Netanyahu
Moves to Fire Israel’s Domestic Intelligence Chief
The Israeli
prime minister’s effort to remove the Shin Bet chief is raising concerns about
whether he was seeking to undermine the agency’s independence.
Ronen Bar,
the Shin Bet director, at a memorial in Jerusalem in October.Credit...Pool
photo by Gil Cohen-Magen
By Adam
Rasgon and Natan Odenheimer
Reporting
from Jerusalem
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/world/middleeast/israel-netanyahu-firing-intelligence-chief.html
March 16,
2025
Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he was taking action to oust
the director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, raising
concerns among critics that he was seeking to undermine its independence.
Mr.
Netanyahu’s effort to fire Ronen Bar, the head of the powerful agency,
underscored longstanding tensions between the prime minister and leading
members of Israel’s security establishment, who have clashed over the handling
of the war in Gaza.
The decision
to pursue Mr. Bar’s termination also came in the wake of Shin Bet
investigations into allegations against several Netanyahu aides, including that
one allegedly leaked a secret document to a foreign newspaper.
The prime
minister’s office said that Mr. Netanyahu had informed Mr. Bar that a draft
resolution for his ouster would be presented to the Israeli cabinet this week
for approval.
But in a
letter, Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, said Mr. Netanyahu wasn’t
allowed to even begin the process until a determination was made about the
legality of terminating Mr. Bar. She said there were concerns that it would be
a conflict of interest for Mr. Netanyahu.
Members of
Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition have demanded the prime minister fire Mr. Bar for
what they say is his undermining of the prime minister. They have also called
for firing Ms. Baharav-Miara, who has long had a strained relationship with Mr.
Netanyahu.
Any decision
to remove Mr. Bar, who has led the agency since 2021, would also probably be
appealed to the Supreme Court.
In a
recorded video message posted on social media, Mr. Netanyahu said the firing
was necessary because he didn’t trust Mr. Bar.
“At any time
— especially during an existential war like this one — there must be complete
trust between the prime minister and the director of the Shin Bet,” he said.
Mr. Bar
fired back with a strongly worded public statement, saying Mr. Netanyahu’s
expectation of “personal trust” was in opposition to the public’s interests.
“It’s a
fundamentally flawed expectation that is in contravention with the Shin Bet law
and statesmanship,” he said in a rare public statement.
Mr. Bar said
he had previously told Mr. Netanyahu that he planned to stay in his post until
the return of all hostages held in Gaza and the completion of a number of
sensitive investigations. He also said he wanted to finish preparing two people
whom he described as candidates to succeed him.
The move to
terminate Mr. Bar followed the removal in the last several months of two other
security leaders who were often at odds with the prime minister: the defense
minister and the Israeli military’s chief of staff.
Former
members of the Shin Bet have raised concerns about the possibility of Mr.
Netanyahu’s nominating a successor to Mr. Bar based on political
considerations.
“Israeli
democracy is on a crash course,” said Ami Ayalon, a former head of the Shin
Bet. If the prime minister manages to oust Mr. Bar, it would be “another step
toward turning Israel into a state that prioritizes personal loyalty to the
leader above all else,” he said.
This month,
the Shin Bet publicized a summary of its inquiry into agency failures before
and during the Hamas-led October 2023 attack that was critical of both Mr.
Netanyahu’s government and the agency. While the summary acknowledged the Shin
Bet had failed to provide a warning of the attack, it said it had warned that
Hamas had not been deterred in preceding months and had recommended taking
action against the militant group.
The report
also said the Shin Bet had informed the government that political divisions in
Israel had emboldened its adversaries, putting the country in a vulnerable
position. This finding was widely seen as pointing a finger at Mr. Netanyahu’s
government, which had pushed a controversial judicial overhaul that divided the
Israeli public.
Adam Rasgon
is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian
affairs. More about Adam Rasgon
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