CIJR | Canadian Institute for Jewish Research
L'institut Canadien de Recherches sur le Judaisme

Analysis

Netanyahu Takes on Israel’s Deep State

Israeli Supreme Court freezes dismissal of Shin Bet chief | Source:  FMT
Israeli Supreme Court freezes dismissal of Shin Bet chief | Source: FMT

Gadi Taub

Tablet, Mar. 31, 2025

“Apparently, the protesters, the left, and much of the press want to save democracy by adopting the totalitarian model where politicians answer to the secret police.”

The fight against what Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken to calling Israel’s “deep state” is now in full swing. It reached a climax on Thursday, March 20, late in the evening, when the cabinet unanimously voted to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet—the country’s domestic security service. The termination is to take effect on the earlier of two dates: April 10 or when a replacement is found. Bar is not going down without a fight, however, and has retaliated by stepping up an investigation against the prime minister’s staff.

Bar’s removal is long overdue. For starters, he is probably the person most directly responsible for the disaster of Oct. 7. Gaza is the Shin Bet’s intelligence turf, and so Bar’s advice to refrain from raising the level of alert on the night before the massacre was naturally accepted by the IDF. All remained quiet on the Gaza front as dawn broke on that Sabbath. So quiet, says former Shin Bet operative Yizhar David, who was privy to some of the relevant information, that Mohammed Deif, who commanded the invasion, postponed the attack for fear that Israel’s apparent total lack of preparation might well be a trap.

But there was no trap. Despite the accumulating signs of an impending assault nobody alerted the soldiers, sleeping soundly in their beds, or the party goers still dancing as the sun was rising at the Nova Festival, or those on guard duty at the nearby kibbutzim. The handful of tanks at the theater, the soldiers stationed in bases around the fence, and the volunteers on security duty in the adjoining kibbutzim could have stopped or at least drastically curtailed the invasion had they only been told to stay put. Bar’s advice excluded any such preparations. The theater was sedated, rather than alert. ….SOURCE

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