Mossad denies Likud MK’s claims it met protest leaders in rare statement

The Mossad chief David Barnea did not meet with protest leader Shikma Bressler, contrary to claims made by MK Tally Gotliv, the Mossad said in a statement released via the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday night.

Bressler, at an event for companies and other members of the judicial reform protest movement on Tuesday, said, “If I had been in Tel Aviv, I would have joined [the clashes].”

Fighting broke out in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square on September 24 as Yom Kippur began with the Kol Nidrei prayer and some worshipers tried to set up partitions to separate men and women, which the Tel Aviv municipality and the High Court of Justice had banned because it was a public space.

As the prayer service began, protesters showed up to demonstrate against gender segregation, and the disagreement devolved into fighting.

Bressler’s comments and Tally Gotliv’s claims

“We are under attack on countless fronts,” said Bressler on Tuesday. “They tried to say that we are leftists and it didn’t work for them. They tried to say that we are against [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and it didn’t work for them. Now they are trying to say that we are not Jews and that won’t work for them either.”

“This is not a religious war,” she said, responding to a statement from United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni who called the Yom Kippur clashes a “religious war.” 

Bressler posited instead that “this is a war for the basic values…in the face of extremism that comes to divide and [stir up] conflict.”

Later on Tuesday, Likud MK Tally Gotliv took to X to discuss Bressler’s activity. “I heard,” wrote Gotliv, “that Ms. Shikma Bressler, the one who thought that right-wing elected officials were Nazis, met personally with the head of the Mossad. I also heard that someone rushed to issue a gag order on this.”

שמעתי שהגב׳ מחאה שיקמה ברסלר,זאת שחשבה שנבחרי ציבור מהימין הם נאצים, ניפגשה בפגישה אישית עם ראש המוסד. עוד שמעתי שמישהו מיהר להוציא צו איסור פרסום על כך.טוב יש לי חסינות מהותית וצווים שיפוטיים לא חלים עלי.מישהו מוכן לתת הסבר לפגישה הזו?תמימה היא לא, שאחרת לא היו אוסרים לפרסמה

— טלי גוטליב (@TallyGotliv) October 3, 2023

Gotliv then implied that Bressler was guilty of a crime so heinous that it was being dealt with by the Mossad. 

Soon after Gotliv’s X post went online, the PMO issued a statement on behalf of the Mossad stating: “[This is] totally fake news. The Director of the Mossad did not meet with Shikma Bressler.

Ariella Marsden contributed to this report.

JPost