The so-called “Bibileaks” scandal has caused a firestorm in Israel in recent months. After it emerged that classified material was leaked from the Israeli military to a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then manipulated and passed to foreign media outlets — in an apparent attempt to influence the Israeli public’s perception of the ceasefire negotiations, while bypassing the military censor — the spokesperson and a military reservist were arrested in November and face charges that could carry significant prison sentences.
In the UK, meanwhile, there has been a major public outcry against the Jewish Chronicle after it was revealed — in part through reporting by +972 Magazine — that the newspaper had published entirely false material via this pipeline, causing several of its leading writers to quit in protest. Yet in Germany, where the country’s biggest newspaper, Bild, similarly published misinformation fed to it by the Netanyahu aide, there has been very little inquest at all.