Firebrand Likud MK indicted for disclosing Shin Bet agent’s identity |
The Attorney General’s Office announced on Tuesday that it was indicting Likud MK Tally Gotliv for allegedly violating the law by disclosing the identity of a Shin Bet agent, sparking harsh criticism as well as threats against judicial officials from the firebrand lawmaker’s coalition allies.
In January 2024, Gotliv posted on social media that the partner of Shikma Bressler, a key leader of the protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul, was an agent with the security service. She repeated conspiracy theories alleging he had ties to Hamas, and insinuated that this collaboration had contributed to the October 7 attacks — prompting both Bressler and her partner to file defamation suits against her.
She is charged with violating a law forbidding publicly revealing the identity of agency agents. According to the indictment, filed in the Petah Tikva Magistrates Court, Gotliv shared the agent’s identity “in a conscious, deliberate, ongoing, demonstrative and repeated manner” to her tens of thousands of Twitter followers.
In a series of posts, Gotliv spread allegations that Bressler’s partner had conducted talks with then-Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar prior to the terror group’s October 7, 2023, invasion, and coordinated the atrocities with Sinwar and former prime minister Ehud Barak.
Bressler, a physicist, shot to national prominence as one of the most visible leaders of the nationwide protest movement that sprang up in early 2023 against the government’s judicial overhaul plans, which critics said would undermine democracy in Israel.
According to the indictment, despite warnings by the Shin Bet that her posts constituted potential security risks, Gotliv “consciously and intentionally” did not remove the posts and stood by their publication, continuing to share posts about Bressler’s partner and stating that she would keep doing so.
Gotliv wrote on Tuesday on X: “A stormy round of applause for [Attorney General Gali Baharav-] Miara. She has just announced the filing of an indictment against me.”
She insisted that “the exposure of Bressler’s spouse was done within the framework and for the purpose of fulfilling my........