Outgoing Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) Director Ronen Bar told the Israeli Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, on Monday that the government’s decision to fire him was motivated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s expectation of personal loyalty.
“It was made clear to me that if a constitutional crisis arises, I must obey the prime minister and not the High Court,” the security chief wrote in an affidavit he submitted as part of petitions filed against his dismissal.
According to Bar, the prime minister requested “on more than one occasion” that he act contrary to the General Security Service Law, which aims to regulate the Shin Bet’s operations, including by asking him to look into the funds fueling ongoing anti-government protests.
“In all such cases, these requests were denied,” he stated. “In many instances, Netanyahu asked me to discuss these criteria at the end of work meetings and made sure that the stenographer and the military secretary left the room so the exchanges would not be documented.”
Bar claimed that Netanyahu’s insistence that the Shin Bet director was at least in part responsible for the failure to prevent the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught was an attempt to “divert public discourse away from examining the political and security causes that led to the massacre.
“The actions taken by the Shin Bet overnight did not lead the security system to thwart the murderous attack that had been meticulously planned over many years,” he said, adding that a “comprehensive” internal probe was conducted to prevent a repeat of the massacre.
Accusing Netanyahu of waging a campaign of “incitement” against him, Bar noted the connection between the timing of investigations into the Prime Minister’s Office and his dismissal. He requested to elaborate further on these issues in the confidential portion of the affidavit.
Responding to Netanyahu’s main charge of “personal and professional distrust,” Bar concluded, “I see no legitimate basis for my dismissal on the grounds of ‘lack of trust’ by the government and its leader.”
Bar noted that while he is set to announce his resignation soon due to the Oct. 7 failure, proceedings in the case could potentially “impact the ability of the agency to fulfill its mission and duties over the long term.”
The Prime Minister’s Office, in a response, slammed Bar’s version of events as “a false affidavit, which will be refuted in the near future.”
Netanyahu announced on March 16 his intention to dismiss Bar, declaring, “I have an ongoing lack of trust in the Shin Bet chief.”
The Cabinet unanimously approved the premier’s motion to dismiss Bar four days later. The proposal cited Netanyahu’s distrust of Bar, deemed detrimental to both the government and the internal security service.
According to Section 3 of Israel’s General Security Service Law, the government has the authority to “terminate the term of office of the head of the [Israel Security] Agency before the end of his term.”
However, Israel’s top court barred Netanyahu from firing Bar, alleging a conflict of interest on Netanyahu’s part in an April 8 injunction ruling.
The Prime Minister’s Office called the ruling is “puzzling,” and that it is “unthinkable that the government is prevented from firing a failed Shin Bet director only because of the initiation of an investigation that’s not related to any of the government ministers,” in reference to the probe into some PMO employees who were reportedly implicated in the “Qatargate” affair involving the staffers’ alleged dealings with Doha.