Bibi-Leaks: the PM and the Israeli journalist whose story didn’t quite add up

Several Sundays ago, I returned from lunch with friends to read that three of Britain’s best-known and respected Jewish journalists, Jonathan Freedland (Guardian), Hadley Freeman (Sunday Times) and David Aaronovitch (The Times until 2023) had resigned from contributing to the Jewish Chronicle (JC). Freedland wrote that he needed to break his connection with the JC because “I no longer recognise it”.

I decided to join them after more than 50 years as a contributor. I, too, had grave misgivings about the direction taken by the current editor. The JC, founded when Queen Victoria had been on the throne a mere four years, had become a vehicle for the ideologically righteous and had ceased to be a communal marketplace where all views were heard.

Everyone has red lines and I had no regrets about my decision. That, I thought, was that. However, I then discovered a darker side to this episode.

The journalists had resigned because the JC had published “fabricated stories and showed the thinnest form of contrition”. Their criticism referred to a story by Elon Perry, published in early September, alleging that Israeli intelligence sources had informed him that the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would be able to smuggle out the hostages over the porous border to Egypt if the 13-km long Philadelphi Corridor, separating the two countries, was not held by Israel.

In an interview on Fox News a couple of days after the JC story, Netanyahu commented: “If we leave the Corridor, you cannot prevent Hamas from smuggling hostages out. It's walking distance. They can smuggle kidnappers into the Sinai Desert and they will disappear… and be lost forever.”

The Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, a Major-General in the IDF, disputed the necessity of hanging onto the Corridor – and was duly sacked from his position by Netanyahu in November.

Perry further claimed  that the real reason  Hamas had refused to negotiate was that only 20% of the hostages remained alive and that they were assembled to form a human shield around Sinwar. Perry’s story in the JC was said to be based on documentation seized in Gaza when the bodies of six hostages, murdered by their captors at the end of August, were discovered.

All this was investigated by Ronen Bergman, a journalist for the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot (and the New York Times). He reported that the IDF unit, AMSHT, responsible for gathering material in Gaza, had absolutely no idea what all this was about. The story was dismissed publicly by the IDF spokesman, Daniel Hagari.

In addition, Perry’s biography on the JC’s website was discovered to be fictitious. He claimed to have been a commando in the elite Golani Brigade and been involved in the rescue of Israelis at Entebbe airport in 1976.

A similar story appeared in the German tabloid Bild, based on a document, attributed to a middle-ranking Hamas official. This suggested that Hamas was never interested in any deal to release the hostages. On September 8, Netanyahu told the weekly cabinet meeting that Bild had revealed Hamas’s real intentions and its operational methods.

A suspicious Shin Bet suspected that all this was little more than a Netanyahu deflection ploy to influence public opinion at home and abroad. The revelations in the foreign media did not add up. A detailed investigation led to Netanyahu’s doorstep and on October 27, Eli Feldstein, a member of Netanyahu’s inner circle of advisers, was detained by the Shin Bet for questioning. He had previously been a spokesman for Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Ministry of National Security.

The story was designed to alleviate the pressure on Netanyahu to strike a deal with Hamas and to secure the release of the hostages because, according to these specific couple of documents, it could be claimed that the responsibility for the stalemate was solely that of Hamas - and not that of Netanyahu. It shifted any blame for the continued detention of the hostages away from Netanyahu.

As more details came to light, it became clear that the documents, quoted in the JC and Bild, had been carefully selected from the mountain of classified material that the IDF had taken from Hamas during the past year.

The Hostages and Missing Families’ Forum was incandescent. In a statement, it said that they suspected that “people associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the biggest deceptions of (the public's) consciousness in the history of the country”.

Last week, a Tel Aviv district court authorised Feldstein’s release to home arrest. The judge ruled that while there was insufficient evidence to claim that Feldstein intended to harm national security, there was “clear evidence” that he knowingly breached military censorship by leaking a classified document.

The release to house arrest was quickly overturned by the Supreme Court, and Feldstein and another unnamed intelligence official were transferred to Eshel prison in Be’er Sheva. The far-Right Noam party staged demonstrations outside the prison on Saturday night, terming the detention of the two men, “politically motivated”.

The Israeli media further commented that the classified material had originally been passed to a loyalist at Channel 12 but the ensuing article had been spiked by the military censor. This obstacle was easily circumvented when the material was passed to the media abroad, after which the Israeli press was notified about its publication in Bild and the JC.

In mid-November, the police summoned two of Netanyahu’s senior advisers, Yonatan Urich and Srulik Einhorn, for questioning. The Israeli press alleged that Urich instructed Feldstein to hand the documents to Einhorn, who in turn passed them to Bild. (Ha’aretz, November 19 2024)

Netanyahu maintained that he knew absolutely nothing about the documents. Yet last week, Feldstein said that Netanyahu was informed about the documents in late August. The Kan public broadcasting network also reported that Feldstein had notified the prime minister two days before their publication.

While Elon Perry was subsequently dismissed by the JC and the story pulled, this whole sorry affair reflected the JC’s unquestioning willingness to accept anything that chimed with its sensationalist agenda. The editor believed that he had a breathtaking scoop on his hands. Even so, the worldwide response to this scandal has now forced the JC to include the occasional dissenting voice – an incremental victory for “the dignity of difference”.

The Bibi-Leaks case has once again indicated Netanyahu’s disdain for the hostages’ families and their continuous demand to Bring Them Home.

It also reflected his long-held resentment at being restricted by the rule of law and the openness of a free press. Only last Thursday, the former head of the Shin Bet, Yoram Cohen, commented on Israel Radio that Netanyahu had asked him to place wiretaps on the IDF Chief of Staff and the Mossad head in 2011. 

More than 200 Israelis living in the UK have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer – asking him that if he is a true friend of Israel, he would sanction Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. They argued that these two ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition have been responsible for promulgating “a plethora of laws” targeting the media and seeking to overturn democratic norms.

Netanyahu had long wished to dismiss Yoav Gallant and having done that, he is now set on ridding himself of Gali Baharav-Miara, the Attorney-General, and Roman Bar, the Shin Bet head who stand in his way.

These are more the acts of an absolute monarch than the head of a modern state, elected by the people, for the people.

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