Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday night his intention to dismiss Shin Bet (the internal intelligence service) director Ronen Bar, a decision that has drawn outright condemnation from the Attorney General's Office and the opposition, as well as applause from his far-right allies in government.
The executive branch's vote to remove Bar is scheduled for this Wednesday, although Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara warned last night in a letter that she will not be able to remove him until the "factual and legal grounds" underlying the decision are reviewed.
Baharav-Miara also said that this is an "unprecedented" act and expressed concern that the process could be "tainted by illegality and conflict of interest, given that the position of Shin Bet director is not a position of personal trust serving the prime minister."
The Shin Bet is currently investigating several former advisors and spokespersons for Netanyahu's office in connection with the "Qatargate" scandal, which implicates them in alleged financial ties to the Gulf state. The investigation could be jeopardized if the president appoints someone else close to him to this position.
In addition, the intelligence agency published an investigation about ten days ago into the errors that led to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, against Netanyahu's wishes.
Bar was appointed Shin Bet director in late 2021 for a five-year term, although he intended to resign over the October 7 attack once all the hostages have returned, the events have been investigated, and successors have been appointed, the Shin Bet director himself said in a statement responding to his impending dismissal.
"For a year and a half, he saw no reason to fire him, but when the investigation into Qatar's infiltration of Netanyahu's office and the funds transferred to his closest advisors began, he suddenly felt an urgency to dismiss him immediately," opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a separate statement yesterday.
MP Benny Gantz, leader of the National Unity party, called the attempted dismissal a “direct blow to national security” and, like Lapid, said it was due to Netanyahu’s “political and personal motives.”
The anti-government Black Flag movement has called for several demonstrations across the country against Bar's dismissal, with the main ones tomorrow in Tel Aviv and Wednesday in Jerusalem.
The October 7 investigation and 'Qatargate''
The prime minister had attempted to force Bar's resignation in an "extremely tense" meeting earlier this month, according to Israel's Channel 12, following the publication of the results of the Shin Bet investigation.
In it, the intelligence agency acknowledged its own mistakes, but also pointed out that the government had ignored its warnings and maintained an overly defensive approach toward Gaza, instead of seeking to eliminate its leaders in the Strip, such as Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the attack in which 1.200 people were killed in Israeli territory and another 251 were kidnapped.
'Qatargate', on the other hand, refers to alleged payments from Qatar to former Netanyahu advisors (Yonathan Urich and Israel Einhorn, among others), who through their company carried out a campaign to promote a positive image of this country ahead of the 2022 World Cup, as first revealed by the newspaper. Haaretz.
In a previous scandal investigated by Bar's predecessor, Nadav Argaman (2016-2021), the Israeli government's collusion with Qatar in sending millions of dollars to Hamas terrorists in Gaza was exposed.
The Shin Bet revealed that the figures amounted to about $30 million per month, according to Haaretz, who says this is one of the main reasons why Netanyahu “opposes” an independent investigation into the factors leading up to the Hamas massacre.