Israel’s society, on political, economic, security, or cultural issues, has always been fractured, argumentative, and, at times, nigh irrational. A recent example that has now ignited fratricidal discourse is if Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency), is to keep his job.
The vast majority of the population thought he should have resigned shortly after October 7, 2023. All changed when his public Netanyahu-can’t-fire-me campaign began. Another candidate for removal, IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi, is already gone, as are other senior army officers.
Bar had announced months ago he was resigning. Yet, now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that the time has come for him to resign and if he doesn’t take the hint, he will be fired, Bar insists only he will decide the date of his resignation and it won’t be that soon.
What has seemingly changed his mind are the moves Netanyahu is making, which Bar sees as renewing elements of the judicial reform policy. To this must be added the Feldstein/Ulrich Bild publication affair of secret material relating to Hamas that even Netanyahu was deemed unfit to see, and a supposed “Qatargate” phenomenon of advisors in his bureau who were receiving funds for work on behalf of Qatar.
Previously, as Ohad Merlin wrote on July 2, 2024, it was suspected, according to leaked documents, that Doha funds went to Netanyahu himself. But the story petered out, and it was reported that there was no evidence that any funds had been received from Qatar at all. Money, however, it was claimed, was “offered.” A Likud spokesperson at that time responded, “These are false and illusory news.”
What is astonishing is the assumption that if Bar is not at the helm, then both concerns, the Bild leak and “Qatargate,” will be swept under the carpet. At this stage, to assume that with all the public hullabaloo, there will be no investigation is rather misleading.
Moreover, there are so many other bodies involved, including the state prosecutor’s office and the police, not to mention the media. What is not being investigated are other leaks Netanyahu has complained about.
Another example is former Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman. A fixture at the anti-judicial reform protests for years, he was recently interviewed on Channel 12 television and intimated that he possessed information that would compromise the prime minister; Argaman threatened to make it public if Netanyahu breaks the law.
Revealing material that came to him via his Shin Bet service is, of course, against the law. And if the material’s contents actually are potentially explosive, that he has not yet handed them over to any law enforcement agency or government prosecutorial office would perhaps be criminal in itself, not to mention using it in a threatening manner could be construed as blackmail.
Do all Shin Bet heads lose their tools of logic when Netanyahu is involved?
Bar and Argaman, as well as former Shin Bet heads Ami Ayalon, Yoram Cohen, Yaakov Peri, and Carmi Golan, have all been vocal and active in anti-Netanyahu protests. Two entered politics and served in the Knesset. One wonders if there is a certain ideological gene that has led to this situation.
The real reason, I would suspect, lies in the Shin Bet Law, 2002.
What is the Shin Bet Law (2002)?
Paragraph 7(a) of that law reads, “The service shall be in charge of the protection of state security and the order and institutions of the democratic governing system against threats of terrorism, sabotage, subversion, espionage, and disclosure of state secrets.”Bar and company have presumed the view that “protection” means saving Israel’s democracy as an ideal of political philosophy. I would suggest that is an error, possibly a purposeful one.
What they will protect, through guarding senior government officials, seeking out organizations intent on subverting the government and the general rule of law as well as anti-state terror, internal and external, are the institutions of the system, not the system per se.
That task would place them as arbiters of what is democratic and what isn’t. That would make them a political and ideological collection of individuals engaged in philosophical and intellectual exercises.
The very same law assigns a privilege to the government: “The government may terminate the office of the head of the service prior to the expiration of his term of office.” The law further stipulates that “the service shall be subject to the authority of the government,” and it shall “approve objectives for the service.”
And who is ultimately in charge? “The prime minister shall be in charge of the service on behalf of the government.” And furthermore, “The prime minister is charged with the implementation of this law.”
Ending Ronen’s Bar service is not an illegal action. Even former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, in his now infamous interview last Thursday evening, admitted forthrightly that the government’s decision is very much legal and within its responsibility. He added, though, that were he sitting in judgment, he would halt the firing.
Bar, nevertheless, asserted in his missive that his dismissal would be “a precedent-setting and significant decision.” He then haughtily added, “I have already announced that I do not intend to end my position on the scheduled date,” and to do so now “must be based on detailed and well-founded arguments.”This formulation and others in the long letter indicate that a lawyer, or lawyers, is at work even at this stage of the process.
To compound the situation, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog declared, “It is not possible that fighting be renewed without listening to the voices of the families of the abducted.”
As some of the families, a minority, are demanding an end to the fighting altogether, in tandem with extreme left-wing groups, Israel’s democracy is truly in a bind.
Will the High Court of Justice solve the situation or complicate it?
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.