Security officials say Israeli secrets not exposed in Syria attack admission
Officials insist most of the information was already known about the IAF's attack on the Al Kibar nuclear reactor in 2007 due to foreign reports, and only new aspect was official admission.
The officials told Ynet that most of the information about the Israeli attack on the Al Kibar reactor was already reported by foreign media over the past 11 years. The only new information to come to light was Israel's claim of responsibility for the strike and the photos, videos and unclassified documents the Military Censor has distributed to the media over the past few months.
Many of the secrets surrounding the strike remain under wraps, and the security officials stressed that no classified information has leaked in the battle for credit that erupted between senior political and defense officials on Wednesday.
The former senior officials—including Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Amos Yadlin and Tamir Pardo—were briefed by the Military Censor ahead of the publication and have so far not exposed any secrets about Operation Outside the Box.
On Tuesday evening, mere hours before the story broke, a special situation assessment meeting was held with the relevant defense bodies. At the meeting, which featured mostly officials from the intelligence community, the participants discussed whether to give final authorization to go public with the information.
Over the past two years, since the High Court of Justice signaled to the Military Censor that it should reconsider clearing the story for publication, the Military Censor has been holding discussions on the matter. Much like in the years that immediately followed the strike, defense and intelligence bodies at first objected to lifting the gag order, but in discussions held over the past year, agreement has been reached that it is time to reveal Israel's role in the attack.
The details that were cleared for publication received the green light after it was determined that "it is not possible to prove certain damage to state security that would be caused as a result of allowing the publication."
The security officials told Ynet much of the information surrounding Operation Outside the Box remains confidential and is unlikely to come out in the foreseeable future.
Since the September 2007 strike, thousands of requests have been submitted to the Military Censor to lift the gag order over the Israeli role in the attack. Until this week, the majority of these requests have been rejected—including requests to report something that has already been reported on in the foreign media. The rejected requests were met with hundreds of appeals. Two of these cases reached the High Court of Justice, while two others were submitted to the "Committee of Three," which includes representatives from the IDF, the Editors' Committee and a representative of the public.
The petitions that were filed by the media were rejected. However, in a High Court rulings two years ago, the judges hinted that the matter of allowing its publication had to be reconsidered.
Security sources said Thursday that statements according to which the timing of the publication was synchronized with the publication of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's book, which includes chapters on the attack, are nonsense.
According to the officials, Olmert’s story was ready for publication for several months, and he was the one who waited for the approval of the consors before distributing to book stores.
The nuclear reactor attack story was published and shrouded in ambiguity in Israel in the last decade based on foreign media reports, and the main reason for which an official Israeli admission was rejected was to protect Assad’s “space of denial” option and that of the Israeli government.
The rationale was as follows: Israel attacks targets in Syria, for example, a nuclear reactor, and arms shipments to Hezbollah, and Syria doesn’t respond due to the fact that Israel does not take responsibility for the acts.
Hundreds of military operations have been predicated on this doctrine, along with interwar campaigns for eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas capabilities, thereby weakening them and delaying the next round of fighting while strengthening Israel’s power of deterrence.
With the passage of the years, even though the High Court believed that the decision taken on the publication of the reactor’s destruction was not unnecessary, the space of denial took on different significance against Hezbollah and Hamas.
When the attack was launched, Israel did not know how Assad would respond, and later on development occurred and tensions mounted in the region that obligated the preservation of the space of denial.
Another consideration that was taken into account was the time that elapses since the operation. Sometimes, decades pass until Israel admits to something, or enables the publication of information on security-related incidents.
Security officials noted that the Israeli silence doesn't seem logical after the Americans officially reported about the Israeli attack but that there are still justifications related to strategic aspects in general and future operations in particular.
“Sometimes you think, here we have a civil war in Syria, so it’s a good time to open up because they won’t do anything, but the intelligence information may attest to precisely the opposite, that this will be used by the regime to divert attention," the officials say.
