From the Liveblog of
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Feldstein’s lawyer: He was acting in the PM’s name when sending IDF intel document to Bild
The lawyer representing Eli Feldstein, who was charged Thursday with offenses regarding harming national security that could carry a life term, says he was hired by the defendant’s family because Feldstein’s father feared, when Feldstein was arrested, that “this good soul” might ‘lay on the fence’ in order not to involve anybody from the Prime Minister’s Office.”
The father wanted a lawyer who would represent Feldstein’s interests, “and not those of anybody else… That’s why they turned to me,” attorney Oded Savoray tells Channel 12.
Feldstein has fully cooperated with the investigators, says Savoray. “He told them everything,” and the text of the indictment shows this. It makes clear, says Savoray, “that Feldstein did not work for himself. He was a media adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office. He worked for the prime minister.”
When, as the indictment shows, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aide Jonatan Urich wrote to Feldstein after Germany’s Bild published material from a classified document allegedly leaked to it by Feldstein, and told him, “The boss is happy,” Savoray says this “closes the circle. Feldstein knows that he is working for the prime minister.”
Savoray explains: “The prime minister is the person authorized to overrule the [military] censor in Israel,” which had barred domestic publication of the sensitive document. “The prime minister gets all the intelligence material, knows what is permitted for publication, what is barred from publication.”
Asked why Netanyahu is not standing by Feldstein, and making clear that Feldstein was acting on his behalf, Savoray suggests that Channel 12 direct the question to Netanyahu.
When details of the probe were first revealed more than three weeks ago, the PMO said in a statement that nobody employed by the office was under investigation. Earlier this evening, however, Netanyahu spoke in defense of Feldstein and the second defendant in the case, who he said were patriots who would never harm the state, and also claimed that vital classified material was being kept from him and that this is why the suspects in the case passed them from the IDF to the PMO.
Asked if Feldstein feels “betrayed,” Savoray declines to answer, but says his client “didn’t lay on the fence for anyone. He spoke about the workings of the Prime Minister’s Office in this specific matter… It’s completely clear that Feldstein is a minor figure who worked, as he understood in real-time, with permission and authorization.”
When it was put to him that Feldstein knew that the document he leaked to Bild was barred from publication by the censor, and that Feldstein maneuvered to get into the public domain by leaking it to a foreign outlet, Savoray insists he knew and did nothing of the kind.
“Eli Feldstein did not act on his own behalf,” the lawyer repeats. “He provided advisory services in the Prime Minister’s Office.”
“If there are claims, they should be directed to the Prime Minister’s Office. In real time, he was convinced that the figure, to whom he turned and said, ‘I need the prime minister,’ is someone who is trusted by the prime minister and has worked there for a decade. When that figure comes back to him and says, ‘Get [the document] out, get it out,’ and connects him to someone who referred him to Bild, [Feldstein is certain] that he is working on behalf of the prime minister,” Savoray continues.
Asked whether the “figure” to whom he is referring is Urich, Savoray says he won’t name names. The indictment indicates that Urich is indeed the figure to whom Feldstein turned for guidance. Urich has reportedly twice been questioned under caution in the case.
Asked whether Feldstein knew he was committing a serious offense by giving a classified IDF document to a foreign outlet, outflanking a censorship ban, Savoray says, “The answer is no. He did not know why the censor had barred publication of the document.” And as soon as the PMO official told him to get it published, “he was convinced that he was doing so legally.”
He says he hopes Feldstein will be released to house arrest.
Savoray says Feldstein comes from a wonderful ultra-Orthodox family whose parents send their children to serve in the IDF.
“I want to reiterate, this is someone who, as he saw it, worked for the good of the State of Israel and found himself in a brutal arrest in the middle of the night by masked men despatched by the state to his home in a terrible way, has been detained for weeks, and barred from meeting his lawyer for nine days.”
These are methods intended to prevent terrorist attacks, says Savoray, methods used “against people who truly endanger the security of the state. Eli Feldstein does not endanger the security of the state. Feldstein feels that he is a victim of the huge fight between the apparatuses of the Prime Minister’s Office, on one side, and of the defense establishment, on the other.”
Today, he says, those apparatuses are crushing “the Feldsteins of the PMO.” And if things don’t change, tomorrow, it will be the Feldsteins of a different apparatus who will be crushed, he says.
“I urge all the apparatuses to take a breath,” focus on dealing with the external battles Israel is fighting, and handle the internal battles with “more wisdom… and more forgiveness.”
Savoray is asked: Is he saying that Feldstein is a victim of a battle between the PMO and the defense establishment? “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he replies.
“He was aware that he was acting legally, since he was acting in the name of the prime minister. It was the Prime Minister’s Office that was acting here. It acted by means of Feldstein. And today Feldstein has been left alone, alone, alone.”
