12th Apr 2023

Leaked Pentagon documents claim Israel’s Mossad encouraged protests against Netanyahu

By Anders Hagstrom , Yonat Friling, FOXNews

Israel's Mossad intelligence agency was encouraging protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's regime in recent weeks, leaked U.S. intelligence claims.

The leaked intelligence came in the form of a memo from U.S. signals intelligence. It alleged that Mossad "advocated for Mossad officials and Israeli citizens to protest the new Israeli Government’s proposed judicial reforms, including several explicit calls to action that decried the Israeli government, according to signals intelligence."

Netanyahu's office which is in charge of Mossad, dismissed the claims in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"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 prime minister's office wrote on behalf of the Mossad.

"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," it continued.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has remained quiet regarding the leak, which had revelations spread far beyond Israel to Ukraine and other U.S. allies.

"The Department of Defense is actively reviewing the matter, and has made a formal referral to the Department of Justice for investigation," the Pentagon told Fox in a statement.

Media reports have noted that while the U.S. intelligence documents appear authentic, that does not necessarily indicate the reports are correct.

Israeli citizens have been in an uproar in recent weeks over Netanyahu's efforts to overhaul the country's judicial system.

Netanyahu agreed to halt the reform process in late March, as protests reached their peak. The next parliamentary session begins on April 30.

The prime minister's reforms would change the Judicial Selection Committee, which is in charge of appointing new judges throughout the court system. The reforms would also allow Parliament to supersede court rulings through a majority vote.

Key Clues in Search for Source of Pentagon Leak 

By Jon Jackson, Newsweek

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the classified Pentagon documents that were recently leaked online, and cybersecurity experts who spoke with Newsweek said there are some critical clues investigators will be examining.

The highly classified documents from the Pentagon spread across social media last week. They contain photos of materials with details about U.S. intelligence updates, including sensitive information about the war in Ukraine. On Monday, Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Meagher told reporters that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been holding department-wide meetings about the leak. Meagher also shared that the Pentagon is leading another investigation.

"We're still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue. There have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom," Meagher said.

Schneier mentioned Reality Winner as an example of similar government investigation. Winner is the former NSA translator who leaked a classified report that alleged the Russian military interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A central part of FBI's investigation that led to identifying Winner was the documents she leaked appeared to be folded, which suggested they had been printed and hand-carried out of a secure location.

According to Schneier, human error—more than actual digital clues—could be the key that reveals the source of the Ukraine documents leak. He mentioned that former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who shared a trove of military and diplomatic records about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, was caught because she had told someone what she had done, and that person later alerted authorities.

Schneier noted that while investigators will certainly be checking the IP address of where the classified files were uploaded, the person behind the initial leak could have been at a public place during the upload. In such a scenario, the IP address that would turn up in the investigation could be from a place like a Starbucks.

IP addresses would not be a very reliable clue in an effort to attribute the attack, because IP addresses are easily spoofed.

IP addresses are useful only based on the assumption that the leaker was sloppy and therefore did not obscure their IP address.

The appearance of sloppiness can itself be a form of obfuscation.

Reports have said that the Pentagon documents may have first been shared on the video game chat platform Discord during an argument about the war in Ukraine.

the leak appears to have been the work of an insider who had legitimate access to the documents, rather than an external hack.

What we know so far on the Leaked Pentagon Documents 

By Tara Copp and Normaan Merchant, AssociatedPress

The Washington Post reported that Egypt's president ordered subordinates to secretly prepare to ship up to 40,000 rockets to Russia as it wages war in Ukraine. A spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry said Egypt was maintaining “noninvolvement in this crisis and committing to maintain equal distance with both sides.”

An official is quoted as saying he would "order his people to work shift work if necessary because it was the least Egypt could do to repay Russia for unspecified help earlier". It is unclear what the earlier help refers to.

In January, Reuters reported that Russia's share of Egyptian wheat imports had risen in 2022, offering one possible explanation.

Egypt is one of the largest recipients of US security assistance, worth around $1bn a year.

Other documents say when a dozen new Ukrainian brigades - being prepared for an offensive that could begin within weeks - will be ready. They list, in great detail, the tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces that are being provided by Ukraine's Western allies.

One map includes a timeline that assesses ground conditions across eastern Ukraine as spring progresses.

According to the Washington Post newspaper, one document from early February expresses misgivings about Ukraine's chances of success in its forthcoming counteroffensive.

NATO is Directly Involved in the War

By Paul Adams & George Wright, BBC

Britain's elite special forces and dozens more Western military personnel are on the ground in Ukraine.

According to the document, dated 23 March, the UK has the largest contingent of special forces in Ukraine (50), followed by fellow NATO states Latvia (17), France (15), the US (14) and the Netherlands (1).

The document does not say where the forces are located or what they are doing.

The numbers of personnel may be small, and will doubtless fluctuate. But special forces are by their very nature highly effective. Their presence in Ukraine is likely to be seized upon by Moscow, which has in recent months argued that it is not just confronting Ukraine, but NATO as well.

The classified war documents – which reveal NATO plans to support Ukraine ahead of its offensive against Russia.

Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation and he was determined to find the source of the leak.

"We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it," he said.

The investigative website Bellingcat has seen evidence that some documents could have been posted in January or even earlier.

These documents remained on Discord largely undetected, before spreading to other platforms in early April and eventually being picked up by US officials and the mainstream press.

READ MORE: Ukrainian commander reveals true scale of losses – and pays the price

Do yourself a favor. Think for yourself. Be your own person. Question everything. Stand for principle. Champion individual liberty and self-ownership where you can. Develop a strong moral code. Be kind to others. Do no harm, unless that harm is warranted. Pretty obvious stuff...but people who hold these things in their hearts seem to be disappearing from the earth at an accelerated rate. Stay safe, my friends. Thanks for being here.

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