Assumption by Mati Cohen:

Yitzhak Herzog was elected president, with part of his political life hidden from the public eye. The said part is the story that was called Ehud Barak's associations and took place on the eve of the1999 elections. This story is not visible to the public because the current president has maintained his right to remain silent during his interrogation under police warning.

If the current president had not kept to himself the information about what happened in the story of Barak's associations and which he knew, whatsoever, this part of his political life would not have been hidden. Therefore, we will never know, the effect of the truth, if it were published: on Ehud Barak, on Yitzhak Herzog and on the political structural and value reality in Israel.

Since Yitzhak Herzog hid from the public all the information he did not release to his interrogators in his interrogation under warning, (because if he were to tell his interrogators everything he knew freely, he would probably share these details with us as well, as the public is the most important address of a leader (. We will also never know whether the current president deserves to be the president of the State of Israel, or perhaps in office No. 1 holds an unworthy person.

That is why tipp.co.il, should file a petition to the Supreme Court, obliging the police to disclose to the public the materials of Yitzhak Herzog's investigation, an investigation that began in 2000 when he was still the cabinet secretary, including video footage, and anything else, from the investigation, that have the power to shed light on the public image of the current president. This is on the assumption that our preliminary request to the police to disclose the investigation materials will be met with a refusal.

In 1999, Herzog and I met at an event that was politically inspired. It seems to me that this was an event in the family of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, to which public figures were invited, but I do not remember exactly what the event was. Yitzhak Herzog told me in a short conversation on the edge of the grass that Ehud Barak promised him that he would be appointed cabinet secretary. It was clear that he was telling me these things, since he had not yet been appointed to the position, and he was wondering between the lines whether Barak would appoint him. I deduced from the tone of the things they said dissatisfied. I thought Herzog was sharing with me, a journalist in the most important media in Israel at the time, to pave the way for our influential edition in case Barak did not keep his promise. It was important for me to know what the motive was, so I also tried to locate it while talking to Herzog, but much more important was whether the story was true, and if it was true, whether it was also newsworthy. Since the story was in my eyes without any news value, at that moment, there was no need to try to verify the information. In any case, the story sounds credible, especially since a short time later, Barak did appoint Herzog secretary of government. The open question is what would have happened if Barak had not kept his promise to Herzog, and not put him in the position. This question became relevant about a year later when Herzog was questioned under warning and maintained his right to remain silent. Now that Yitzhak Herzog is already president, this story is valuable again, and the public is entitled to know if there was any impact on his appointment as secretary of government, on his silence during a police interrogation, and what an important leader's silence on a police investigation looks like. Another question: What, if at all, can the material of the investigation teach us about Barak Herzog's relationship at that time?

Our role as free media is to provide the public with any material we can reach, to shed light, even partial light, on these questions. It is therefore our duty to examine the presumption that a petition to the court may succeed.

In 2003, by the way, Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein decided not to prosecute Herzog in this matter, due to lack of evidence.