Mossad spurred Israelis to join mass protests against Netanyahu’s reform plan: Leaked docs

Leaked documents have revealed that high-ranking officials within Mossad encouraged widespread protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called judicial reforms among the spy agency’s staff and the general public.

The documents, leaked from the Pentagon and obtained by the New York Times on Saturday, said that the leaders of Mossad had “advocated for Mossad officials and Israeli citizens to protest” the new Israeli cabinet’s “proposed judicial reforms, including several explicit calls to action that decried” the Israeli regime.

The leaked documents, which contained the assessment of a direct intervention by Mossad into the Israeli political landscape, cited current and former Israeli intelligence officials as saying that the measure was taken while the spy agency’s rules and longstanding tradition of nonpartisanship had precluded direct involvement by Mossad’s leadership in a political crisis.

The assessment came out on March 1 on the same date that five former heads of Mossad came out against Netanyahu’s controversial reform plan, and a week after Mossad chief David Barnea, who has remained reticent about the roiling protests, authorized low-ranking officials of the agency to participate in the protests.

Several hundred former Mossad employees, including five former chiefs, also signed a statement last month opposing the overhaul promoted by the Israeli cabinet.

However, Netanyahu’s office rejected the claims raised in the leaked documents, saying in a statement on Sunday that the NYT report was “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”

The protests have been a weekly fixture since late December, when the Israeli prime minister announced his intention to implement the changes.

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The alleged reforms, he claims, are meant to redraw the power balance between the regime's executive branch and the judiciary by preventing the Supreme Court from striking down the former's decisions. They also seek to give the lawmakers a bigger say in the committee that selects the judges.

Netanyahu's opponents see his cabinet's drive to pass the legislation on the so-called reforms as a threat to the Supreme Court's independence, describing it as a "legal coup."

They also accuse Netanyahu of trying to use the reforms to quash possible judgments against him as he is on trial in three corruption cases.

Late last month, overwhelmed by public pressure and dissenting political voices from inside the regime and outside, the premier finally announced a "pause" in the passage of the legislation through the Knesset.

The protests, however, show no sign of abating despite Netanyahu’s suspension of the reform plan.

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