Mossad Mafia Threatens ICC Prosecutors, Journalists Netanyahu commands Mossad to spy on ICC chief prosecutors and threaten them

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Israelis are shocked, but not surprised that Bibi Netanyahu dragooned the Mossad, Shin Bet and IDF intelligence (AMAN) into almost a decade-long campaign of threats and intimidation against the ICC. It was investigating war crimes charges against Netanyahu and military brass, going back to Operation Protective Edge (2014).

Israel mounted a massive campaign on the part of the country’s entire security apparatus:

[It] raced to prepare intelligence teams in the army, Shin Bet, and Mossad, alongside a covert team of military and civilian lawyers, to lead the effort to forestall a full ICC investigation. All this was coordinated under Israel’s National Security Council (NSC), whose authority is derived from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The net was spread wide to include scores of targets:

One of the sources said there was a large whiteboard with the names of around 60 people who were under surveillance — half of them Palestinians and half from other countries, including UN officials and ICC personnel in The Hague.

It was all-hands-on-deck . The political-military-intelligence apparatus was on a war footing:

“Everyone] saw the ICC…as a war that had to be waged, and one that Israel had to be defended against. It was described in military terms.”

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The brass knuckles approach began with the previous prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda:

[Then Mossad chief] Yossi Cohen personally attempted to “enlist” [ie recruit] Bensouda and manipulate her into complying with Israel’s wishes..causing [her] to fear for her personal safety.

Among his tactics were threatening the exposure of compromising phone calls by her husband. They had been offered to Cohen by an Israeli lawyer. An example of Israeli kompromat.

Cohen also made two mysterious trips to Congo on Israeli blood diamond tycoon, Dan Gertler’s private plane, during which he met with its dictator, Joseph Kabila. Haaretz first reported the visits, but was prohibited from publishing their purpose under threat from the Mossad.

The most recent reports indicate Cohen succeeded in getting Kabila to request a meeting with Bensouda. It’s not clear whether the intelligence chief used simple suasion or more ominous methods to attain the Congolese leader’s cooperation.

When the ICC prosecutor arrived Cohen ambushed her, joining the meeting uninvited. It would have been highly improper for an ICC prosecutor to meet with the intelligence chief of a nation it is investigating. All the meetings were kept secret for reasons we can now understand, considering the controversy their exposure has generated. Cohen also met with her several other times.

Haaretz reporter Gur Megiddo planned to publish this bombshell in 2022. Shortly before the planned publication, he writes:

…I attempted to contact the former prosecutor through a third party who knew her. Bensouda never responded…but days after the attempt…a senior security official [called and asked]:
“Can you come to see me tomorrow?” he asked.

At the entrance to the senior official’s office, I was asked to deposit my mobile phone to prevent me from recording the conversation. In the room, another senior official from a different security agency was waiting for me. The conversation began with the words, “We understand you know about the prosecutor.”
It was a polite conversation, a polite threat. The tone was calm, the content much less so. [He] explained that if I published the story, I would suffer the consequences and get to know the interrogation rooms of the Israeli security authorities from the inside. I argued against the use of security powers to prevent the publication of information whose harm is not security-related but rather reputational in nature, but to no avail.

In the end, it was made clear to me that even sharing the information “with my friends abroad,” referring to foreign media outlets, would lead to the same results.

Since the Mossad’s jurisdiction lies outside Israel, it could not officially summon or investigate Megiddo. But the Shin Bet could. So the “security official” who initially summoned him to a meeting was likely from the Shin Bet. But the official who issued the threat was almost certainly from the Mossad, since the articles Megiddo subsequently published dealt with Cohen’s secret trips to Congo. In other words, the agency was protecting its own.

Megiddo understood that threat meant that he would not only face interrogation, but that he could likely face criminal charges like those of Anat Kamm and Uri Blau, when they reported earlier IDF war crimes on the West Bank. Kamm spent two years in prison and Blau has been in exile (it is unclear whether by choice or otherwise) since, living in the US. Megiddo likely understood that he faced a prison term if he published, and that exile potentially might be his only option to avoid this fate.

Israel is not like the Watergate era. There are no Woodwards or Bernsteins. There is no Pulitzer for Israeli journalists who defy the security apparatus. There is only infamy and prison.

The Mossad and Shin Bet used Pegasus spyware to intercept communications of Palestinian NGOs with the ICC. Clearly, they also were monitoring Bensouda’s &/or Megiddo’s communications as well, which explains his summons by the secret police.

Thus, Israel’s security apparatus not only used Mafia-style tactics to bully the ICC, it used the same methods to suppress reporting that would expose the operation.

Cohen’s successor, Tamir Pardo, expressed shock and incredulity at these tactics, likening it to “Cosa Nostra-style blackmail.”

Israel is a Mafia crime family armed not with pistols, silencers and brass knuckles, but nuclear weapons. Even crime families restrict mob violence to a narrow circle of their rivals and extortion victims. While Israel has become a global crime family, extorting international justice officials and threatening its own journalists with prison sentences or worse.

Current ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has also faced similar threats. In fact, he has publicly warned Israel (though not by name) that such attempts will fail:

“I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.

Netanyahu could also face additional charges targeting  such tactics if/when Khan brings a case against him.