Israeli Cabinet votes to sack Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar
The Israeli Cabinet overnight Thursday unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to sack Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
Ronen Bar, director of the Shin Bet security service, attends a ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on Holocaust Remembrance Day. May 5, 2024. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
“Bar will conclude his duties on April 10, 2025, or when a permanent director is appointed—whichever comes first,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.
The proposal stipulated Netanyahu’s “persistent personal and professional distrust” of Bar, which is described as detrimental to both the government and the security service.
It marked the first time in Israel’s history that the government fired the head of the country’s domestic security agency (akin to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States).
Ahead of the vote, the agency released a letter Bar sent to the Cabinet ripping its “unfounded claims that are nothing more than a cover for extraneous and fundamentally invalid motives designed to disrupt the ability of the Shin Bet to fulfill its role.”
Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, on Tuesday rejected a petition that sought to bar Netanyahu from bringing Bar’s dismissal to a vote.
In doing so, the justices also ruled against the position of Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who had sought to delay the vote until after a full analysis of the “factual and legal basis” for Bar’s dismissal, as well as of the prime minister’s “authority to address the matter at this time.”
Netanyahu told Baharav-Miara on Monday that she lacks the authority to prevent his government from firing Bar.
“Your attempt to override the government’s mandate is a dangerous denial of the government’s express authority,” Netanyahu wrote to the attorney general.
The premier announced earlier this week that he would be seeking the dismissal of Bar. “At all times, but especially in such an existential war, the prime minister must have full confidence in the head of the Shin Bet,” said Netanyahu in a statement on Sunday night.
“But unfortunately, the situation is exactly the opposite—I do not have such confidence. I have an ongoing lack of trust in the Shin Bet chief. A distrust that has only grown over time,” added the statement.
On Thursday, violence erupted at an anti-government protest in Jerusalem as left-wing activists mobilized nationwide ahead of the Cabinet vote on Bar’s dismissal.
Demonstrators attempted to breach a police barricade on Gaza Street near Netanyahu’s official residence, leading to clashes with officers. Protesters also blocked traffic in the area.
Footage appeared to show a physical altercation between a police officer and Knesset member Yair Golan, leader of the left-wing The Democrats Party.
Bars’s five-year term would have ended on Oct. 14, 2026.
JNS
