An open letter to the BOD of Facebook concerning illegal collusion with Netanyahu to tilt Israeli elections
Over the last three years, I have uncovered the details of the Netanyahu-Facebook election bribery affair, still going on now, which was responsible for the Knesset’s surprise rejection of the proposed Facebook Law in July 2018.
I had detailed negotiations and communication with Facebook on this matter for the last 3 years (one example), also during 4 legal procedures I’ve launched to our High Court of Justice. I have also recorded meetings and phone calls with official Facebook inc employees and legal representatives here in Israel including as part of a mandatory legal arbitration process between myself, Facebook Inc and Facebook Ireland [one example]. I believe I got a very strong case and I still haven’t found anyone in Facebook denying I do.
This was all kept hidden from you, the Board of Directors of Facebook, because that was, and still is, the only way for them, those within Facebook who colluded with Netanyahu, to get away with it. This must stop.
The so-called Facebook Law made its first appearance in 2016, when Ayelet Shaked and Gilad Erdan, then minister of justice and minister of public security, respectively, circulated a draft to the public. The details of the bill are not important, just the fact that Facebook opposed it. Nor was it the content of the rather inconsequential legislation that frightened Facebook, but rather the principle.
It was the first attempt in Israel to subject the media giant to regulation by ministers and members of Netanyahu’s government coalition.
Facebook knew that passage of the law would whet an appetite among lawmakers for more, and the day would not be far off when it would have to begin accounting for its actions in the country, and also start paying taxes instead of operating in a “paradise” of zero tax and zero regulation that it has enjoyed and enjoys to this day. We’re talking about billions.
What did Facebook do to preserve this ideal operating environment? It created a new position, responsible for relations with Israel’s government, and in June 2016 it appointed to this critical job Jordana Cutler, a close associate of Netanyahu and for years an advisor to Netanyahu and to senior Likud officials. In short, Facebook went out and got itself a lobbyist with strong links to the prime minister of Israel.
Netanyahu’s only interest in the social network was to use it to brainwash its users in Israel with incitement and fake news in order to preserve his rule. Balfour (the Prime Minister’s Residence) did (and is still doing) this by means of a large financial investment and employing a host of prohibited actors and means on the platform. For Netanyahu, advancing the Facebook Law was a way to ensure cooperation and a blind eye on the part of Facebook.
When the Case 2000 media corruption investigation against Netanyahu began in October 2016, Facebook became even more important to Netanyahu. He planned a broad, years-long incitement campaign against the justice system, alleging that he had been framed, using tens of thousands of fictitious Facebook accounts, including one under the fake name Adam Gold to be the public face of some of the planned fake news.
How did Netanyahu think to ensure that Cutler, the liaison with Facebook who had just been appointed, would be attentive to his needs and that the media company would turn a blind eye and even actively assist here and there when necessary? In late December 2016, he authorized Shaked and Erden to pass the Facebook Law in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, and a week later the bill was introduced to the Knesset and passed in its first reading.
All of 2017 went by with no progress made on the proposed Facebook Law other than talk. Its threat hung like a whip over Cutler’s head and over Facebook. The brainwashing department, on the other hand, made a great deal of progress. The incitement on behalf of Netanyahu was at its height, and the nonexistent Gold, thanks to Balfour’s thousands of fictitious accounts, became an internet star, and it all went to the head of the team that was running the account, and they made mistakes.
On December 31, 2017, the Gold team posted a “revealing” post about the supposed radical left-wing beliefs of a senior member of the state prosecution, deactivated the account for a few hours, and spread the lie that the State Attorney’s Office had caused Facebook to block Gold, and when he “returned” to platform, the news sites claimed there had been silencing of political speech, and MK Amir Ohana (later minister of justice and currently minister of public security), employing a great deal of PR, lied and claimed that Gold, a self proclaimed fake account, was able to return online because of a phone call the lawmaker had made to someone in Facebook.
This sting operation against mass awareness was the public culmination of the collaboration between Facebook and Balfour’s propaganda and incitement campaign. Instead of Facebook telling journalists seeking comment on the supposed silencing, that Gold had not been blocked at all and the State Attorney’s Office had never approached it about the matter, Facebook Israel’s PR went along with the lie and verified Balfour’s lies and incitement against the State Attorney’s Office.
To summarize things to this point: For over a year, Balfour’s fictitious account disseminated, through thousands of other fictitious accounts, incitement and conspiracy theories against the justice system. Facebook, instead of blocking Gold and Balfour’s array of imposters behind him as its rules require, helped him to amass exposure and support. At the same time, discussions were held, very slowly, in the Knesset about the proposed Facebook Law.
Until January 1, 2018, I concentrated on my career. I didn’t know anything about the Facebook Law, I didn’t know what Balfour was up to on Facebook and I hadn’t heard of Gold. That all changed that day, when I read in real time Ohana’s post that put the final touch to Balfour’s sting operation, in which he declared his outrage at the supposed silencing of free speech, praised Gold and told the lie that because of his connections at Facebook, Gold was back online. I’ve been on this case ever since. Alone.
For the purpose of concision I would like to make some important highlights regarding events up until that fateful week, seven months after Ohana’s post, when Netanyahu dropped the Facebook Law in exchange for a criminal cover-up of the affair by managers within Facebook, i.e. the “closing” week of the election bribery deal:
1. In March 2018, I got Facebook to block Gold for the first time (if you don’t count the fictitious block that Ohana “lifted”). After 24 hours, Gold returned to the platform, despite the fact that according to Gold “himself” he was a fake profile masking his real identity. Gold was also, according to objective engagement metrics, the most popular account in Facebook Israel.
2. In May 2018, I caused Israel’s Privacy Protection Authority to launch its own investigation into my claims, which ended without results because Facebook refused to respond to the inquiry.
3. In late May 2018, I threatened to sue Facebook Ireland and Inc. and entered into pre-lawsuit negotiations with its representation from the law firm of Herzog, Fox & Neeman.
4. At the end of June 2018, my pressure on Herzog (everything is documented, including recordings of many conversations and dozens of emails) and Herzog’s on Facebook had its effect and Gold was blocked for a second time.
5. Of course, I wasn’t satisfied with that and pressed Facebook through Herzog to expose and put a stop to Balfour’s entire vast array of fictitious accounts that had brought Gold to prominence and to issue a report on the conspiracy as it has done in other countries around the world.
Such a result would have been catastrophic as far as Netanyahu was concerned, because if in late June 2018, after blocking Gold following negotiations under threat of a lawsuit from me, Facebook had acted in accordance with its rules and exposed the illegal operation and handed the materials over to the police, then not only would Netanyahu have lost the most effective tool he had for distorting election results but it is reasonable to assume that more people close to him would have become state’s witnesses against him.
Thus Netanyahu was under a great deal of pressure in July 2018. He needed Facebook to do the opposite of what its attorneys advised and expected. How do I know Herzog understood that I was right and advised Facebook to follow the law and its own regulations? From Herzog. It’s all recorded and/or in emails and there’s a case that hasn’t been opened at the office of Deputy State Attorney for Criminal Matters Shlomo Lemberger.
What did Netanyahu do? He gave the order to speed things up on the Facebook Law, of course. Suddenly, after a year and a half of going nowhere and standing still, on July 15, 2018, the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee voted on the draft law and passed it on for second and third (final) readings in the plenum scheduled for July 18.
The pressure placed on Facebook was clear.
The law would be a precedent-setting snowball that would jeopardize the future loss of billions in addition to regulation. What did Facebook do on July 16, 2018, the day after the bill was approved for second and third readings? It brought the fake Adam Gold back online, two and a half weeks after he was blocked (for the second time) thanks to me and Herzog, Favebook’s law firm.
In addition, Facebook pledged to Netanyahu that in exchange for dropping the bill and covering up the affair, to refrain from upholding the unequivocal rules established by the company’s board of directors regarding fictitious accounts and influencing elections, to give immunity to Balfour’s vast array of illegitimate accounts on the social network, and to ignore the Herzog firm’s imploring to uphold the law.
What did Herzog do? The correct and unthinkable thing. They resigned from representing Facebook in the case and I have not heard from them since that same week back in July 2018.
Meitar Law Offices replaced them, turning a blind eye and cooperating with the criminal cover-up that continues to this day. How do I know Herzog quit the case? From Meitar.
What was Netanyahu’s reaction after Facebook revived Gold and pledged to cover up the affair and preserve his thousands of fictitious accounts? He dropped the Facebook Law in the Knesset on July 18, 2018, surprising Shaked, Erden and Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman Nissan Slomiansky, who had worked on the bill for two years, and only three days earlier had finally been given the green light to run with the law.
Everyone in the Knesset was surprised by Netanyahu’s last-minute downing of the Facebook Law, just before a vote that would have passed it in second and third (final) readings. From conversations with online rights activists who opposed the legislation and who circulated in the Knesset on July 18, 2018, I learned that just before Netanyahu ordered the bill to be dropped, Cutler went to him for a meeting. It’s all clear as day.
All that is needed to bring the matter to light is to launch an investigation. When that happens, Facebook will admit everything (after all, the company’s board of directors is unaware of the affair) and will incriminate its executives who joined Netanyahu for this election bribe.
The allegations laid out here and much more information, evidence and other claims are found in four petitions I filed on the matter, two to the High Court of Justice and two to the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, and in hundreds of pages of evidence.
More comprehensive material, including recordings of conversations and meetings and dozens of significant emails with Herzog and Meitar, also exist at the State Attorney’s Office. I have not yet received a substantive discussion of my claims and Facebook has denied nothing.
Why haven’t you read about this affair in Haaretz or any other news outlet? There’s not a serious journalist in Israel who doesn’t know about this affair; many have been in touch with me and received the materials. I’ve sat down for long meeting with some of them, and they’ve made it clear to me that they’re going for it, and in the end they were nowhere to be found, including the most combative of them. They were silenced, afraid of Facebook.
Why isn’t Facebook blocking me and deleting my posts? It can’t. For them, I’m a whistle-blower exposing real corruption and they do everything they can to stop me from succeeding, but no manager at Facebook will take the risk of silencing me now and then when the affair blows up, wind up sitting in jail.
What’s next? I need this post to reach the board of directors of Facebook, I’m sure most of them know nothing about this scandal and would do the right thing when they get alerted of it.
Pls help spread this. If you know Facebook employees tag them, journalists as well.
I’ll be happy to take questions.
Thanks,
Itai Leshem,
Tel-aviv, Israel.
Email: il.work1[at]gmail.com
Mobile: 972–54–2172720
