A Netanyahu adviser is said to have leaked military documents to the German tabloid ‘Bild’ in order to influence public opinion. Israel’s Prime Minister has a post for such favours from the Springer Group.
The Attorney General of Israel wants to charge Jonathan Urich, a close advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, subject to a hearing. According to a report in the Israeli magazine ‘Calcalist’, he is accused of deliberately passing on and destroying secret information – with the aim of influencing public opinion in favour of the prime minister.
The case is related to the so-called ‘Bild’ affair, also known in Israel as ‘Bibileaks’. On 6 September 2024, the German tabloid published a report based on an allegedly highly secret Israeli military document. It stated that the then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had no interest in a hostage deal – a claim that was contradicted by several intelligence sources to the Israeli news portal ‘Ynet’. According to them, the document actually indicates the opposite.
The authenticity of the document was also questioned: When asked by ‘nd’, a spokesperson for the Israeli military explained that it was not a paper from Sinwar, but a document from low-ranking Hamas members.
According to the indictment, Urich, together with former government spokesman Eli Feldstein, allegedly obtained ‘strictly confidential information’ from military systems. The aim was to influence public discourse following the murder of six Israeli hostages in a tunnel in Rafah in August 2024 – particularly in light of growing criticism of the government.
The leaked documents were then passed on to ‘Bild’, where they were published with the Israeli government’s interpretation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then publicly quoted the ‘Bild’ publication, as did his wife Sara Netanyahu. It is therefore suspected in Israel that the publication could have been part of a political campaign with the help of the German Springer newspaper.
Two days before the report, the Prime Minister’s Office had held a press conference to justify military control of the Philadelphi Corridor – an area along the border with Egypt through which Hamas is believed to smuggle weapons and fighters. The content quoted in ‘Bild’ was apparently intended to give the impression that Hamas was planning to smuggle hostages through this very corridor – and thus legitimise Israel’s military presence there.
In addition to ‘Bild’, the British newspaper ‘Jewish Chronicle’ also published alleged secret information about Hamas plans. According to the Israeli media, however, this story turned out to be a complete fabrication. The author named, ‘Elon Perry’, had given a false biography.
The revelations led to investigations by the military, the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet and the police. After several arrests, Urich also came under scrutiny. His lawyers declared that the accusations were ‘unfounded and politically motivated’. Feldstein, who is under house arrest, is now calling for the conditions to be lifted – with reference to Urich’s previous protection under criminal law. The announcement by the Public Prosecutor General’s Office could now change this.
The close ties between the Israeli government and the Springer Group have long been documented. According to the German television programme ‘Panorama’, Ron Dermer, now Minister for Strategic Affairs, was specifically entrusted with maintaining contacts with the top management of Springer back in 2011 when he was Prime Minister. The magazine cites a prominent example of the close coordination: on 3 December 2012, ‘Bild’ published a pro-government article intended to discredit Chancellor Merkel’s foreign policy advisor, Christoph Heusgen. Heusgen had previously suggested linking a German submarine delivery to Israel to political concessions – such as a settlement freeze in the West Bank and a two-state solution.
In the past year, the Springer Group has also intensified its cooperation with pro-Israel media: In June 2024, ‘Bild’ entered into a formal partnership with the Israeli daily newspaper ‘Israel Hayom’, which is considered a long-standing supporter of Netanyahu and his Likud party. The first journalistic expression of this alliance was the article ‘The Hamas Method’, which compared the Palestinian organisation to the Nazis in the Holocaust. The text was co-authored by ‘Bild’ head of politics Filipp Piatov, who was also involved in the controversial report on alleged Hamas negotiation strategies with his deputy editor-in-chief Paul Ronzheimer.
German journalist Hanno Hauenstein, among others, reported on the ‘Bibileaks’ of September 2024 – and in another investigation, he showed how the Springer Group even profited from the sale of properties in occupied territories through its stake in an Israeli advertising paper.
‘It is a media scandal of considerable dimensions, which in this country has not even led to the demonstrably misleading report by ‘Bild’ being corrected or taken offline,’ Hauenstein told ‘nd’. The Springer newspaper had ‘deliberately contributed to the sabotage of a ceasefire and thus knowingly jeopardised the lives of thousands of Palestinians and dozens of Israeli hostages’.
Published in German in ‘nd’.
Image: Benjamin Netanyahu regularly uses ‘Bild’ for reporting favourable to him. To this end, Israel’s prime minister has established a direct line to Springer (YouTube/screenshot).
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