Judge partially dismisses libel suit against Likud’s Gotliv but rules she has no immunity for exposing identity of Shin Bet officer

The Lod District Court rules that Likud MK Tally Gotliv does not have parliamentary immunity from a defamation lawsuit filed against her by anti-government activist Shikma Bressler for revealing the identity of her partner, a Shin Bet agent.

The court ruled, however, that Gotliv does have immunity from the other items detailed in the lawsuit, thus dismissing it with the exception of the items related to her revealing the identity of the Shin Bet officer.

The lawsuit filed by Bressler is separate from the criminal proceedings against Gotliv by the Attorney General’s Office for revealing the Shin Bet officer’s identity.

The lawsuit and the criminal case both refer to a series of social media posts from Gotliv in 2024 in which she identified Bressler’s husband as a Shin Bet agent while promoting baseless conspiracy theories linking him to Hamas and insinuating that he bore responsibility for the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.

In his ruling, Judge Rami Haimovich explains that Gotliv’s parliamentary immunity is being partially upheld because the reason such immunity exists to “ensure a proper democratic process.”

“Caution should be exercised against restricting the freedom of speech and expression of Knesset members, for fear of a chilling effect that would make carrying out their job difficult.”

However, he notes, “immunity is not absolute.”

As such, the portion of the lawsuit pertaining to the identity of Bressler’s husband will not be dismissed, in line with a Supreme Court ruling that determined that “intentional disclosure of the identity of a security official does not qualify for immunity,” Haimovich writes in his decision.

Furthermore, he writes, Gotliv did not reveal the agent’s identity in a “neutral security context,” but rather due to his relationship with anti-government activist Bressler and alongside claims relating to Bressler’s alleged influence on the war against Hamas.

Gotliv has repeatedly alleged that US intelligence agencies had intercepted a conversation between Bressler’s partner and then-Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the run-up to October 7, 2023.

According to the conspiracy theory, then-Mossad head David Barnea had summoned Bressler for a meeting as a result of the intelligence, days before the October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Bressler filed the NIS 2.6 million ($890,000 at the current exchange rate) defamation suit against Gotliv in February 2024.