Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office informed cabinet members on Wednesday night that they would hold a vote the next day at 9:30 p.m on the dismissal of Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, which would mark the first time a government has dismissed the security agency’s chief.
The motion states that Bar will end his tenure on April 20, and cites Netanyahu’s “persistent personal and professional distrust” of him that harms both the government and the security service.
The announcement was made despite a letter sent to the government by the Attorney General’s Office earlier in the day, which stated that the government must obtain a recommendation from an advisory committee before weighing Bar’s dismissal.
Citing a cabinet resolution from 2016, the office said that the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee must sign off on the dismissal of anyone from seven different senior civil service positions, including the head of the Shin Bet.
In apparent effort to sidestep that resolution, the decision to dismiss Bar includes language stating that the motion “overrides any decision by a previous government.”
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara also previously warned Netanyahu that he could not fire Bar before her office reviewed his motives for doing so, amid a Shin Bet investigation into the premier’s aides and their alleged ties to Qatar.
The move to fire Bar, announced Sunday, sparked mass protests across the country, with critics fearing that Netanyahu is seeking to replace Bar with a loyalist who will quash the Shin Bet’s ongoing Qatar probe, as well as further solidify and potentially politicize the government’s hold over the country’s security apparatuses.
Netanyahu has insisted the investigation into the hundreds of thousands of dollars that his aides allegedly received from Qatar, which the attorney general ordered be opened last month, was politically motivated. Before the vote to fire Bar was scheduled, police on Wednesday evening detained two suspects in the case, who have not been named.
Baharav-Miara, who has also come into the crosshairs of Netanyahu and his coalition as of late, has said the premier cannot fire Bar unless he consults her and establishes a “factual and legal basis” for doing so. Netanyahu has responded by accusing Baharav-Miara of “abusing her authority.”
After Netanyahu’s office announced Thursday’s vote, Hebrew media reports said a meeting set for that evening on the resumption of the Gaza war was pushed off until next week.
Although Bar has expressed his intention to eventually resign over his agency’s failure to anticipate the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, he was said to be pushing back against the effort to oust him, fearing that acquiescence would allow Netanyahu to appoint a loyalist in his stead.
The Shin Bet head was reportedly planning to remain in his post until all the hostages were returned from Gaza and a state commission of inquiry was established to probe the failures surrounding October 7.
In a lengthy statement following Netanyahu’s announcement on Sunday night, Bar charged that the decision to fire him was unrelated to the agency’s failures surrounding the October 7 attack, but rather due to a personal issue.
“The duty of loyalty placed on the Shin Bet is first and foremost to Israeli citizens. This underlies all my actions and decisions,” Bar said. “The prime minister’s expectation of a duty of personal loyalty, the purpose of which contradicts the public interest, is a fundamentally illegitimate expectation. It is contrary to the Shin Bet law and contrary to the patriotic values that guide the Shin Bet and its members.”
Bar noted that the Shin Bet’s internal review of the failures that led to October 7 “pointed to a policy led by the government, and the person who has headed it, for years, with emphasis on the year preceding the massacre. The investigation showed a longstanding and deliberate disregard by the political echelon for the agency’s warnings.”
He said he intended to continue in his role until the hostages are returned, until he completes several “sensitive” investigations — likely those related to the Prime Minister’s Office — and until his potential successors are ready.
According to a Channel 12 news report Wednesday, the leading candidates to replace Bar are the Shin Bet’s recently departed deputy chief, known only by his first initial “Mem,” and “Resh,” who was previously considered for the post. The network reported that former senior Shin Bet official Shalom Ben Hanan is also under consideration.