State prosecution posts rebuttal of ‘misinformation’ relating to PMO intel theft, leak case

In a highly unusual move, the State Prosecutor’s Office on Friday published a rebuttal to allegations that it has been selectively enforcing the law with the grave charges it brought against a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an unnamed IDF reservist, in relation to the leak of a stolen, classified document to German newspaper Bild.

In a three-page Q&A document posted to social media, the State Prosecutor’s Office said it was publishing more information than appeared in Thursday’s indictment of Netanyahu aide Eli Feldstein, in response to “questions and allegations in the media and public discourse regarding the Feldstein case, as well as widespread misinformation propagated by those with vested interests.”

Feldstein is accused of leaking the document, stolen from an IDF database by the other defendant, in a bid to sway public opinion against a truce-hostage deal in Gaza. He was charged with transferring classified information with the intent to harm the state, a charge that can carry a sentence of life in prison, as well as illicit possession of classified information and obstruction of justice.

The second defendant, a noncommissioned officer who has not been identified, was charged with transferring classified information, an offense that is punishable with seven years in prison, as well as theft by an authorized person and obstruction of justice.

The two have been held for more than three weeks, part of that time without access to legal counsel, with the Prime Minister’s Office last week fuming in a statement last week, “In a democratic country, people are not detained for 20 days in a basement because of a leak while being prevented from meeting a lawyer for days on end, just in order to extract from them false claims against the prime minister.”

Allies of Netanyahu have lionized the suspects as whistleblowers who tried to alert the premier to the content of the document and other documents that the unnamed officer allegedly illicitly removed from the IDF, and assailed the prosecution for engaging in a “witch hunt” against the prime minister.

Tally Gotliv, a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party who came to the Thursday Tel Aviv court hearing at which the two suspects were indicted, said on X that the redaction of a name in the indictment showed the state prosecution was shielding the identity of an intelligence officer whose treason, she claimed without evidence, led to the Hamas onslaught that sparked the war in Gaza.

Gotliv has in the past alleged, without evidence, that there were ties between Hamas and anti-government protesters ahead of the onslaught, in which thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

In its Q&A document, the State Prosecutor said the redaction Gotliv pointed out in the published indictment referred not to “a person or organization, but to a foreign actor.”

Other claims the document sought to rebut were that: the State Prosecutor was enforcing the law selectively by investigating the leak from the Prime Minister’s Office, while other “terrible, criminal leaks, that do tremendous harm to Israel,” were not probed, as Netanyahu has claimed; Feldstein was being investigated “by the Shin Bet as though he were terrorist” rather than by the police; and his leak was minor and intended to protect Israel, contrary to the charge that he intended to harm the state.

Here are some excerpts from the state prosecution’s document:

“Why investigate this leak when others have not been?”

The prosecution writes: “This is not a typical ‘leak’ to the media.” Feldstein and the second suspect, a non-commissioned officer, are “accused of intentionally creating a direct channel that bypasses the military system responsible for examining and transferring information to the political echelon, without either of them being authorized to do so.”

“The Intelligence Directorate cannot accept a situation in which highly classified, raw and sensitive intelligence is removed from the system without oversight of where it ends up,” it says. “The information published in Bild was obtained through a secret intelligence tool. Security officials determined that revealing the existence of this tool, its capabilities and how it is used could seriously harm Israel’s security interests, particularly in intelligence collection and protecting intelligence sources that save lives.”

“Journalists argue that bypassing censorship by publishing information in foreign media is a common practice.”

The prosecution says: “If such a practice exists, it is undoubtedly unacceptable. In any case, each instance is examined individually. In this case, the military censor completely prohibited the publication of the information, even after it was published in foreign media, indicating its extremely high sensitivity.” (The censor often allows local media to quote foreign reports even when it cannot itself publish information.)

“Why did Feldstein face interrogation by the Shin Bet as though he were a terrorist rather than by the police?”

The prosecution says: “Typically, investigations of offenses that harm state security are conducted jointly by the Shin Bet and the police. The Shin Bet is responsible for the security-related aspect of the investigation. Feldstein is not being held in ‘Shin Bet dungeons.’ Once his Shin Bet interrogation ended, he was detained in a Prison Service facility.”

“Why is Feldstein accused of intending to harm state security? He believed he was acting in the state’s interest, not against it.”

The prosecution says: “Firstly, Feldstein published the classified information not to benefit the state but to influence media discourse. However, his intentions are not the basis for the charges against him.

“The Penal Code establishes the ‘foreseeability principle.’ In offenses requiring the defendant’s intent to cause harm, the principle states that if an individual foresaw a near certainty that their actions would result in harm to state security, they can be convicted, even if they did not intend the outcome or if it did not actually occur.

“In other words, the motive for Feldstein’s actions is irrelevant. What matters is that Feldstein should have foreseen the potential consequences of his actions. His awareness that the military censor prohibited publication of the information demonstrates that he understood the likelihood of harm to state security.”

Feldstein is the central suspect in the affair. He has been charged with transferring classified information with the intent to harm the state, a charge that can carry a sentence of life in prison, as well as illicit possession of classified information and obstruction of justice.

The lawyer representing Feldstein complained in a TV interview excerpt aired Friday that his client had been abandoned by the Prime Minister’s Office.

“Eli Feldstein did not act on his own behalf,” attorney Oded Savoray told Channel 12, in comments excerpted from an interview to be screened in full on Saturday. “He provided advisory services in the Prime Minister’s Office.”

“If there are claims, they should be directed to the Prime Minister’s Office,” Savoray continued. “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.”

A second suspect indicted in the scandal, an IDF reservist noncommissioned officer who has not been identified, was charged on Thursday with transferring classified information, an offense that is punishable with seven years in prison, as well as theft by an authorized person and obstruction of justice.

Netanyahu himself is not a suspect in the case.

According to Channel 13 news, prosecutors are also weighing charges against Yonatan Urich, another Netanyahu spokesperson who police have questioned over the security documents affair.

“There’s no reason not to indict him,” a senior official in the State Prosecutor’s Office told the network.

Urich is suspected of having helped Feldstein send the classified document to Srulik Einhorn, a former senior campaign adviser to Netanyahu’s Likud party based overseas, who in turn passed it on to Bild. The indictment against Feldstein says that after the article was published, Urich wrote to him, “The boss is pleased,” in an apparent reference to Netanyahu.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.