An Israeli court lifted a gag order on Tuesday from a criminal investigation within the Shin Bet security service, which critics called the latest abuse of power by its topmost officers against the government.
According to the details cleared for publication by the Lod District Court, a Shin Bet officer has been under arrest for the past week, allegedly for stealing classified material and leaking it to a journalist and a cabinet minister.
The leak was to expose an attempt by Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar to demonstrate without evidence that the far-right was taking over the Israel Police to hurt the cabinet minister in charge of it, said the journalist Amit Segal.
The affair is the latest development in a power struggle between Bar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who recently tried to fire Bar but was blocked due to judicial intervention. The struggle is part of a broader clash between elected and unelected officials, whom Netanyahu recently called “the deep state.”
The Lod District Court extended the remand of the arrested officer, Makor Rishon reported. He is suspected of stealing classified information, the Shin Bet said in a statement.
Segal, the Channel 12 journalist who received information from the arrested officer, published a document, undersigned by Ronen Bar, dated Sept. 26, 2024.
“Generally speaking, we have identified the spread of Kahanism into law enforcement institutions as a dangerous phenomenon, whose prevention is part of Shin Bet’s mission. In light of the involvement of individuals from the political echelon, this should be done intelligently and cautiously. We must continue to collect evidence and testimonies as to the political echelon’s involvement in the activities of the security one, with respect to exercising forces illegally, and come up with several findings,” the document reads.
The mention of Kahanism, referencing the late right-winger Rabbi Meir Kahane of the Kach movement, is widely understood to be an indictment of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose office is responsible for the police. Ben-Gvir, who has said he agrees with Kahane on some things but disagrees on others, is a longtime critic of the Shin Bet.
The investigation revealed nothing but angered many supporters of the government, who viewed it as an unsanctioned attempt by a rogue spy agency to dig up dirt on a politician.
‘A slippery and dangerous slope’
Matters escalated after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara included references to the investigation in an affidavit to the High Court of Justice advising against Ben-Gvir’s reinstatement as a cabinet minister last month, Segal wrote on X on Tuesday. Segal did not say where he received the information upon which the narrative is based.
Baharav-Miara and Bar were pressed to substantiate the allegation, to which they had no proof, Segal wrote, creating “an embarrassment.” The officer’s arrest is part of score settling, “a hunt for the person who showed them up,” added Segal, one of Israel’s most prominent political analysts and investigative journalists.
Shin Bet did not address these allegations in a statement it made about the officer’s arrest.
“As part of the investigation, a Shin Bet employee was suspected of exploiting his security position and direct access to Shin Bet information systems to obtain classified information and transfer it to unauthorized parties, on several occasions and in a secret manner,” Shin Bet wrote.
Netanyahu reported on X a scathing condemnation of Bar by the prime minister’s Likud party, calling the latest affair “another shocking and dangerous” occurrence under Bar. He has “turned parts of the Shin Bet into a private militia of the deep state that undermines the rule of law and the foundations of democracy,” the statement said.
Amichai Chikli, the cabinet minister who is said to have received leaks from the arrested Shin Bet officer, attended the hearing on extending the officer’s remand. He called the officer, whose name has not been made public, a “hero” and rejected claims made against him in court that he had betrayed public trust and was “unhinged.”
Shin Bet director “Ronen Bar is the one who’s betrayed the public’s trust and is unhinged,” Chikli told reporters.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a statement: “The State of Israel is on a slippery and dangerous slope towards the loss of democracy and the dictatorial rule of a security and legal junta. We will not let this pass and return Israel to the people.”
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said, “The head of the Shin Bet acts as if he has a private intelligence organization that can conduct a political hunting campaign.” This is “not new,” he said, but “more and more brave people are coming out and revealing what is really happening here today and what has happened here in secret for many years.”
Shirit Avitan Cohen, a political analyst for Israel Hayom, listed many recent leaks to the media about Shin Bet’s work, and the absence of criminal investigations around those leaks. “It looks like selective enforcement,” she wrote.
The affair comes on the heels of a series of leaks earlier this month that have recently cast a shadow over the Shin Bet’s reputation under Bar.
Those leaks involved senior figures in the Shin Bet’s Jewish Department, including a suspended officer known as “A.” In one recording, “A.” dismisses a judge’s authority to review classified materials related to the arrest of a Jewish suspect, using coarse language that has sparked outrage and concern over the agency’s conduct.
A. suspended himself from his post following the publication of an earlier leaked recording in which he appeared to say that he arrested Jews in Judea and Samaria without cause.
In yet another recording, the deputy head of the Jewish Department appeared to threaten into cooperation a police officer who was later arrested for alleged preferential treatment of Jews in Judea and Samaria. Netanyahu called this an attempt to “blackmail” the officer, Avishai Muallem.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has thrown her support behind Bar, insisting that his removal would pose a conflict of interest given ongoing investigations by Shin Bet into claims Qatar had paid some people on Netanyahu’s staff. Netanyahu said the investigation was part of an attempt by Shin Bet and Baharav-Miara to oust him from power.
Netanyahu’s cabinet voted to fire both Bar and Baharav-Miara. She has not yet been dismissed. Bar’s dismissal is pending a ruling by the High Court of Justice, which earlier this month suspended indefinitely the government’s decision to fire him.
The attorney general was derelict in her duties for refusing to offer her services to the government and obstructing its efforts to seek counsel elsewhere, Justice Minister Yariv Levin has said.
Netanyahu said he did not have confidence in Bar following Oct. 7, 2023, and that his lack of confidence has grown since. Bar headed Shin Bet on Oct. 7, 2023. On that day, about 6,000 Hamas and Palestinian terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel, killed 1,200 people and abducted another 251 back into the Gaza Strip.