There are moments in a nation’s history when a single act exposes a deeper sickness. The resignation of Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, Israel’s former Military Advocate General, is one of them. The official charged with upholding the law within the Israel Defense Forces has admitted to authorizing the leak of confidential footage from an active criminal investigation, a leak that may have been edited, politically motivated, and timed to harm Israel’s soldiers in the midst of war.
The leaked footage came from security cameras inside the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel. Broadcast on Israeli television, it appeared to show soldiers surrounding and abusing a Palestinian detainee. What viewers did not see were the minutes before or after, nor the broader context of the violent environment in which these soldiers were operating. The clip was edited, stripped of sequence, and released while the case was still under investigation. By the time the facts could be examined, the damage was already done: soldiers were branded as criminals, and Israel’s name was dragged through the mud on the basis of a video that told only part of the story.
This was not moral courage. It was ideological vanity. The decision to release that footage and then mislead investigators about it reflects the politicization of law in its most dangerous form. The nation’s top military lawyer used her authority not to preserve justice but to advance a narrative. The damage cannot be undone with a resignation letter; it has shattered public faith in the office meant to protect the law.
Tomer-Yerushalmi was a product of an ideology that prizes performance over principle. She came from a culture that measures virtue by how loudly one condemns one’s own side. Her background in progressive bureaucracies, steeped in the moral theater of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” made her an ideal symbol for a political establishment desperate to appear enlightened. The “change government” that appointed her did so because she mirrored its worldview.
So when confronted with allegations of abuse at Sde Teiman, she chose spectacle over process. The goal was not justice but demonstration, to show the world that Israel is “better than its enemies,” even if it meant undermining those who defend it. In the progressive imagination, moral standing depends on public self-criticism, not truth. The irony is that this posture erases the very moral distinctions Israel fights to preserve.
Of course, if soldiers openly violate the IDF’s code of ethics, they must be held accountable. That is a cornerstone of Israel’s moral strength. But the key word is appropriately. Justice must be carried out through evidence, due process, and the rule of law — not through public humiliation orchestrated by the very official charged with ensuring fairness. The idea that the head of military investigations would leak against her own soldiers is unthinkable in any functioning democracy. It betrays not only them, but the integrity of the institution itself.
The result was disastrous. By leaking footage from an ongoing case, she handed Israel’s adversaries a propaganda gift, imagery equating defenders with aggressors, justice with barbarism. She not only endangered faith within Israel’s justice system but also weakened its moral standing abroad. Every false comparison between Israel and its enemies now carries the stain of her decision. Soldiers under her jurisdiction were turned into props in an international morality play, condemned before trial and abandoned by their own system.
Then came the cover-up. When the leak was traced toward her office, she did not come forward. Reports suggest she allowed a sham internal inquiry to proceed, deceiving colleagues until exposure became inevitable. Such conduct does not merely break rules; it corrodes the moral core of the legal system.
Now Israelis and allies alike have reason to question whether the Military Advocate General’s office can be trusted at all. When the IDF’s chief legal official treats the law as a political instrument, what confidence can any soldier or citizen have in military justice? That erosion of trust is more dangerous to a democracy than any external threat. Armies run on discipline, but nations endure on faith — faith that their institutions act in good conscience and that justice is more than a slogan.
This crisis is not bureaucratic but spiritual. When virtue signaling replaces moral clarity and ideology supplants law, justice becomes theater. Israel’s strength has never rested solely on its military power; it rests on the belief that power must answer to righteousness. If the institutions meant to preserve that belief become corrupted, the entire foundation of the nation trembles.
Faith in justice will not be restored by new titles or press releases. It will only return through a renewed devotion to first principles: truth over image, duty over ideology, and courage over self-promotion. Israel’s defenders deserve a system that honors their service with integrity. The world may not see the difference between a free nation’s errors and a terror regime’s evil, but Israel’s leaders must.
For the sake of justice, its soldiers, and its soul, Israel must restore that faith. Nothing less will do.
