst intelligence failure in Israel's history, saying that "the prime minister is trying to eliminate his opponents and everything that connects him to the failure of the events of October 7, and the question is whether the public in Israel will allow him to continue doing so."

Source: Al Jazeera