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.”