Netanyahu’s Unannounced UAE Visit and the Wrong Use of Military Censorship

Israel has operated military censorship for nearly its entire history. That arrangement may look unusual in a democracy, but it has a legitimate rationale. For much of its existence, Israel has faced war or the credible prospect of war, and some information plainly cannot be released in real time. If Hezbollah, for example, launches a missile at Israeli territory, publishing the exact impact point could help the attacker assess the accuracy of its strike and improve it in future.

That is national security. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s secret trip to Abu Dhabi belongs to a different category.

Netanyahu traveled to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for a one-hour meeting with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The visit was kept confidential until Israel’s Channel 12 reported it while Netanyahu was still abroad. His office later said the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, had lodged a complaint accusing Channel 12 of breaching censorship rules.

Israel and the UAE maintain diplomatic ties. Netanyahu was not entering an enemy country to conduct covert negotiations or moving under threat of public exposure. There may be legitimate reasons to limit public knowledge of a prime minister’s movements, but military censorship is a final resort, not a routine cover for awkward diplomatic moments.

In this case, however, the embarrassment appears to be political.

The Associated Press reported that a person with direct knowledge of the meeting said Netanyahu asked Sheikh Mohamed to deny an earlier report that the Emirati president had warned him of an impending Hamas attack shortly before October 7, 2023. Netanyahu’s office rejected the claim that any such request was made and said the meeting concerned only strengthening relations between Israel and the UAE.

The original report touches one of Netanyahu’s most acute political vulnerabilities. Since October 7, he has struggled to manage responsibility for the sweeping failures that preceded the Hamas attack. Evidence that a friendly Arab leader personally warned him of a major Hamas operation in advance would be politically damaging.

If the account of Sunday’s meeting is correct, the Israeli prime minister flew at public expense to a friendly capital and used a meeting with its president to try to rebut a report that harmed his standing. Then, after an Israeli television network revealed that the trip had taken place, military censorship was invoked.

On September 8, the UAE Foreign Ministry did not deny either the call or the warning. In an official statement, it said it does not comment on reported conversations between leaders, then noted that the UAE and Israel maintain direct communications and that, when needed, relevant intelligence is shared between the appropriate authorities.

On September 20, an unnamed UAE official gave a more pointed response to The National. The official rejected the claim that Sheikh Mohamed personally spoke with Netanyahu and conveyed the warning, saying security matters are handled through the relevant professional institutions and that details of that kind are not discussed at the leaders’ level.

A direct denial from Sheikh Mohamed would have carried obvious political value. The reported phone call goes to the question that has haunted Netanyahu since October 7: what did he know before the attack, and when did he know it?

That is not the purpose of military censorship.

The episode also fits a widening pattern. Under Netanyahu, the boundary between the prime minister’s personal interests and the state’s has become uncomfortably porous.

For years, controversies have surrounded the Netanyahu family’s use of public resources, official travel and state expenses. The details can seem petty, even comic: another hotel stay, another disputed bill, another extended overseas trip involving him and his wife, Sara. Fixating on individual receipts, however, misses the larger significance.

Military censorship is not a public relations tool

A government aircraft is not the prime minister’s personal plane. Israel’s diplomatic relationships are not his private connections. Its security agencies are not his political staff. Military censorship is not his public relations office. These institutions belong to the state, and the considerable powers they command are entrusted temporarily to the people in office.

That distinction matters especially now.

Israel is moving toward an election after three extraordinary years of war. Netanyahu’s political future is uncertain. His government’s responsibility for October 7 remains one of the central unresolved questions facing the country. Major decisions involving Gaza, Iran and Israel’s wider security are being made in the final weeks of an increasingly sharp campaign.

There is already speculation in Israel that another confrontation with Iran could become entangled with Netanyahu’s political predicament. No evidence has emerged that he has decided to start a war for electoral reasons, and any military action would have to be judged by the security circumstances at the time.

Yet Netanyahu himself has helped create the conditions in which Israelis now ask that question.

A prime minister needs the public to believe that when he uses the powers of the state, he does so because the state’s interests require it. Once those powers repeatedly appear tied to his personal political needs, that trust erodes. In Netanyahu’s case, with the exception of his hard-core supporters, it has largely disappeared.

That is a dangerous situation for a democracy at war. If fighting resumes and Israelis again spend nights in shelters, they need to know that the decision was driven by national security — not by a politician lagging in the polls.

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