From the Liveblog of
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Lapid: Netanyahu either incompetent or complicit in leak, he should not be PM
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions over the course of the alleged leaking of classified material from within the PMO show that he is either too incompetent to lead Israel during wartime or is “complicit in one of the most serious security offenses” on the books, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares during a joint press conference with National Unity chairman Benny Gantz in Tel Aviv.
Lapid is speaking shortly after the Rishon Letzion Magistrates Court lifted a gag order on naming Eli Feldstein, the central suspect in the case.
“Netanyahu’s defense is that he has no influence or control over the system he heads. If that’s true, he’s ineligible. He is not qualified to lead the State of Israel in the most difficult war in its history,” Lapid declares.
“This case came out of the Prime Minister’s Office, and the investigation should check if it was not on the prime minister’s orders.
“If Netanyahu knew, he is complicit in one of the most serious security offenses in the law book,” Lapid states. And “if he did not know that his close aides were stealing documents, operating spies within the IDF, forging documents, exposing intelligence sources and passing secret documents to foreign newspapers in order to stop the hostage deal, what does he know?”
Investigators are examining four separate issues in the case: the leaking of top-secret documents; allowing an adviser without security clearance to access meetings and offices that should have been off-limits to him; negligence in the handling of classified documents; and using the documents to influence public opinion about a hostage deal.
“He didn’t know that the person he was bringing as part of his closest entourage into the pit in the Kirya, into the cabinet room, for the most secret discussions, had not received a security clearance from the Shin Bet?” Lapid asks in disbelief.
The prime minister has previously stated that he was unaware of the problems regarding overcrowding on Mount Meron or anything about allegations of misdoings surrounding the purchases of submarines for the Israeli Navy, Lapid adds, referring to two previous scandals. “Now he claims that he does not know what his office is doing while Israel is in the midst of an existential war.”
Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu’s now-defunct war cabinet, tells reporters that before his party left the government, “I said that political considerations had penetrated the holy of holies of Israel’s security” and now “we have reached the stage of proof.”
“Contrary to the impression they are trying to create in the Prime Minister’s Office, this is not [a case about] suspicions of a leak but of profiteering state secrets for political purposes,” he says. “If sensitive security information is stolen, and becomes a tool in a political survival campaign, this is not only a criminal offense, it is a national crime.”
“This should not be turned into a discussion about the impact of the leaked information or who is leaking more. Stealing classified intelligence information by an official in the Prime Minister’s Office is a black line, period,” Gantz continues.
“We have seen leaks about sensitive negotiations on the subject of the hostages at crucial moments,” Gantz says, and that the current scandal “reminds us of the urgent need to establish a state commission of inquiry” into the events surrounding the Hamas invasion and slaughter on October 7, 2023.
