One of my reports on the submarine affair focused at the time on Yossi Cohen and raised questions about one of the opinions he had signed as head of the National Security Council. After the report was published, Cohen — by then already director of the Mossad — invited me to a meeting. I left that meeting convinced that he had not been involved in any wrongdoing. At most, he had been too eager to please Benjamin Netanyahu. That conclusion was based mainly on the extreme lack of familiarity he displayed with the affair: he confused different deals, mixed up ships and submarines, and seemed lost in trying to explain what he had signed and why.
After reading the document published by the state commission of inquiry into the affair, doubts began to emerge. According to the interim report, Cohen’s role was far greater than the signing of a single opinion; he was a full and active partner in a blatant and harmful deception directed at the defense establishment and the IDF. The report was indeed published after the interviews Cohen had given, but the warning letters had been public for a long time. Cohen (“I need to be prime minister”) continues to behave as though his conduct in the affair has nothing to do with him.
He is not the only figure in the report who behaves as though the affair does not concern him. Eliezer (“Chayni”) Marom regularly shares his wisdom on radio and television programs, yet he has never provided a satisfactory explanation for his puzzling conduct in the affair — certainly not for the substantial sums of money he received from Miki Ganor, the representative of the German shipyard. The commission’s report reveals additional aspects of Marom’s conduct that were previously unknown. It states that the Navy presented the Cabinet with the advantages of purchasing a sixth submarine in a manner that served the prime minister’s interests, even though the presentation was misleading and did not reflect what the Navy actually knew.
The role of another Navy commander in the affair is even more puzzling. No one ever questioned the integrity of Ram Rothberg, commander of the Navy from 2011 to 2016, but some of his actions in the affair were questionable from the outset and have never received a satisfactory explanation. The commission reveals that the Navy suddenly produced a document that made it possible to approve the sale of advanced submarines to Egypt — contrary to its previous position. Even more surprising is the fact that the document somehow, by strange coincidence, found its way to the German shipyard selling the submarines before it reached the authorized officials in Israel’s defense establishment. How did that happen?
The supposed “Chinese wall” separating the proceedings of the state commission of inquiry from the criminal trial means that several key players in the affair are not mentioned in the report. Avriel Bar-Yosef, the deputy head of the National Security Council, and David Sharan, who served first as chief of staff to the finance minister and later to the prime minister, are defendants in the criminal proceedings. Today, Sharan is a close adviser to Netanyahu, and the bribery charge against him in one of the gravest affairs in the country’s history does not prevent Netanyahu from keeping him close. Perhaps that is even part of his appeal. He, too, serves as a sought-after commentator on pro-Netanyahu television channels.
Another “hero” of the interim report is someone who also appears frequently on television and is rarely questioned about it. Avigdor Lieberman was foreign minister in Netanyahu’s government and later defense minister. Under his leadership, the Foreign Ministry played a key role in canceling the international tender for the purchase of naval vessels, as the German shipyard had wanted. Two years later, as defense minister, Lieberman removed the Defense Ministry’s opposition to the purchase of three submarines from Germany — or, in the report’s wording: “In the summer of 2016, following the change in leadership at the Defense Ministry, the National Security Council promoted, this time with the support of the Defense Ministry, a deal to purchase submarines.”
The defense minister who had been replaced by Lieberman, Moshe Ya’alon, remains convinced to this day that his dismissal was connected to this issue. It is possible that Lieberman merely wished to avoid a confrontation with Netanyahu, but it would be appropriate for him as well to answer some of the difficult questions arising from his conduct — and the conduct of his associates — in this affair.