In his statement to the Commission, Mr. Almakais claimed that he was being investigated, among other things, about information received by Mars"and for acts he committed in the course of his operation for the 210th Division. According to him, he repeatedly claimed to his interrogators that he was operated by Rass"Tzur lawfully, but they did not believe him (due to his abandonment by Major General Goffman)."And that's how I was perceived as unreliable, and even when I told them that the material they claimed to be classified was on the Internet and there were links, they told me that as far as they were concerned it was not true(Transcript of Mr. Almakais's statement to the Committee dated May 21, 2026, at pp. 14, 15 and 22. See: section 50 of the supplementary reference on his behalf). However, this hypothesis of Mr. Almakais has no support for the evidence. Beyond the fact that it casts aspersions on the professionalism of the interrogators, it is inconsistent with the records of the ISA interrogations that were submitted to us (which show that Mr. Almakais's claims regarding the operation by the 210th Division did not fall on deaf ears).
- Second, it is necessary to clarify the conduct of Maj. Goffman from his own point of view, according to the information he had in his possession between May and August 2022. Even if, in practice, General Goffman's actions did not affect the criminal proceedings against Mr. Almakais, should he have assumed, on the basis of his very partial knowledge at the time, that by his actions (and omissions) he was abandoning Mr. Almakais? The answer to this, to the best of my impression, is also negative. According to the evidence presented to the Commission, this is the main information that Maj. Gen. Goffman had prior to Mr. Almakais's arrest:
- Gen. Goffman instructed Maj. Tzur to transmit to the Telegram channel only unclassified information, especially one that had already been published in the media (see above at paragraph 80 and Maj. Tzur's statement to the committee, at p. 5). Hence, any leak of security information passed through Mr. Almakais was not supposed to be connected to the 210th Division, unless General Goffman's instructions were violated.
- According to the memorandum, the Chief of Staff explained to Maj. Goffman that the affair under investigation related to suspicions of leaking intelligence information from the IDF, and that, at most, there was only a "certain branch" of the affair in the 210th Division (ibid., in section B(2)). The Chief of Staff also instructed Goffman not to discuss the interrogation with any party in the division, due to concerns that it would be disrupted.
- Major Tzur saw a report of a person's arrest, and since Mr. Almakais had stopped posting updates on his Telegram channel, Major Tzur thought that he might have been arrested (Maj. Tzur's second statement to the committee, at p. 5). According to him, he informed his commanders of this, and they informed General Goffman (see above, paragraph 96).
Insofar as Maj. Gen. Goffman assumed, at this stage, that Mr. Almakais had not been given any intelligence information from the division under his command, then he should have assumed that the competent investigative authorities in Israel had arrested Mr. Almakais on the basis of well-founded suspicions unrelated to his operation by the 210th Division. As noted, such an assessment was also anchored in the words given by the Chief of Staff in the examination call. Indeed, in this state of affairs, Maj. Gen. Goffman should have reported to an authorized official (at the very least, the Operations Brigade) about the connection between the division and Mr. Almakais, if only for the sake of clarity of mind - However, his refusal to do so certainly does not constitute "abandonment" on the part of Mr. Almakais, since on the basis of the partial information that Major General Goffman had, he should have assumed that there were well-founded suspicions against Mr. Almakais that did not relate to the 210th Division. It is possible, on the other hand, that Maj. Gen. Goffman believed, when he learned of Mr. Almakais' arrest, that there was also the possibility of a"Tzur provided Mr. Almakais with intelligence information (contrary to the instructions he gave), and that this information is one of the topics of the investigation being conducted against Mr. Almakais. Even under such a scenario, it would have been better if Maj. Gen. Goffman had reported to competent authorities the connection between the division and Mr. Almakais and his instructions to Ras"N. Tzur. However, even in this state of affairs, it cannot be said that Maj. Gen. Goffman "abandoned" Mr. Almakais since, according to this scenario, Mr. Almakais did indeed receive unauthorized leaks of intelligence information from the 210th Division - It is good and desirable that these be investigated without the intervention of the division commander. In such a situation, in any case, there was no error in the IDF's update to the investigators in the first place, according to which the intelligence leak was not carried out as part of an IDF operation that was carried out with approval.
- In addition to all of the above, one more important fact must be remembered: Mr. Almakais was not held, God forbid, by enemy elements, and was not interrogated by foreign security authorities. He was interrogated by the State of Israel's security services and by the Israel Police on serious suspicions of publishing classified information. In this state of affairs, the use of the terms of "abandonment" towards someone who allows the interrogation to proceed as usual is misplaced. The fact that Maj. Goffman did not report that the 210th Division also operated Mr. Almakais in a manner that has nothing to do with the leak of the information that was investigated, may, at most, indicate a flaw in his judgment. However, the argument against Maj. Gen. Goffman is a different one, and much more serious, and as such it cannot stand: a person who does not intervene in an investigation conducted by the competent authorities in Israel, due to suspicions that, to the best of his knowledge and beliefs, have nothing to do with him, does not "abandon" the interrogee. Even if he does not provide information that is not directly related to these suspicions, he does not "abandon" the interrogee (as I detailed above, Maj. Gen. Goffman could have assumed, on the basis of the information he had at the time, that the interrogees' suspicions were not related to the authorization he gave to Major Tzur, and as it turned out in practice, they did focus on other issues). The fact that in retrospect the indictment against Mr. Almakais was also dismissed with regard to the leak of information from Intelligence Directorate officials, and it might have been better if it had not been filed in the first place, is wisdom after the fact, which cannot be attributed to Maj. Gen. Goffman's condemnation - not from a consequential point of view, not even from a moral point of view.
Conclusion
- The conclusion that emerges from the aforesaid analysis is that the evidentiary platform before us does not provide support for the narrative of lies and abandonment hurled at General Goffman by the petitioners, but rather fits well with the narrative of moral correctness presented by him, and adopted by the position of the members of the majority opinion in the Advisory Committee and the Prime Minister. I will reiterate - my conclusion is not that Maj. Goffman acted properly in the framework of the Almakais affair. There is no dispute that in the Almakis affair, Maj. Gen. Goffman acted improperly (after all, he himself reiterated that he was aware that he had made a mistake, and that he even received a command note for his part in the affair). See: paragraph 177 of Maj. Gen. Goffman's preliminary response). However, the distance between a failure of conduct and a defect in moral integrity is significant - and in the context of fitness to serve in a public position as head of the Mossad, it is crucial.
- In light of all of the above, I found no reason to intervene in the Prime Minister's decision to appoint Maj. Goffman to the position of head of the Mossad, even in view of the deficiencies in the conduct of the Advisory Committee, and in fact the strict standard by which claims of a defect in the integrity of a candidate for head of the Mossad should be examined. Therefore, if my opinion is heard, we will rule that the petitions should be dismissed. In the totality of the circumstances, I will suggest that no order for expenses was made.
| Ofer Grosskopf |