The Issue of Abandonment
- The third and final issue is the issue of abandonment. In this regard, the petitioners and the Counsel claim that Maj. Goffman refrained from disclosing to the investigative authorities, after the arrest of Mr. Almakais, the fact that the latter was operated with his approval, by the 210th Division. As a result, according to the claim, Mr. Almakais was harmed, as the connection between him and the IDF was not properly clarified in the framework of the security and criminal investigation. I am of the opinion that the said accusation against General Goffman is wrong, and even does him an injustice. In order to understand this, it is important to divide the timeline into two: the period prior to the interrogation of Major Tzur at the IIBAM (hereinafter: the period prior to August 10, 2022); and the period following the interrogation of Major Tzur at the ICBM (hereinafter: the period after August 10, 2022). I will refer to these periods in a reversal of the chronological order.
- The period after August 10, 2022: As noted, on August 10, 2022, Maj. Tzur was interrogated by the IUCN in connection with the Almakais affair. This interrogation, which took place about two and a half months after Mr. Almakayes's arrest, is, according to the available information, the first time that any member of the 210th Division was interrogated in connection with the affair (and this, as was clarified, not because the connection between Major Tzur and Mr. Almakais was not known to the investigators, but in light of their justified assessment that it had no relevance to the leak of information that was at the center of the security and criminal investigation (see above at paragraphs 77-81)). A few hours later, Maj. Goffman called the head of the Investigations Department at the IUCN and explicitly informed him that he had approved Major Tzur's request to Mr. Almaqais: "[Maj. Gen. Goffman] wished to clarify that he had authorized [Maj. Tzur] to contact bloggers dealing with Syria in order to gather information and for the purposes of influence" (paragraph 6 of the summary of the security investigation of Ras)and section 6(a) of the Census Update). It follows that at this time Major General Goffman assumed full responsibility for the operation of Mr. Almakais by the 210th Division, and it is difficult to understand how any claim can be made against him on this level from that date onwards.
To these simple and clear words, I would like to add three comments: