Is Netanyahu’s PMO documents scandal fireworks or just fizzle? - analysis

Watergate is the gold standard of scandals.

What began with a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC, in June 1972 ended with the unraveling of Richard Nixon’s presidency and his ignominious resignation just 26 months later.

Since then, anytime a scandal breaks anywhere in the world, there is a tendency to append the word “gate” onto the end of the name by which it will be called and a similar tendency to think that the scandal will grow and grow until someone very powerful is brought low.

Those thoughts – dreams to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents, illusions to his supporters – percolated over the last few days amid what is being billed in the Hebrew-speaking media as the “classified documents affair.”

Even before a magistrate’s court judge in Rishon Lezion partially lifted a gag order on some of the details on Sunday evening, this affair was already front-page news – being called a “grave security incident involving the Prime Minister’s Office” – and was leading the nightly news broadcasts. Considering that the nation is at war, this was no mean achievement and a signal from editors to the public of how important they believe the story to be.

Radio, newspaper, and television pundits discussed the matter opaquely for days, not wanting to violate rules that barred discussing the details but wanting to talk about the incident nonetheless. So they talked around it, creating a public climate of tension and suspense.

Even before details emerged, some were tying the scandal to Netanyahu – because one detail released was that a central suspect worked as a spokesperson in his office – and predicting that this could lead to his downfall.

Even though Netanyahu is already embroiled in several legal affairs – cases 1000, 2000, 3000, and 4000 – some dreamed this would amount to Case 5000 and would, Watergate-like, force him out of office.

Everyone should relax.

Yes, as has now been revealed, this is a serious case that entails the alleged stealing and misuse of classified information to the degree that valuable intelligence sources or means of gathering intelligence information might have been compromised.

Eli Feldstein, a spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office, and four other IDF and security officers have been arrested. Feldstein has been accused of leaking top-secret information to the European media in the hopes of turning public opinion against a potential hostage deal.

There are numerous different layers to the story: the alleged theft of top-secret info, the leaking of it to foreign news outlets not bound by the same censorship rules as Israeli media, and manipulating the information to further a political agenda.

The second and third layers – leaking to foreign sources and manipulating info to serve a political agenda – while serious, are unlikely to justify the arrest of the five suspects and the restriction of their access to lawyers for days at a time. If these actions alone were the cause of their incarceration, numerous sources from various ministries and security branches would also be awaiting trial, as leaking to foreign sources and manipulating information to serve a political agenda is not uncommon.

What seems to be criminal here – and this is stated in partial ignorance since all the details of the case are still murky – is the unauthorized taking of documents that, when publicized, give the enemy clues about Israel’s intelligence-gathering capabilities and methods. This would be more than a leak but rather a danger to national security.

There is another element to the story that has stirred public outrage: Feldstein allegedly aimed – either alone or at someone else’s direction – to torpedo the hostage deal by leaking and misrepresenting a document to Germany’s Bild newspaper. The document, as reported in Bild, indicated that Hamas head Yahya Sinwar was prolonging the hostage negotiations to sow internal Israeli discord.

Dozens of leaks

For months, there have been dozens of leaks from Israeli officials – and others – about the hostage negotiations, many of them asserting that Netanyahu is purposefully torpedoing the talks or holding them up for his political benefit.

What sets this leak apart is that it is not a senior official being quoted in a high-level meeting but rather a secret document taken from intelligence sources purporting to be a Hamas document.

It did not take long for the predictable battle lines to be drawn. Netanyahu’s allies accused the authorities of a witch hunt since everyone leaks all the time, but this is the first time since the war began that a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and police investigation has been launched.

On the other side, Netanyahu’s opponents made claims ranging from the most egregious – accusing him of orchestrating the leak – to the more measured, holding him responsible for hiring Feldstein as a spokesperson with access to sensitive documents despite his lack of necessary security clearance. Opposition party heads Benny Gantz (National Unity Party) and Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) even convened a rare joint news appearance to slam Netanyahu over the affair.

Is the case serious? Yes. Will it bring down Netanyahu? No.

If all of Netanyahu’s previous legal woes – including indictments and an ongoing trial – have not forced him to step down, if the massive failures of October 7 have not forced him out of office, then this episode won’t even come close.

This appears to be the type of story seen often in these parts, such as the 2010 “Harpaz Affair,” the 2011 “Bibi Tours” scandal, and even the German submarine case (Case 3000): stories that make a big, bombastic splash when they break but are quickly forgotten, overshadowed by other stories and events and details of the case that, when they do emerge, prove less dramatic than when first breathlessly reported.