Op-ed: The attorney general and state attorney’s decision to allow five police investigators to raid the Yedioth Books publishing house is nothing less than a dangerous, despicable precedent. The attitude towards the former prime minister is a symptom of a state in which the gatekeepers are increasingly becoming the government’s servants.

“The Israel Air Force attacked the nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, 2007, after midnight. The strike was conducted under a veil of secrecy, which was maintained after the strike as well. About six months after the day of the strike, sources in the American administration announced that the attacked and destroyed target was a nuclear reactor for the production of plutonium, which had been built in Syria with North Korea’s help. In 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the bombed target was indeed a nuclear reactor under construction. The Der Spiegel newspaper reported that the codename of the attack was Operation Orchard.”

This isn’t the chapter from Ehud Olmert’s book which was smuggled from prison and which led people to accuse the former prime minister of disclosing security-related secrets. This was taken from the Hebrew entry of Operation Orchard in Wikipedia, information which anyone can find under the title “The airstrike on the nuclear reactor in Syria.” It also specifies the forces that executed the attack: Seven F-15I fighters, F-16I fighters, an electronic warfare aircraft and the Shaldag unit.” Anyone who wishes to delve deeper into the matter could find plenty of references, including interviews and videos, featuring senior international officials, not just “foreign sources.”

Former Prime Minister Olmert. Personally-motivated persecution? (Photo: Tal Shahar) (Photo: Tal Shahar)
Former Prime Minister Olmert. Personally-motivated persecution? (Photo: Tal Shahar) (Photo: Tal Shahar)

 

What happened here last week, therefore, is nothing less than a dangerous, despicable precedent in the conduct of Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Attorney Shai Nitzan, who allowed five police investigators to raid the Yedioth Books publishing house. In their first search, the investigators took more than 11,000 emails from the computer of the publishing house’s CEO, Dov Eichenwald, including books written by former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, journalist Ben Caspit, singer Yehoram Gaon and Major-General (res.) Giora Eiland. They took Eichenwald with them for questioning at the offices of the Lahav 433 investigation unit, and left the publishing house with boxes filled with documents as if they were a delivery company.

What sparked this whole affair were 31 pages, two chapters written before Olmert began serving his jail sentence, which were handed over to the publishing house much earlier. Are these two chapters the reason Olmert was accused last week of jeopardizing the state’s security? Are they the reason he was forced to face the representative of the State Attorney’s Office, attorney Orly Lev Ari, and say in a shaky voice: “I’m ashamed when I hear that you’ve turned me into a traitor”?

Well, it’s not Olmert who should be ashamed. It’s the attorney general, the state attorney, the State Attorney’s Office and the law enforcement officials who made this possible. They don’t have the proper security clearance to know what I have done for the state’s security, Olmert said to his associates. They could all sense the distress he was in. He may be corrupt, but how can he be called a traitor?

The claim that he had put the state’s security at risk was so ridiculous that five investigators were sent to carry out the mission, and they didn’t do it on behalf of the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment, despite the initial claim. Without addressing a certain operation or another, prime ministers are the ones who approve the different operations and they are the ones who can declare them confidential or non-confidential. Theoretically, if we choose to discuss Olmert, he could have chosen to publish the operations and decisions he made during his term, even on his last day in the Prime Minister’s Office. Even at the end of his term, when his political situation was grim, Olmert chose not to say a thing, although his political advisors pleaded with him to do so. It will help your image, they said. Olmert refused.

Olmert has been writing his book since 2009. Parts of it were published in Yedioth Ahronoth. The chapter under discussion has been written several times. He has been negotiating with the censorship for a long time, including the last time he went on leave, when he met with the chief censor. The claim presented by the State Attorney’s Office, that he has been writing the book to fund his legal expenses, is ridiculous. Olmert has far better reasons to write the book, and the State Attorney’s Office has far better reasons to be concerned about its publication than any security-related revelations.

Olmert clearly violated his agreement with the Israel Prison Service (IPS), to hand over every single document for their examination. He did it out of the same arrogance we are familiar with, the disregard for procedures, and perhaps even disregard for the prison’s managers. But the argument that transferring a chapter from the book “to different unauthorized elements outside the prison raises concerns of an information leak that could cause serious damage to the state’s security” is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who hears this claim.

According to people familiar with the details, there is nothing in the pages that have were transferred that has not appeared in books written by former US President George W. Bush, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others, and in articles and interviews published over the years. The only classified document found in his cell was a protocol of a conference call between Olmert, former Attorney General Menachem Mazuz and Cabinet Secretary Israel Maimon in 2006, in which Mazuz informed Olmert that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had collapsed and that Olmert would become acting prime minister—a conversation which has already been published.

Quite a few operations, which are also attributed to Israel, have taken place in Syria since that alleged Israeli strike, including bombings of Hezbollah convoys and an attack on an airport. Those operations could have led to retaliation, but that never happened. So why should it happen now?

And in general, it’s so hypocritical to accuse Olmert of disclosing secret security information, when there is a woman in the current prime minister’s residence who has insisted on sitting in on her husband’s secret meetings with heads of the defense establishment. There is one case we know about, in which late Mossad Director Meir Dagan refused to speak while Sara Netanyahu was still in the room, as he himself revealed. It’s quite possible that there were other incidents in which she did remain in the room, as the people who arrived to discuss top secret security issues with Netanyahu wouldn’t dare to ask her to leave. Where were all those people last week, when Olmert was treated like a traitor?

Enough is enough

Olmert is just the symptom. The troubling thing is that the gatekeepers are increasingly becoming the government’s servants. The Miri Regev state is already here. Every day, we witness a new command from the thought commissars: Cancelling shows, introducing an ethical code for universities, raiding a publishing house and confiscating documents.

Several weeks ago, I wrote that something bad was happening to our law enforcement system, that the public’s trust in this system is being undermined. From the State Attorney’s Office, which made every effort to degrade Judge Hila Gerstl and make her resign from her position as prosecutorial oversight commissioner; through the affair involving former Tel Aviv chief prosecutor Ruth David, whose conduct has yet to be examined despite serious revelations; to the attorney general, who is missing the point of one his most important missions, which is to increase and strengthen the public’s trust in the legal system and in the law enforcement system, and he is definitely failing to do so in his conduct in the different Netanyahu investigations.

State Attorney Nitzan. The State Attorney’s Office has far better reasons to be concerned about the book’s publication than any security-related revelations (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
State Attorney Nitzan. The State Attorney’s Office has far better reasons to be concerned about the book’s publication than any security-related revelations (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

 

I mentioned that after the IPS celebrated the “snack trap” they set for Marwan Barghouti, they rushed to celebrate the discovery of a few documents Olmert had transferred through his lawyer, a manuscript which would anyway have to receive the censorship’s approval. And it happened shortly before the IPS parole board’s announcement on whether Olmert would be granted an early release.

And surprisingly, the document affair broke out shortly before the parole board meeting, although the IPS has no authority to discuss whether Olmert jeopardized state security and this affair should not be mixed with the decision to grant him an early release. According to his associates, the former prime minister has already been punished for violating his agreements with the IPS: He has been denied visits and two leave requests. He met his wife Aliza last week for the first time in two months at the Sheba Medical Center, where he was hospitalized. His physical condition is run down and he is depressed.

His associates say he is suffering from personal harassment. People at the State Attorney’s Office, one of the associates says, confiscated the book and read details that put their jobs at risk, because Olmert settles his score with them there, including stories which have never been told. As long as Olmert is in jail, he adds, the book’s publication will be postponed. And until then, who knows what will happen.

I believe enough is enough. Even right-wing politicians like Ministers Yuval Steinitz and Ayelet Shaked, think that Olmert has paid his debt.

The parole board will convene again on Thursday to deliver its decision on his early release. Let’s hope it will do the right thing. If anyone has any suspicions against Olmert on security issues, they should go to the police once Olmert is an ordinary citizen capable of dealing with the claims.

Anything else would be considered personally-motivated persecution.

As reported by Ynetnews