The following is a reposting of an important article by Pulitzer Prize winning veteran journalist, Seymour Hersh regarding a critical aspect of megalomaniac, Benjamin Netanyahu’s self-serving corruption.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points at a screen during a press conference at the Government Press Office in Jerusalem on September 4. / Photo by Abir Sultan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images.
Menachem Mizrahi is a highly respected judge in Israel, a conservative jurist whose magistrate court is the most basic in the country’s court hierarchy, with jurisdiction over criminal matters and family disputes. He has now jailed five senior military and government officials in a rapidly expanding criminal investigation that could lead to the end of Benjamin Netanyahu’s third term as prime minister. And he has ordered the case sealed.
Few outside the media are questioning Mizrahi’s caution, given the issues surrounding the case. They essentially involve actions taken by Netanyahu who is desperate to stay in office. He was allegedly the catalyst of blackmail, theft of highly secret documents, and falsification of transcripts of secret cabinet meetings, all of stemming from his casual public release of one of the Israeli military’s most sensitive documents on Hamas’s operational control of the October 7 hostages, who, if still alive, have been captive for thirteen months.
The issues have energized and enraged the sometimes—but not always—accommodating Israeli press, who realize that underneath the media hoopla is the fact that the cases, once unraveled, could tell the distraught and embittered families of the hostages that they were right all along: Netanyahu did not make a hostage release deal with Hamas when one was possible because to do so would have jeopardized his standing with Israel’s religious far right. Their openly stated goal is to gain control of Gaza and the West Bank, as mandated by a fanatical reading of the Bible. And to hell with the fate of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank continuously under murderous Israeli military attack.
The judge’s actions have made headlines around the world. The emphasis was initially on a Netanyahu aide who leaked a distorted version—friendly to the prime minister—of what the Israeli intelligence community had learned about the plight of remaining hostages to the Jewish Chronicle, a newspaper in the UK. An even more distorted version was provided to the Bild, a right-wing tabloid in Germany known for its support of Netanyahu’s government. The British article’s thrust was to support Netanyahu’s contention that the off-and-on talks with Hamas would never result in a ceasefire because Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who was killed last month, was prepared to flee Gaza for Iran, via Egypt, and would take the hostages with him.
I was cautioned by a well-informed American who told me that the Biden administration, although continuing to supply intelligence and weapons to Israel, “cannot provide political guidance to the Israeli leadership without gaining access to all of the records in the case.” He acknowledged that the implications of Biden’s past and present support for Netanyahu’s wars “are indeed serious. So serious that we must have all the facts” before accusing an allied leader with not making a hostage deal when one was on the table.
The families of the remaining hostages have gone much further in their constant marches and protests against Netanyahu, whom they claim is guilty of what they repeatedly call “the murder” of the remaining hostages for his reluctance to agree to a ceasefire, which Hamas has demanded in exchange for any further hostage release.
A revelatory moment came on September 4, when Netanyahu convened a televised press conference for foreign reporters to explain why a pending hostage deal and ceasefire with Hamas would not take place. The prime minister explained that there were dangers posed to the IDF if Hamas were to get access to a narrowstrip of landin bordering Egypt known as the known as the Philadelphi Corridor. A decade ago Egyptcontrolled a series of tunnels bordering Gaza for nearly nine miles that was named after the Philadelphi Accord of 2005. “Once we got out [of Gaza], once we left the Philadelphi Corridor,” Netanyahu told the foreign press, “Iran could carry out a plan to turn Gaza into a base, a terrorist enclave that would endanger Tel Aviv, Jerusalem . . . the entire country of Israel.”
The tunnels had been a source of widespread smuggling after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. They were sealed a decade ago, and Egypt has remained responsible for controlling its side of the border. But Netanyahu was not done with his fantasy talk. A moment later, he walked over to an easel that contained an enlarged photograph of a page in Arabic. He did not say that the page came from one of the most highly secret documents in the Israeli intelligence archive.
“You should see this,” he said, pointing to the page. “This is their tactic. This is Hamas orders for psychological warfare, found in [a] Hamas underground command on January 29. . . . And this is the original document in Arabic.” Repeating the claim from the Jewish Chronicle,Netanyahu said that the document showed that Sinwar planned to move some or all of the remaining hostages to Egypt for relay to Iran via the Philadelphi Corridor if the IDF was close to capturing him.
It was the prime minister’s display of one of Israeli intelligence’s most highly classified documents that triggered the judiciary inquiry. At the time, the document was among the most closely held secrets in Israel and could only be read in a designated secure location under close monitoring in the archives of the Israeli military intelligence headquarters—known in Israel by its Hebrew initials as Aman. I have been told by a well-informed Israeli that the actual pages in the document flatly contradict what Netanyahu claimed to be Sinwar’s last-minute gambit to keep the hostages out of hands of the IDF by fleeing with them to Egypt. The next two pages of the twelve-page document made clear that Sinwar had categorically rejected that idea. Subsequent analysis of the document by experts at the intelligence headquarters determined that the document may not have been written by Sinwar, but by a top Hamas commander.
Netanyahu’s casual public disclosure and display of the secret papers from the military’s intelligence archives triggered the inevitable investigation. One obvious question was that if Netanyahu was able to get access to the Sinwar papers, what else had been removed, or shared, without any official record? The penalty for gaining access to such material without formal approval for doing so is no less than fifteen years in prison.
The prime minister’s office was ordered by the court to return all of its top secret documents and was reminded that any attempt to alter or change the wording of such documents is also punishable. It was apparently the display of the classified materials in the Jewish Chronicle in the UK that led to Judge Mizrahi’s decision initially to order the case sealed.
At this point, I was told by an informed Israeli, things began to get recklessly out of control and much more sordid. Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, wanted to have other highly classified documents in his office, presumably dealing in some cases with Netanyahu’s ties to the far right, altered to insulate Netanyahu from potential accusations. Braverman learned that one of the senior male officers on duty at Aman was having an affair with a 21-year-old female subordinate. The officer later told investigators that he was approached by someone from the prime minister’s office who warned him that the office had compromising material on him, and in order to prevent the information from leaking, he would have to turn various secret documents and transcripts to Netanyahu’s office—obviously for possible tampering or deletion. The officer did not take the bait and set up a meeting with General Herzi Halevi, the army’s chief of staff, and told him of the blackmail attempt. The senior officer did not turn over any documents to the prime minister’s office.
A lingering question is: how did Netanyahu get access to the closely held Sinwar hostage document he made public at his press conference on September 4? The Israeli media had reported before its suppression by court order that it was obtained by a Netanyahu press aide, Eli Feldstein, whose name has been made public by the media. He is a follower of the religious right in Israel and was formerly a press aide to the extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, now minister of national security. It was Feldstein who allegedly provided the misleading highly classified information about the Hamas hostage document trove to the Jewish Chronicle in the UK two days before Bibi’s press conference for foreign journalists. It is believed by many in the Israeli media that Feldstein was in contact with fellow religious extremists inside the Aman top secret archives—some 40 percent of the IDF identify with the religious right—and enlisted them in an effort to ensure that the most sensitive documents on file in Aman presented Netanyahu in the best possible light. The recklessness and illegality of the religious-driven chain of document corruption is now under study by the court.
With his assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and his destruction of Iran’s advanced anti-missile system in Isfahan, Netanyahu is once again riding high in the polls in deeply traumatized Israel.
There is little reason, however, to believe that the Israeli prime minister and the chain of religious fanatics who support him will be able to influence the judgments of Judge Mizrahi, who is said to be ready to release more information, possibly later this week, to the public.
It must be noted here that some members of the Israeli press corps, operating in wartime, have been in the forefront in reporting on ethical issues inside the prime minister’s office. The daily media, led by the Yedioth Ahronot, revealed months before the current scandal that officials in Netanyahu’s office had been altering official documents dealing in part with the pre-Gaza war days to put Netanyahu in a better light. One goal of the falsifications was to minimize the prime minister’s responsibility for the military’s lack of intelligence and preparation on October 7.
What is already known makes it clear that Netanyahu has turned his office, as an Israeli friend said to me, “into an office of organized crime. He has taken the country hostage and is willing to sacrifice his people to keep out of jail.”
It is obvious to me that “Me, Me, Me!” “Bibi” long ago sold his soul to the devil.
I know I am not alone in feeling this way. In this regard, I suggest also reading the following article by Mark Gold as published by the Jewish Standard which provides further background information about the egocentric monster.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for early elections.
Not in response to a state of crisis in the State of Israel, and not in response to a potential security concern — but in an attempt to protect himself from going to jail.
Starting back in January 2017, the Israeli police began investigating Netanyahu. They’ve been looking into actions that reflect bribery and breech of the public trust that seem to have begun as early as 2013 and have continued for years. Finally, the Attorney General of Israel’s investigation has concluded and an official recommendation to indict Israel’s prime minister on three separate criminal acts of corruption has been handed down.
Neither Bibi nor the country was surprised at the announcement. Bibi already had his response planned. By calling for an early election — and this was a contest he was convinced he could win — he hoped to turn his re-election into a referendum, where the people would demonstrate their belief in his innocence and his right to immunity.
But things may not go as Bibi envisioned. Usually elections bring out the underlying tense fault lines about Israelis’ attitudes toward Palestinians and the future of the West Bank, as well as toward the growing economic gap between the richest and the poorest Israeli citizens. This time, however, the elections have brought to the forefront issues that perhaps are even more dangerous and fundamental, concerning the very essence of Israel and its democracy. And elections also have brought to light the fault lines in the relationship between Israel and American Jews.
A new centrist party, called Kachol Lavan (blue and white), has emerged. It’s led by a popular general, former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, who has joined forces with an established centrist, secular party, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid. According to the polls at the time of this writing, Kachol Lavan well might win the plurality of votes, which would make it the largest single group in the next Knesset. It won’t get a majority of seats in the Knesset, but if in fact it does get the greatest number of votes, President Rivlin will ask it to partner with other parties to form a coalition government.
To back up a bit for some explanation — Israel is a parliamentary democracy, which means (among other things) that Israelis do not vote for candidates directly. They vote for parties. The Knesset’s makeup is determined by the proportion of votes each of the parties that had a candidate in the elections garnered, as long as the vote for the party list exceeds a threshold margin. If a party list should fail to win at least 3.25 percent of the total vote, that party will not be represented in the Knesset, and the votes that had been cast for it will be dismissed. To become the ruling coalition, 61 out of 120 seats in the Knesset must coalesce.
Netanyahu’s only hope of remaining in power — and perhaps in staying out of jail — is to have secured enough guaranteed partners before the election to already have a majority coalition, no matter which party gets the most votes. He has done this successfully in the past, when he outmaneuvered Tzippy Livni’s party to form a ruling coalition, even though her party had more votes.
For Bibi to maximize his ability to form a ruling coalition, no matter how the public votes, he must collect as many seats as possible. His existing coalition is too fragmented for him to count on, so he has to find a new collection of possible parties that he can combine. To do so Netanyahu brokered an electoral union among Ichud Leumi (the National Union), a sitting member of Bibi’s coalition); Bayit Hayehudi (the Jewish Home), a former partner in the existing coalition, and Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power). Recent polls show that neither Bayit Hayehudi nor Otzma Yehudit would garner 3.25 percent of the vote. However, if they combine, that union would save what would have been lost votes and add more seats to Bibi’s coalition. To close the deal, Netanyahu guaranteed that an Otzma Yehudit representative would sit on the Knesset judicial appointments committee.
Once the deal was announced, it created a political storm.
Otzma Yehudit is led by former MK Michael Ben-Ari; its ideology is far right and ultra-nationalist. Uniquely, even on Israel’s right, its members espouse ideas associated with Kahanism.
Kahanism is an extremist ideology. It is based on the views of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a violent supremacist who advocated and inspired acts of terror. He and his disciples were banned from the Knesset in 1988 on the grounds that their ideology was “racist and undemocratic.” Kahanist organizations still are defined as terror groups by the U.S. State Department and other global bodies.
Otzma Yehudit’s leaders and candidates for the Knesset, Ben-Ari and lawyer Itamar Ben-Gvir, are disciples of Kahane and followers of the racist Kahanist ideology. Ben-Ari was refused a visa to America in 2012 because of his affiliation with Kach. He long has argued that Arabs should be expelled from Israel. Ben-Gvir has spent his career in law defending right-wing activists accused of terrorism. A photo of Baruch Goldstein hangs in his living room.
Last weekend, the world was horrified when 50 Moslem worshipers were killed and another 50 were wounded in New Zealand by a self-proclaimed racist and fascist. Baruch Goldstein, a follower of Kahane with the same world view, murdered 29 people at a Hebron mosque in 1994.
Otzma Yehudit celebrates Goldstein.
Israel’s Central Election Commission and the Israeli Supreme Court must confirm candidates and lists as acceptable. Under Article 7A of Israel’s Basic Law, “incitement to racism” can disqualify a candidate. Under that law, Meir Kahane and his Kach Party were banned. There were several requests to the Central Election Commission to prohibit Otzma Yehudit and both Michael Ben Ari and Itamar Ben-Gvir from running in the election, but the commission voted to allow them. Last week, however, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit appealed to the Supreme Court, asking it to bar Michael Ben-Ami and citing an extensive history of “severe and extreme racism.” With an 8 to 1 vote, the court agreed. But this does not prevent Otzma Yehudit from participating in the election; Ben Ari simply was replaced by another candidate on the list that the Netanyahu-engineered union presented.
In 2013, Ben-Ari’s Otzma L’Yisrael failed to pass the electoral threshold to enter the Knesset. Since then, Kahanism has been absent from the Knesset. But now there is a very real possibility that at least one Kahanist will be in Israel’s next Knesset.
Netanyahu’s ploy was roundly denounced in Israel and condemned in the United States as well. But we should understand this move not merely as an act of cynical political maneuvering but also as an essential element of ideology.
Creating this marriage with the devil was not enough. Netanyahu’s coalition partners began baiting their Kahol Lavan rivals, claiming that these candidates would allow Arabs in a governing coalition. Israeli actress Rotem Sela wrote an Instagram response: “What is the problem with the Arabs???… Dear god, there are Arab citizens in this country. When the hell will someone in this government convey to the public that Israel is a state of all its citizens and that all people were created equal.”
Netanyahu responded by declaring: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people—and only the Jewish people.” Doubling down on his racist cries during the last election, Bibi has chosen to cut up the Israeli Declaration of Independence into paper dolls and declare that Israel no longer is a state for all its citizens.
This is not an accident; he wishes to use this new definition to deny Israel’s democratic obligation to serve all its citizens; in this way, he wishes to justify discrimination against non-Jews in Israel.
You would think that given the history of discrimination that Jews faced in the centuries of their dispersion, this wouldn’t have happened. To Israel’s credit, there was an outcry against Netanyahu. “Wonder Woman” actress Gal Gadot wrote: ““Love your neighbor as yourself…The responsibility for sowing hope and light for a better future for our children is ours. Rotem, sister, you are an inspiration to us all.”
Netanyahu’s promotion of the union between Bayit Hayehudi, Ozma Yehudit, and Ichud Leumi — making it possible for a Kahanist party to join the Knesset — has been condemned widely in the American Jewish community. Both AIPAC and J Street, the Israel Religious Action Center on Behalf of the Reform Movement, the National Council of Jewish Women, Americans for Peace Now, Partners for Progressive Israel, T’ruah: the Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Ameinu, the Jewish Labor Committee, Reconstructing Judaism, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Assembly, among other groups, all made clear their opposition to the Netanyahu-engineered union and Israel’s Central Election Committee’s decision to permit Ozma Yehudit to participate in the election.
Recalling the widespread opposition to Meir Kahane’s Kach party, Truah’s executive director, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, said: “Thirty-plus years after Likud leaders walked out on Kahane speaking in Knesset, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition are threatening Israel’s democracy by orchestrating the entrance of violent extremists into the government… Kahanists constitute a genuine danger.”
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism, described the matter in terms familiar to American Jews. Netanyahu’s parliamentary move, he, said, is “the equivalent in the United States of the KKK being welcomed into the corridors of power.”
New Israel Fund CEO Daniel Sokatch said: “A party that celebrates Meir Kahane and that preaches genocide has no place in the Knesset.”
The American Jewish Committee said that it “does not normally comment on political parties or candidates during an election. But the announcement that Otzma Yehudit, a new political party formed by long-time followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, is now seeking election to the Knesset, we feel compelled to speak out. The views of Otzma Yehudit are reprehensible. They do not reflect the core values that are the very foundation of the State of Israel.”
The American Israel Political Action Committee said: “We agree with AJC. AIPAC has a long-standing policy not to meet with members of this racist reprehensible party.”
But AIPAC did not withdraw its invitation to Netanyahu to speak to its members on the eve of the election, even though it was Netanyahu’s efforts that made the entrance of Otzma Yehudit into the Knesset likely. AIPAC has invited a representative of the West Bank settler movement to speak as well.
What has driven our Jewish state to move so radically away from the very cornerstones of its inception? How have we gone from a Declaration of Independence that proudly announced: “The State of Israel, will be open for Jewish immigration and for the ingathering of the exile; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisioned by the prophets of Israel,; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or gender; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture….”
To a prime minister who boldly declares that “The State of Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the basic nationality law we passed, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people — and only the Jewish people.”
Israel is the Jewish nation-state. As a democracy, it is a state of its citizens. Israel’s Declaration of Independence reveals the reality that there is no contradiction between these two features as long as Israel maintains a large Jewish majority.
What has happened to Israeli politics that a party advocating racist violence, a party that was rejected 20 years ago, is now accepted as a participant in Israeli political affairs. It even is promised the opportunity to influence the choice of judicial appointments. This turn away from democracy is the result of 50 years of occupation, a festering sore that is corrupting Israel’s soul. The advocates of the occupation understand the contradiction between the absorption of the occupied territories and Israel’s character as a democratic Jewish state.
More than 50 years of military rule over non-citizen residents, 50 years of a messianic dream for the greater Land of Israel, 50 years of growing tension between a two-state solution that has yet to be and a one-state solution that will destroy what we are, already has begun to destroy us.
The advocates of a permanent occupation and a one-state solution understand the contradiction between the absorption of the occupied territories and Israel’s character as a democratic Jewish state. Disinterested in democracy, they are happy to jettison it. Jewish zealots have no use for democracy. We have seen in our history where zealotry leads.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Gold is a Board Member of Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI). He has served as Secretary of the American Zionist Movement, President of Americans for Progressive Israel, and has been a delegate to the World Zionist Congress. Hiam Simon of Englewood, NJ, is the past chief operating officer of Ameinu. He lived in Israel for many years, where he was the dean of students for what is now the Alexander Muss High School, and he served in the IDF as a noncommissioned officer in the artillery.
