Several retired Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chiefs and 31 former department heads issued a public letter on Friday opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s comments about former Shin Bet head Ronen Bar and calling out “the silence from the current Shin Bet chief, David Zini.”
“We express astonishment at the silence of the head of the Shin Bet, David Zini, in light of the unprecedented slander against former head of the service, Ronen Bar, and managers, fighters, and employees who served in the organization on 7/10, from the Prime Minister’s entourage and members of the coalition,” the letter read.
They also demanded a “strong response from Zini” against the comments attacking Ronen Bar, intelligence officials, soldiers, and Shin Bet employees who served in the organization before and during the October 7 massacre.
“With his actions and behavior, the prime minister is harming the entire security establishment and, in particular, the General Security Service – this is despicable and vile behavior,” they added.
The letter mainly cited the “spread of conspiracy theories” against Shin Bet officials and the document that Netanyahu submitted to the state comptroller.
Netanyahu's pre-October 7 intel documents
Netanyahu’s office published a selection of intelligence documents, which aimed to shed light on Israel’s strategic blindness leading up to the October 7 massacre, some of which were also read aloud during the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee meeting.
The documents, spanning from February 2023 to an hour before the attack, indicate that Israel’s defense echelon misread Hamas’s intentions, characterizing the terror group as deterred and seeking long-term economic arrangements.
He reportedly said during the Knesset discussion that the events of October 7 “were a severe intelligence failure, but not a betrayal.”
The meeting sparked outrage among opposition MKs on the panel who left the discussion early. It went on for approximately five hours.
Among the quotes Netanyahu reportedly read were those from former prime minister Naftali Bennett, party leader and ex-IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, and former Shin Bet director Bar.
The Knesset confirmed that Netanyahu dedicated a significant portion of the discussion to the state comptroller’s review regarding October 7, and presented the committee with materials he had shown to the comptroller.
Amichai Stein, Tzvi Jasper, and Keshet Neev contributed to this report.