The End of Netenyahu?

A soap opera of faked documents, ignored warnings, and blackmail

An important story has started to emerge in Israel, one that could possibly send Bibi Netenyahu to jail, or least discredit him so thoroughly that his Government falls.

Though this story is getting lots of coverage in the Israeli press (see here, here, here, here, and here), outside of Israel only Seymour Hersh and Bernard over at Moon of Alabama seem to have covered it.

The story concerns two ongoing police investigations.

The first involves top secret Israeli Government documents that were altered and then leaked. The leaked documents falsely indicated that Hamas leaders were going to take the Israeli hostages to Egypt.

Netenyahu made use of these fake leaked documents to scuttle a hostage exchange agreement. Several people involved in the manipulation - and leaking - of the top secret papers have been now been arrested.

The second story is even more astounding. According to the Times of Israel, several hours before the October 7th attacks, Israeli intelligence passed on an alert that:

“Hamas operatives had inserted Israeli SIM cards into their phones ... also that Hamas’s military leadership had entered protected spaces — a further warning that an attack might be imminent.

At about 3 a.m., the report said, intelligence officers updated the National Security Council situation room about the worrying signs from Gaza, including an unspecified ‘meaningful indication.’ It said that at 3:55 a.m., the NSC received another update that Hamas seemed to be moving into emergency mode.

Then, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi held a situational assessment at 4:00 a.m., the main findings of which were relayed to the Prime Minister’s Office.”

(For those who didn’t pick up on the implications of the SIM cards, Hamas cellphones would need Israeli SIM cards to work in Israel, which Hamas operatives would only install if they were planning to be in Israel very soon.)

So, contrary to everything Bibi Netenyahu has claimed, his office was warned about the October 7th attacks in advance, and did nothing. Whether this was deliberate or merely gross incompetence is not clear at this point.

This is where the story gets really juicy:

“Top aides to Benjamin Netanyahu are suspected of trying to blackmail an IDF officer in the military secretariat of the Prime Minister’s Office in order to modify minutes of top-level security discussions in the hours before the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, Hebrew media reported Friday.

The reports provided new details of a slew of security-related probes into the PMO that have been revealed in recent days, which are largely under a court-mandated gag order.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has approved an investigation into Netanyahu himself as the scandals around his office multiply, the Maariv newspaper reported.”

More details from the same source:

“According to Channel 12, as part of the alleged attempt to change protocols, Netanyahu’s aides are thought to have used ‘sensitive footage’ of a military secretariat officer in order to coax him into changing protocols discussions from the night of October 6-7, 2023 — hours before thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.”

Allegedly the IDF officer in charge of keeping records of that crucial meeting was involved in a clandestine relationship with someone in Netenyahu’s office - and recordings from that staff member’s cellphone were used to blackmail said officer.

Because the investigations are still ongoing - and under a gag order - it may be a while before the full consequences of both investigations play out.

Netenyahu, of course, has denied everything. We’ll see.