Netanyahu’s War for Narrative: How the PM’s Office Mobilized Security Systems for Political Survival

When Hamas militants overran Israeli communities and IDF bases in the Gaza Envelope on the morning of October 7, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu required time to regain his footing. At a critical moment, however, he appeared to grasp what was truly at stake: his political survival.

Since then, according to a growing body of reports, Netanyahu has waged an intensive campaign to dictate the public narrative of the events leading to the massacre—aimed primarily at deflecting responsibility for the failures that enabled it. The struggle, critics say, has involved the systematic blurring of boundaries between political interests and the security establishment.

Intelligence Reservists Recruited for Narrative Management

The latest development emerged amid the war itself. According to a report by Doron Kadosh on Galei Tzahal, intelligence personnel were called up to reserve duty within the Military Secretariat of the Prime Minister’s Office. Their task: to extract selective quotations from classified documents to support Netanyahu’s responses to the State Comptroller’s inquiries.

The operation was reportedly coordinated by Netanyahu’s military secretary, Maj. Gen. Roman Goffman—who is slated for appointment as head of the Mossad—and was intended to reinforce the prime minister’s claim that responsibility for the October 7 failures lay elsewhere.

A Familiar Tactic from Past Confrontations

The method is not unprecedented. In 2016, during a State Comptroller investigation into the threat posed by Hamas attack tunnels following Operation Protective Edge, Netanyahu mounted a similar defensive effort. At that time, the National Security Council chief and the military secretary were tasked with compiling favorable excerpts from classified materials. The difference then: reservists were not mobilized for the purpose.

Allegations of Manipulation and Pressure

Since October 7, multiple reports have described additional steps allegedly taken by Netanyahu’s bureau:

• Suspicions that transcripts of phone calls between Netanyahu and his then–military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, from the morning of the massacre were altered to suggest the prime minister acted earlier than he did.

• Instructions to senior IDF officials not to bring mobile phones or recording devices into discussions.

• Claims that Sara Netanyahu directed staff to gather material on assessments by former chiefs of staff and defense ministers regarding Hamas’s military buildup.

Netanyahu also appointed Eli Feldstein as a special spokesman for military correspondents. Feldstein’s principal mission, according to reports, was to redirect blame for the massacre toward senior IDF officials. Attempts to fund Feldstein’s work through conscription into the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit reportedly failed after the unit refused.

Another adviser, Yonatan Urich, was photographed wearing an IDF uniform despite not being called up for reserve duty.

Criminal Investigations and Classified Leaks

Several of Netanyahu’s advisers are now implicated in criminal investigations, including the so-called Qatar affair and a separate case involving leaks to the German newspaper Bild.

According to published reports, intelligence reservists were allegedly used to obtain top-secret documents from Military Intelligence, which were then leaked abroad. The aim, it is claimed, was to absolve Netanyahu of responsibility for Hamas’s murder of six Israeli hostages in a Rafah tunnel.

The Qatar affair centers on suspicions that Netanyahu’s advisers acted as foreign “agents of influence” within the Prime Minister’s Office.

Collapse of Red Lines Between Politics and Security

What unites these cases, critics argue, is the apparent ease with which long-standing norms were violated. Under Netanyahu, they say, the separation between elected officials and professional security institutions has steadily eroded.

The IDF—and particularly the Intelligence Directorate—has shown signs of institutional weakness. Among the reported breaches: direct contact between political aides and intelligence information-security officers; the transfer of highly classified material that may have endangered critical sources in Gaza; and pressure exerted on the heads of the Mossad, Military Intelligence, and the military secretary to provide security justifications that would excuse Netanyahu from court testimony.

Additional security-related investigations remain under gag order.

War, Trauma, and a Breakdown of Norms

Observers attribute this erosion partly to the chaos generated by the ongoing war. The conflict has now lasted longer than Israel’s War of Independence, with profound effects on military discipline and oversight.

The shock of Hamas’s atrocities, analysts say, destabilized the chain of command, fueled desires for revenge, and weakened the senior leadership’s ability to enforce ethical and legal standards. Compounding this, years of political attacks on the justice system by Netanyahu’s allies have arguably fostered a broader disregard for legal constraints within the ranks.

Netanyahu Accuses Former Shin Bet Chief of “Rebellion”

On Monday evening, Netanyahu escalated his public offensive. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he accused former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar of leading a “rebellion” against him on the day of the October 7 attack.

Netanyahu shared a post by Erez Tadmor, a founder of the right-wing group Im Tirtzu and a former adviser to the prime minister, claiming that Bar viewed Netanyahu as an illegitimate leader who had previously dragged Israel into an unnecessary war in 2014.

According to the post, Bar allegedly “appointed himself de facto prime minister” on the night of the massacre. Netanyahu further claimed that Bar’s decisions “led to the greatest disaster in the country’s history” and that he later sought to falsify the Shin Bet’s internal investigation.

“The only thing worse than the depraved decisions themselves,” the post concluded, “was that they were made as part of a rebellion against the prime minister.” Netanyahu also alleged that senior figures in the security establishment were “infected with an anti-democratic virus.”