The Real Story Behind the Bild Affair: It Was Not the Leak, but the Cover-Up

Archive | Photo: Miriam Alster, Flash 90

Mati Tuchfeld, 1, 9 minutes ago, 1 0 1

The real story behind the Bild affair: It was not the leak, but the cover-up

While the State Prosecutor’s Office focuses on legal pursuit over the publication in Bild, the public is beginning to grasp the disturbing truth behind the scenes. The fact that a critical document was withheld from the prime minister was never investigated. Is this a planned political sabotage against Netanyahu’s trusted aides, or an attempt to silence a deep strategic failure that has yet to be investigated?

With the filing of indictments in the Bild affair, and despite the media smokescreen seeking to portray it as a severe blow to security, it seems the public is beginning to understand that the main issue is not the leak itself. The real story, far more troubling and deeper, is the deliberate and systematic effort to conceal critical information from the prime minister.

Under the sensational headlines about a “danger to sources” and “harm to national security,” there is a serious failure that should keep every citizen awake at night, the attempt to prevent the political echelon from receiving strategic information about Hamas’s intentions, דווקא at the most decisive moments of the war. This is the essential issue that, strangely and perhaps suspiciously, has remained outside the scope of investigation by law enforcement agencies. While all resources are directed at chasing the leakers, no one is asking the obvious question: Why did this information not reach the prime minister’s desk in real time? This is a matter of supreme public interest, one that requires a thorough criminal investigation and, no less, a commission of inquiry.

Photo: Chaim Goldberg, Flash 90

The publication in Bild, with all due respect to the media uproar it caused, is secondary compared with the very fact that security officials decided, on their own authority, what the elected leader “should” or “should not” know. The fact that the security establishment, even after the colossal failure of October 7 and after we exposed the culture of withholding information and contempt for the political leadership that preceded it, continues to operate with complete lack of transparency, is an outrageous scandal.

It is impossible that in the midst of a multi-front war, and during sensitive and complex efforts to advance a hostage deal, the operational echelon would decide to exclude the political echelon from information that directly affects human lives. In addition, the strong political scent rising from the conduct of the prosecution in the related cases, especially the matter of Yonatan Urich, cannot be ignored. The efforts to distance him from the decision-making center and harm his functioning increasingly appear like a carefully planned “political sabotage” of key figures in Likud’s public relations and campaign apparatus.

Photo: Yonatan Shaul, Flash 90

It seems there are those who are trying to use legal tools to achieve political gains they failed to win at the ballot box. However, it is important to make clear: these efforts will not succeed. Urich, as an inseparable part of the inner circle, will continue to be a central and influential figure in Netanyahu’s political system. The attempt to engineer political reality through interrogation rooms is an attack on democracy, and it will not weaken those elected to serve the public.

Mati Tuchfeld, head of the political desk at C14. Commentator for Maariv, host of the midday program on Galey Yisrael. Served for 18 years as the political correspondent and commentator for Israel Hayom. Lecturer, author, and rabbi authorized to conduct wedding ceremonies and blessings.

Bild, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prosecution, Hamas, Yonatan Urich