Over the weekend, several suspects were arrested in connection with a leak of classified documents from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). This is problematic and staggering on several levels, and it emphasizes how much stronger Israel needs its system of checks and balances to be.
This is initial information and might be wrong or become clarified as time moves forward and more comes to light.
Sensitive security information was passed through the wrong channels into the wrong hands – and was publicized through local and international news organizations – regarding an issue that is volatile and touchy to the public’s heart and has been at the core of the political and social divide Israel has seen over this year of war: Is there a price too high to return the hostages?
This has pitted people who feel that physical security – fully neutralizing Hamas as a military threat – is a more worthy cause than not leaving brothers and sisters behind on a battlefield, that the victims of October 7 deserved much better, and that the hostages ran out of time a long time ago.
The goal of “neutralizing Hamas” is also vague and amorphous, and changes depending on who is asked. Is it just Hamas’s military capabilities? What about the ideas it is founded on, ideas it swallows in its jihadist worldview? What about its backer, the Islamic Republic of Iran?
A red flag in any sense
One of the alleged leaks being investigated was a note claimed to have been written by Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar regarding policies and protocols on the hostages in September. This reportedly made its way to the German daily Bild.
The alleged document explains how to “torture” the hostage families and rally the international community around Hamas’s cause, specifically that it is unwilling to budge on hostage negotiations.
This came around when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed strongly on the Philadelphi Corridor as being essential to victory over Hamas. The appearance of the alleged note in the media came several days after the murder of the six hostages.
A reality in which classified security information is leaked and makes its way to the media without proper approval is a dangerous red flag that should make any sane, thinking individual raise an eyebrow. How did this happen?
This hurts Israel’s security and can pose unimaginable dangers to the soldiers fighting for Israel’s existence on the front lines right now. The lack of responsibility is astounding, particularly if it came from the PMO. According to reports, the IDF opened an internal investigation into the leaks already last month.
Where is the oversight? Where is the adherence to security protocols on publishing such sensitive information, the full details of which the public does not yet know, especially in the middle of a long, grueling, high-stakes war? Once these materials find their way into political hands, it raises the danger for every single person involved.
One can argue that it is all political – every decision, every announcement, the very wording of the speeches. True, but when this is done in a way that could jeopardize our safety, the game of politics crosses into an arena that is of the highest stakes. If it was done systematically, as present reports suggest, and was not a one-off, that indicates rot in the very core.
Besides, theoretically, if the war policy that leaders are pushing is what they believe to be correct, and the public agrees, then the people shouldn’t need more convincing of that by leaks such as these; the rightness of way should be enough.
Einav Zangauker, the mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, called the allegations a “cynical scam operation, taken from the handbooks of dictatorships. This classified information was passed from people in Netanyahu’s circle to foreign media, in a manner that supports his lies regarding the failing of a hostage deal.
“This information lit the match in the poisonous campaign against the hostage families, to mark us as enemies and stick holes in the wheels of the deal. This is a knife in the back of the nation!”
What Israel requires now, more than ever, is a tightening of its system of checks and balances, so that this never happens again.