In the middle of December 2018, two senior members of the Shin Bet brought the following news to the office of former Lt. Gen. Chief of Staff (COS) and now head of the Blue and White party Benny Gantz: Hostile agents had hacked Gantz’ cellular phone and acquired sensitive information that could embarrass him. Gantz’ intentions of entering politics were only made known a short time before, in September 2018.

On Dec. 21, a short piece in the Ma’ariv newspaper announced a “cyber breach” in Gantz’ office but offered no further details. On Dec. 27, Gantz himself announced the establishment of the Israel Resilience party and his intention to run for the premiership. A few more days passed, and on Jan. 8 of this year, Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman announced in a Tel Aviv University convention that “a foreign power” would try to meddle in Israel’s elections via cyber technology. Argaman was clear and incisive. He said he had no idea which party would be favored by said foreign power. However, he added, “I know what I’m talking about.”

The media, including an Al-Monitor article, all thought that Argaman was referring to Russian involvement. Now it turns out that was not the case. Evidently, the Russians intervene in elections via the "accepted method" of creating fake news on social networks via phony accounts, robots and bots. But the power that initiated the cyberattack was Iran. This bombshell was hurled on March 14 into the Israeli campaign’s boiling epicenter in a television report of Channel 12 News: Iran had hacked Gantz’ mobile phone. According to the report, two high-level Shin Bet people warned him that the hacker was likely to use sensitive material against him. Boom.

The hullabaloo that erupted with the announcement continues to this very moment, despite the fact that it was clear from the beginning that Gantz’ mobile phone contained no sensitive security information. Gantz had ended his COS term of office four years earlier and was no longer connected to the security system or to intelligence. There was no concern that any such assets had leaked into Iranian hands. But what did appear on the mobile phone? Here is where we enter the private domain. Social networks were flooded with rumors regarding the contents of the hacked device. A furious Gantz told the senior members of his party — Yair Lapid and the two former chiefs of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi and Moshe Ya’alon — that no such intimate video clip existed, as certain agents had circulated to the public. Beyond that, he refused to address the issue and resolutely insisted that “no one can blackmail me.” In other words, he was saying that no foreign agents had access to sensitive information about him that could (theoretically) be used as blackmail. These announcements did not calm the flames; perhaps even the reverse is true.