"Eli Feldstein Law" passes government vote to defense establishment's dismay

The government's Ministerial Committee on Legislation voted today (Sunday) to advance a law which allows any IDF officer to send what they consider to be important information directly to the political leadership without going up the IDF chain of command.

The law was inspired by Eli Feldstein, an aide to Prime Minister Netanyahu who is being investigated for a possibly illegal leak of classified information to the German press with the aim of showing that the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was responsible for the impasse in hostage negotiations. The law would not retroactively apply to him.

Multiple defense sources complained to Army Radio that the law would "politicize" the army and make every IDF officer feel free to provide information without going through proper channels.

Military and defense sources leak such information all the time for their own reasons, usually to support leftwing political narratives in the Israeli and foreign media, and are not investigated or even reprimanded.

During the government discussion of the law, multiple ministers including Justice Minister Yariv Levin and MK Zeev Elkin noted what they think is a problem of the defense establishment formally allowing the political leadership access to all classified information while effectively concealing what they don't want seen.