A position of trust is not a recommendation: what you saw and heard - take with you to the grave

Like many, I also watched the interviews given by Yoav Horowitz, who served as Benjamin Netanyahu's chief of staff for four years and finished his tenure in 2019.

In one of the interviews, he even said that he was appointed to the position as a position of trust. According to the official definition, a position of trust is "a role that requires a special degree of personal trust between the employer and the employee. Roles defined as positions of trust are usually senior positions with special conditions and include management, decision-making, and exposure to sensitive information."

When senior officials, and certainly a prime minister, appoint a chief of staff or a director-general alongside them as a position of trust, they must feel that they are allowed to take off the public mask in their presence and behave freely. To talk about everything, to conduct personal conversations in their presence, as well as official conversations, knowing that the same employee who was accepted as a position of trust will never reveal what they saw and heard.

I never understood the conduct of those who finish a position, and when it seems appropriate to them, for personal or other reasons, they begin to reveal secrets from their time working with that employer.

Even if Horowitz's words might politically harm Netanyahu — and I doubt it — and hasten his departure from the national stage, I oppose this with all my heart.

Horowitz, you were appointed to a position of trust, you were exposed to things — take them with you to the grave. It is impossible that a prime minister should have to think twice before speaking on the phone in front of his chief of staff. It is incomprehensible that a prime minister or his household members — who in the specific case of the Netanyahu family deserve all the criticism leveled at them — cannot conduct themselves freely next to a person appointed to a position of trust. Of course, there is a caveat to this, and the only caveats are if that position-of-trust holder is exposed to treason against the state, embezzlement of state funds, or any criminal offense of any kind. Their duty at that very second is to leave everything, report to the police, and resign from their position.

In Horowitz's case, he waited about six years(!) until he devoted himself to interviews and revealed some of the secrets he was exposed to. Other secrets he revealed by saying: "I do not deny that it happened." If Horowitz thought Netanyahu should go home, why did he wait so many years? After all, since he resigned, we have been dragged through countless election campaigns. If he thought there was a danger in his continued tenure, why did he wait and not warn?

According to him, the October 7 massacre broke him. And yet, why three years, and only after he joined Gadi Eizenkot, when we are 77 days before a dramatic election, did he remember to share his concerns with us? As a result, the exposure of the Netanyahu family's secrets was painted in problematic political colors.

It is not certain that the result of his exposure will not be the opposite. Netanyahu's loyalists and also Netanyahu's swing voters do not tolerate the defamation of the admired leader. In such a situation, they close ranks around him. It was not surprising that in the latest Channel 11 poll, the Likud rose by one mandate. On the other side, all the stories of the Netanyahu family's exploits are already embodied in the polls.

A final word: the terrible racism running on social media against Muslim medical personnel is shameful and disgusting. Not Jewish. By the way, they, unlike Jewish medical personnel, do not leave the country claiming that it is hard to live here.