The book that didn't exist shows up

Channel 10 reporter had implied book by British intelligence agent that Netanyahu said he was reading didn't exist.

By HERB KEINON
Securing the State 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Securing the State 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
At the end of Wednesday night’s segment of Channel 10’s Hamakor show alleging that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu double-billed for two trips abroad, the co-presenter of the investigative program, Ofer Shelah, said that while it was possible to draw conclusions from the report, he wanted to tell a little story.
He then went on to say that in a Channel 2/YouTube interview last week, the prime minister, when asked by someone named Noa what book he was reading, answered that he was reading one called Security of the State by a British agent.
Shelah said that he went to the Internet to search for a book by that name.
“There is no book with that name, or a similar name,” he said. “I didn’t find a book by a British agent.”
Shelah said he could have been mistaken and couldn’t find the book, so he called Netanyahu’s spokesman, who “until this time” did not tell him what book he was reading.
“The question is, I am not saying, God forbid, that the prime minister is lying about the book that he is reading, but how does that happen?” he asked, leaving the impression that Netanyahu was playing hard and fast with the truth.
It just so happens, however, that about a week before that interview, Netanyahu flew down to see work on the new security barrier on the Egyptian border, and took some journalists – including this reporter – with him on the helicopter.
On that helicopter ride he was reading a book called Securing the State, by David Omand, formerly the UK’s security and intelligence co-coordinator responsible for controlling the overall direction for the British prime minister of the country’s counter-terrorism strategy.