Video: Netanyahu accused of placing spy in own office to ‘scupper’ hostage release in ‘treason’ scandal

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Next to Jerusalem, where
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the freelance journalist Noga Tarnopolsky
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is on the line and who is
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poised to share with us details of
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I mean, it’s an extraordinary story, Noga, by any
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measure, and I think it probably merits you
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talking us through it from the very top, if
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that’s all right with you.
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Yes, good afternoon.
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It is really a story worthy of
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kind of Cold War cinema.
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So, about three days ago,
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Israeli journalists began hearing rumors
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that a spokesperson, a spokesman
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for Prime Minister Netanyahu
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was under arrest
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and suspected of espionage.
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In other words, he wasn’t arrested and,
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you know, being held in a police detention
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facility.
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He was under arrest in a high-security
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facility
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and held by the Shin Bet
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kind of, I think, sort of the
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MI5, right, of
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equivalent. Yes.
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And immediately
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there were major demands
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to lift a gag order over this story.
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So for now,
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the gag order has been partially lifted.
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What we know
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is that there are five people
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under arrest.
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Four of them
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are
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Israeli army officers,
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and at least one of them is an officer in
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the Intelligence Division of the Israeli army.
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They’re accused of
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something that
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is being referred to as espionage
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in the legal documents, but I have to tell you, at
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least by my layman’s terms, it really does
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sound like wartime treason.
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The accusation is astonishing, and it is
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that Netanyahu brought into his office
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about two weeks after the war started, so
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October
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2023,
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a person
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who he called his military spokesman,
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someone to debrief on military matters
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separate from all the spokespeople of the
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Defence Department and of the IDF.
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Now it appears that this guy’s role was to
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act as a trafficker
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of stolen intelligence material
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So removed from basically the vaults of IDF Intel,
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handed over illicitly
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to the Office of the Prime Minister to this
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person.
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His name is the only name released,
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Eli Feldstein. Yes.
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The accusation is that this top secret
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material,
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which revealed sources and methods that
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we’re also authorized to say,
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meaning it endangered lives. Uh
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According to the court order, it says that
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this material was then
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implanted, was, sorry, manipulated.
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So it was somehow,
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you know,
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distorted
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so as to sell a particular political
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position.
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And that these falsified stories based on
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genuine intel
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were then implanted into foreign media.
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One of which is the Jewish Chronicle.
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And the understanding is that this
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manipulation of the information occurred in
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the office of the Prime Minister.
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The the the
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some.
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I mean you’re
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thank you for
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steering us through such choppy waters with
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such aplomb.
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The the the phrase a breach of national
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security caused by the unlawful provision
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of
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classified
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information is crucial, but also the phrase
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it harmed the achievement of Israel’s war
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aims because.
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The bit that’s missing from your
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description so far
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is that it is believed that
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the war aim in question
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was the release of
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the hostages still held by Hamas at the
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time. Right. So
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this is a really important question and
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actually we have advanced a little bit there. So
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Israel began this war with three formal
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aims of war, and that’s actually a legal term.
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Yes.
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So one was destroying Hamas.
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One was restoring Israeli deterrence on its
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borders,
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and one was the release of hostages.
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That’s a formal aim of the war.
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The accusation is
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that this these documents were manipulated
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and implanted in foreign media
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with the aim of scuttling
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talks.
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And remember that at the time we’re talking
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about, which is early September,
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the United States and Qatar were handling.
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A possible hostage release and ceasefire deal
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that had been proposed by Netanyahu himself
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and the American president at the time said
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we’re very, very close to a deal.
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And then
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these weird stories began coming out in the
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Jewish Chronicle, in Bild,
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in
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a
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journalist here in Israel called Amit
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Segal, who’s very friendly with the Prime
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Minister
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and what these stories.
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Aim to
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kind of implant in the public discourse was
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that it would harm Israel’s war effort
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if this deal were signed.
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So the exact opposite.
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In other words,
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when the courts say that
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an aim of the war, formal aim of the war
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was harmed or there’s that’s the suspicion.
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Yes, that’s a really, really serious thing
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because it essentially prolongs the
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incarceration of the hostages.
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So, so, so
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the the the government.
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I mean if they if all of these allegations
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are true,
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the accusation is
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that they
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jeopardized the safety of the hostages
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because they were so keen to continue
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the war.
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It’s even worse.
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It means that hostages may have been killed
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as a result of this manoeuvre.
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It means that soldiers may have been killed
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because of the sources and methods
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revealed.
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By the implantation of these documents.
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And we know for a fact that the war aim the
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court refers to
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is the lives of the hostages because
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a woman called Enavtzan Gauker,
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whose son is a hostage,
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requested leave from the court to
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offer testimony.
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This is still on Saturday. Yes.
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as
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a, quote, ‘interested party’ in the case.
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So that’s how we know that the court
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admits.
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That the danger to the war effort has to do
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with hostage families because she’s
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considered an interested party. Wow.
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One thing that struck me is that the
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reports in the Israeli media followed
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the reports in the Jewish Chronicle and the
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German tabloid Bild.
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So this sort of chain of, I
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don’t know what you’d call it really, but
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the trail, if you like, that
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allegedly began in Benjamin Netanyahu’s
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office, went back to Israel via the Jewish
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Chronicle, who of course retracted.
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The article that you’re referring to and
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fired the quotes, journalist, end quotes,
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who wrote it. That’s
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that journalist actually ended up not
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existing,
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which is a pretty dramatic thing itself.
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I got a text off his wife, Noga.
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Well, maybe, but he is not who he purported
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to be, let’s say that.
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Wow.
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He said he had
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served in the army in certain roles.
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He said he had a role at
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the Tel Aviv University, that he was an
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academic.
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None of that turned out to be true,
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and it’s unclear who wrote this.
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The current
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administration of the Jewish Chronicle, of
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course, was put in place by a man called
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Robbie Gibb, who
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remains a non-executive director of the
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BBC, where he routinely lectures other
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journalists on issues like impartiality and bias.
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But we live in strange times.
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[Aside: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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thank you]
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Sorry. No,
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that’s all right
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take your time.
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Do you think that this will change
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anything? I know you’re asked routinely
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whether or not Netanyahu will walk away
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from this and and you didn’t think that
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he’d survive the events of October the 7th,
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but but do you
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think that this is potentially a game
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changer?
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You know, I don’t want to risk making a
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fool of myself again.
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But
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it is a game changer no matter what,
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because,
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I mean, this is, it’s
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hard to even think of something to compare it to.
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A long, long time ago,
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I think in the 70s in Germany, there was
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something called the Guillaume Affair,
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where
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an advisor to the West German chancellor
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was caught
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having been a spy for East Germany and the
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chancellor resigned over this scandal.
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So we’re facing something of that magnitude here.
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And the question that is
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interesting Israeli media right now
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is,
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is it possible,
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as the Prime Minister’s office is trying to imply,
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that just by random luck, some rogue
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Intel officers in the Israeli army happened
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to come upon the private number
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of the spokesman of the Prime Minister
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and surreptitiously gave him info?
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Or should we understand?
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As one of the lawyers, one of the defence
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lawyers of one of these implicated men said
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that there was
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a pipeline set in place
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by the Prime Minister’s office
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to illicitly receive top secret
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information.
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And one more thing I wanted to add.
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The reason
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that Israeli media followed the Jewish
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Chronicle and built
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is because this material
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could not be published in Israel.
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because it was under
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it was top secret information that didn’t
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pass the military censor.
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So the way that
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apparently the office of the Israeli Prime
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Minister got around that problem
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is by having it published abroad
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so that Israeli media then could say, well,
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this is what’s published abroad.
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Noga Tarnopolsky, you weren’t exaggerating,
277
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I don’t think, and I suspect we’ll be
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00:09:50,558 –> 00:09:51,198
catching up
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00:09:51,598 –> 00:09:52,788
sooner rather than later.