Netanyahu Spy Scandal: Leak Sabotaged Hostage Deal in Order to Save His Skin

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As I reported yesterday, at least three senior aides in Bibi Netanyahu’s office are suspected of obtaining top-secret IDF intelligence and leaking it to two foreign pro-Israel publications.  The homes of four aides were raided at 4am and one of the three, Eli Feldstein, was arrested.  Two others–chief of staff Tzahi Braverman and political affairs director, Jonathan Urich–have been investigated and are retaining the legal representation of Netanyahu’s lawyer. He is representing the PM in the corruption charges filed against him.

This story is under gag order and the identities of the accused cannot be reported in Israel, as I have done here.  There will be a court hearing in a few hours, after which the gag may be lifted in whole or in part. The media have appealed the gag order. Even Netanyahu has done so.  But his motives have nothing to do with transparency or the public’s right to know.  Lifting the gag will permit him and his defense attorneys to view the evidence against him and prepare a defense, both legal and before the Israeli public. He can also destroy evidence, coordinate testimony, and approach potential witnesses against him.

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Ynet says that the Shin Bet had banned Feldstein from any involvement in intelligence meetings with the prime minister, because he had failed polygraph tests and a background check. Yet, he managed to assume a position of key influence, despite being a security risk and eventually being accused of passing on Israel’s secrets to media allies:

Who permitted him to access secure locations and meetings (even in the PM’s office at IDF headquarters), to the Aquarium (the Israeli situation room), and be party to top-secret discussions, helicopter flights, intelligence briefings?  And if he was not an official aid to the prime minister, then who permitted him to become an intimate of one of the most heavily-guarded figures in the world?

He had access to classified material, like any employee and in fact much more than most employees. The only reason he wasn’t there officially was because all these privileges were bestowed on him even though he didn’t pass a polygraph. Thus, he should have been forbidden to access to this material.”

He had secret access to all the most comprehensive information. He sat with the most senior officials, in armored cars loaded with classified communications gear or in helicopters.  He received, listened to, and even spoke during discussions that no unclassified person should ever get close to.

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Israeli media reports that he lost his official role seven months after he started because he failed the background check. Yet he continued to perform all its duties–without being paid by the PMO or Likud.  Netanyahu kept him on as an outside consultant. But who paid him, if anyone, is not yet known.  You can be sure Feldstein didn’t do this for nothing–out of the goodness of his heart.

Ronen Bergman, who wrote the Ynet story linked above, just said in a media interview that Feldstein had a mole within the IDF who passed the intelligence to him.  The officer served in military intelligence. Specifically in the elite SIGNINT Unit 8200.  This would enlarge the conspiracy and transform it into an exponentially greater scandal for Netanyahu.

His unofficial role was beneficial to Bibi because Feldstein served as a cut-out; a middle-man whose role would insulate Bibi in case the operation went south, which it extravagantly has.  Now Netanyahu can claim no one in his office had anything to do with this.  Officially, no.  But unofficially his fingerprints are all over this.  Bibi is nothing if not a wily operator. He knows how to protect himself as only the shrewdest corrupt politicians do.  Others do the dirty work, while he sits back and enjoys the rewards.

Feldstein received the intelligence documents from an unknown source within the IDF, which is itself a criminal act. Leaking it to foreign journalists was a second criminal act.  As I reported last month, when news of the scandal first broke, some of the leaked material was fabricated. It claimed Hamas intended to spirit hostages out of Gaza to Iran by way of the Philadelphi corridor:

In the second document – the Jewish Chronicle claimed Sinwar was planning to transfer the abductees via Philadelphia to Sinai and from there to Tehran or Yemen. It was never in the hands of the Chronicle, or the IDF, or the “poison machine” (referring to Bibi’s propaganda machine and its influence operations), or anyone at all.  Nor is there any validity to the claim that there ever was such a document.

Other material, which was attributed to Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, had nothing to do with him.  The German publication, Bild, ran a headline saying documents leaked to them (presumably by Feldstein) were written by Sinwar himself.  It claimed that Sinwar wrote that Hamas didn’t want a ceasefire and intended to hold out as long as possible against one:

Bild and numerous other media outlets claimed that it was Sinwar’s document. In reality, it was the opinion of an intermediate Hamas intelligence official, in response to the latest draft outline for a hostage deal, a ceasefire and the end of the war.  This was another lie.

The Shin Bet estimated the entire trove had little or no intelligence value and filed it away in an archive.  From there, Bibi’s boys found it and turned it into the intelligence coup of the century.

Ynet writes that the entire episode was meant as a perception management scheme to persuade the Israeli and foreign public that Hamas could not be trusted, that it didn’t want an end to hostilities, and that it intended to keep the hostages as long as possible.  None of it was true. In fact, it was Netanyahu who wanted all of these things.

At that point, the US was putting enormous pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire.  Bibi threw a spanner into the works claiming Israel must retain a military presence in the Philadelphi corridor in order to prevent Hamas smuggling weapons from Egypt.  In fact, both the IDF and Shin Bet said the corridor was of no value to Hamas and that Egypt was already patrolling the area to prevent transfer of weapons.

Philadelphi was a ruse to sabotage the talks.  Claiming that Hamas wanted to use it as a means to smuggle the hostages was another means to buttress this claim.  In fact, Hamas wanted a ceasefire. It wanted to release the hostages.  The only thing preventing that was Bibi’s refusal.

But he had an even more important goal in mind: preserving his government.  He relied on the support of Judeo-terrorst ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.  They refuse to end the war until every Palestinians is either dead or expelled. If Bibi were to agree to a hostage deal, they would bolt from the government, it would fall, and there would be new elections.

Though Netanyahu is a political wizard who has saved his own neck countless times, he may have run out of lives.  He is hated by the general public precisely because he won’t make a deal to free the hostages.  That isn’t exactly a terrific political platform on which to run for office. So BIbi has to prolong the war as long as possible.

That’s why he’s attacked not only Hamas, but Hezbollah and Iran.  He needs to wreak havoc regionally. He needs to provoke instability because that will allow him to continue the war and stay in power.

In the past, someone naive enough to believe Bibi couldn’t possibly be this Machiavellian, might say this is far-fetched. But Bibi-watchers, of whom there are 9-million in Israel, know he’s capable of just about anything, as long as it serves his interests.  Luckily his mother and father are dead, because he’d give up both of them if it meant saving his skin.

Another important consideration was avoiding a commission of inquiry.  There were such investigations after military failures, and 10/7 was one of massive proportions. The standard response to such demands has been: let us win the war, we can talk later.  This, of course, is a stall tactic.  Bibi believes that the more he stalls the less likely anyone will remember.  In many cases, he has proven to be right.  He has strung out the corruption cases against him for years.  There is still no deadline for trial.

Bibi knows that the fish stinks from the head.  Though heads in the IDF and Shin Bet will roll, they will (or should) in the PM’s office as well. Going right up to the top.  He aims to avoid this at all costs.  The best way to do it is prolong the hostilities.

An Israeli intelligence official sums up the charade:

“A group of people sits in the dark, plotting, activating agents inside the IDF, trampling upon secrets, endangering methods and sources, forging documents, feeding the media with disinformation – and all to screw up the abductee deal.”