NYT: Leaked CIA Intel Documents Claim Senior Mossad Staff Encouraged Anti-Govt Protests in Israel

NYT: Leaked CIA Intel Documents Claim Senior Mossad Staff Encouraged Anti-Govt Protests in Israel

Edited by: Fern Sidman

On Sunday, it was reported by Israel National News that two leading American newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post indicated that among the classified American intelligence documents from the Central Intelligence Agency which have been leaked online in recent days is an assessment that senior members of Israel’s Mossad spy agency encouraged the agency’s employees and the general population in Israel to protest against the Israeli government’s planned judicial reforms.

The leaked materials, which made headlines of several major U.S. publications, contain an assessment by a CIA Intel Update dated March 1, as was reported by i24News.com. It said that the Mossad leadership “advocated for Mossad officials and Israeli citizens to protest against the new Israeli government’s proposed judicial reforms, including several explicit calls to action that decried the Israeli government.”

INN reported that the FBI is investigating the leak, and it is currently believed that the leaked documents are authentic. Both newspapers reported that senior Israeli officials denied the reports.

I24 News also reported that Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday denied reports based on the leaked Pentagon documents alleging that the Mossad encouraged Israelis to participate in mass protests against the government’s judicial reform plan.

“The publication tonight in the American press is completely false and unfounded,” Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, as was reported by i24News. “The Mossad and its officials did not and do not encourage employees in the organization to go to demonstrations against the government, to political demonstrations in general, or to any political activity,” the statement added.

“The report that was published overnight in the American press is mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever. The Mossad and its senior officials did not – and do not – encourage agency personnel to join the demonstrations against the government, political demonstrations or any political activity. The Mossad and its serving senior personnel have not engaged in the issue of the demonstrations at all and are dedicated to the value of service to the state that has guided the Mossad since its founding,” the Prime Minister’s Office reported, according to the INN report.

In February, Mossad chief David Barnea issued an unusual authorization allowing Mossad employees to participate in the anti-judicial reform protests, and former heads of the Mossad publicly called for the freezing of the judicial reform legislation, INN reported. It is possible that these events are what the intelligence assessment is referring to.

On the Israeli news web site known as Ynet, New York Times reporter Ronen Bergman suggested that the analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must have misinterpreted the signals intelligence, as was reported by i24 News. But the more important conclusion is the agency’s deep penetration into the top branches of Israeli government, the report indicated.

According to The New York Times, senior U.S. officials confirmed that the leaked documents appear to contain legitimate intelligence reports, as was reported by i24News.com.  However, at least some of them had been modified and the accuracy of the documents is under question.

Despite several hundreds of former Mossad employees signing a letter published in early March in protest of the judicial overhaul, the agency’s rules prohibit direct involvement of its leadership in political crisis, as was reported by i24News.  Some Mossad employees, however, received permission to participate in protests as private citizens, the report claimed.

Senior Israeli defense officials denied the reports, while the Prime Minister’s office told The New York Times that they were looking into them, according to the i24News.com report. The U.S. Department of Justice said earlier on Saturday that it had opened a probe into the leak.

“We have been in communication with the Department of Defense related to this matter and have begun an investigation,” a Justice Department spokesperson told AFP.

In January of this year, the Jerusalem Post reported that former CIA director and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in his new book, “Never Give An Inch,” reveals that during his term, the spy agency rescued Mossad agents in imminent peril at the personal request of then-Mossad director Yossi Cohen.

Israeli intelligence sources repeatedly denied to The Jerusalem Post in late January that the operation in question was the February 2018 heist of the century – seizing Iran’s secret nuclear archive from under its nose near the heart of Tehran – though Pompeo in his book specifically says that the operation was “one of the most significant clandestine operations ever conducted.”

The JPost also reported that these sources also would not specify what other operation could have reached the level of significance as described by Pompeo, but were adamant that Americans were not involved in the 2018 Tehran archive operation.

Describing one of several interactions with then Mossad director Yossi Cohen, but without giving the exact date, Pompeo recounts hearing from an aide, “Mr. Director, Mossad Director Yossi Cohen needs to speak with you immediately,” the JPost reported.

“The call from Yossi Cohen, the head of the Mossad, arrived shortly after I had stepped off a plane in a European capital. I turned around and went back onboard, where we had communications equipment suitable for a classified conversation with the leader of Israel’s intelligence agency,” writes Pompeo in his book, according to the JPost report in January.

Dozens of leaked documents, mostly related to the Ukraine war, have surfaced on Twitter, Telegram, Discord and other social media in recent days, i24News.com reported. On Friday, the Pentagon said it was “actively reviewing the matter.”

The New York Times reported on Saturday that the leaked Pentagon documents reveal how deeply Russia’s security and intelligence services have been penetrated by the United States, demonstrating Washington’s ability to warn Ukraine about planned strikes and providing an assessment of the strength of Moscow’s war machine.

The NYT also reported that the documents portray a battered Russian military that is struggling in its war in Ukraine and a military apparatus that is deeply compromised. They contain daily real-time warnings to American intelligence agencies on the timing of Moscow’s strikes and even its specific targets. Such intelligence has allowed the United States to pass on to Ukraine crucial information on how to defend itself.

The leak, the source of which remains unknown, also reveals the American assessment of a Ukrainian military that is itself in dire straits, the NYT reported. The leaked material, from late February and early March but found on social media sites in recent days, outlines critical shortages of air defense munitions and discusses the gains being made by Russian troops around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

The intelligence reports seem to indicate that the United States is also spying on Ukraine’s top military and political leaders, a reflection of Washington’s struggle to get a clear view of Ukraine’s fighting strategies, the NYT reported.