Ronen Bar's titanic battle with Bibi after the latter fired him will continue to echo through Israeli society

Photo: Flash90

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Going, going ... and after holding on to the reins for months, Ronen Bar was finally gone. The disgraced Shabak chief who failed to warn of the impending attack on October 7 despite the warning signs hours before, may finally have resigned on the eve of Israel’s Remembrance Day.

But his titanic battle with Bibi after the latter fired him — a struggle that played out in court — will continue to echo through Israeli society as all involved attempt to evade responsibility.

Ahead of former Shin Bet head Ronen Bar’s High Court affidavit last week, Binyamin Netanyahu, with the help of his de facto legal advisor, cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs, desperately maneuvered to reach an understanding that would bury the damning document — but by that point, the writing was on the wall.

I spoke with Yossi Fuchs moments after the High Court session, which he attended to whisper in the ear of Netanyahu’s able criminal defense attorney, Zion Amir. It was a short trip from the prime minister’s office to the courtroom for Fuchs, who lives and breathes administrative law.

When Bibi was still in shallow water, and High Court justices were pleading with both sides to reach a truce until after Pesach, he could have retreated from the shark-infested waters.

“I asked the justices to set a timetable for negotiations lasting until Pesach, not until after Pesach as they wished,” Fuchs told me.

On behalf of his boss, Fuchs refused to accept any compromise not involving Bar’s immediate departure. By the time of the last-minute negotiations early this week, the jaws had already closed around their prey.

At a recent security deliberation, Netanyahu repeated his oft-heard lesson from his days in the Sayeret Matkal unit: “In the Sayeret, we were taught never to embark on an operation without two exit plans.”

Over the course of a long political career — some would say too long — Netanyahu has proven his mettle against the toughest of opponents, including fellow veterans of the unit. While his former commander Ehud Barak trounced him in their first political showdown in 1999, and Naftali Bennett — another Sayeret veteran — also forced him off his throne for a brief period, Netanyahu has emerged on top in almost all of his battles with former military figures.

But Shin Bet heads are made of a different cloth. Roni Alsheikh, the deputy Shin Bet head Netanyahu appointed as police commissioner in 2015, was the first — but not the last — to show Netanyahu what Shabakniks are made of.

Alsheikh was Bibi’s designated pick for Shin Bet head once he completed his term as police commissioner. But somewhere along the way, something went wrong. Alsheikh realized that the Prime Minister’s Office was making him the scapegoat for every security incident.

One of Alsheikh’s former deputies told me that Netanyahu had no idea who he was messing with. “The Shabak isn’t the Likud central committee — in this organization, they don’t take things lying down.”

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Of all people, it’s the leaders of an organization whose stock in trade is intrigue and deception who have presented themselves time and again as the guardians of truth and decency. Alsheikh, who’s been caught embellishing the facts himself, once bragged to a journalist that he could smell kusbarah (coriander) and liars from a mile away. Now it’s Ronen Bar who’s adopted the role of baal mussar.

In page after page of his affidavit, Bar tried to cover every possible counterargument — but the blanket was too short. Netanyahu quickly produced the receipts, proving that he’d never asked Bar to justify his absence from court sessions on security grounds, and completely rebutting Bar’s claim that he was given some form of warning on the night of Simchas Torah.

Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, a beacon of honesty in his own right, told me, “[Bar] just brazenly lied to my face. I sat across from him at a government meeting and he insisted that there was no investigation into Kahanism in the police force. Since then, I don’t believe a word he says.”

If the prime minister and the Shin Bet head have one thing in common, it’s their reputation for truthfulness — though disdain for preparation may be another point of resemblance. Like Ronen Bar on the night of October 7, Bibi showed up to the fight completely unprepared. His tactics might have worked against a political rival or a military official, but not against the head of a powerful intelligence organization that never turns the other cheek.

One Shin Bet field agent, whom Ronen Bar personally convinced to stay in the force amid the wave of resignations following October 7, told me this week with pain about the harm Bar is doing to the organization, already tainted by that disaster.

“We were in crisis, and to Ronen Bar’s credit, he raised us up and sent us back to work — but what’s happening now is impossible.

“On October 7, we might as well have changed our motto from magen v’lo yira’eh [unseen protector] to yira’eh v’lo yagen [seen but not protecting]. Our eyes saw the evidence and our minds refused to believe, to process the data and draw the conclusions. It was a terrible mistake, the worst in the history of the organization and of the state. But even then, no one questioned the personal integrity of any individual among us.

“Today, the organization’s field agents have become politicized, all because of one man’s ego battles. Bibi is responsible too, but he’s a politician, so I don’t expect anything from him. In Ronen, I see a leader who’s allowed his ego to get the better of him. Every second he remains in office continues to tarnish our image.”

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The battle of the affidavits started with the document submitted by Bar to the High Court. Only a fraction — six pages — was released to the public, with 31 pages of evidence backing up Bar’s allegations remaining classified. While Netanyahu may manage to discredit a word here or a word there, the document contains a core of truth that can’t be dismissed wholesale.

Any rookie lawyer who reads Bar’s affidavit will recognize the meticulous legal work that went into it. Even the requests for an extension were written by state attorneys — whose role would typically be that of couriers in this case, delivering the affidavit to the court — in a distortion reflecting the Shin Bet’s questionable modus operandi.

Bar’s affidavit was formally confirmed by an attorney by the name of “Nitzan,” but sources in the state prosecution say that multiple attorneys were involved in drafting and reviewing the document behind the scenes. If only the observation soldiers’ warnings had received that much attention.

Anyone who reads the six pages of the affidavit will realize that this isn’t merely part of Bar’s defense, but an attack that could very well revive the question over legal incapacitation of a prime minister. While the coalition has already amended the law to clarify that a prime minister can only be declared incapacitated for health reasons, the High Court ruled that the amendment will only take effect from the next Knesset onward. All that remains is to hope that Naftali Bennett, who’s leading the polls, won’t be the first prime minister on whose watch the amendment becomes relevant.

Attorney Eliad Shraga of the Movement for Quality Government, who has filed an endless stream of petitions against the government, must surely have taken note of Bar’s affidavit. The Shin Bet head paints a dismal picture of a prime minister enlisting the Shin Bet to help him avoid court sessions in his criminal trial, barricading himself in his office and demanding that the Shin Bet head stop the protests against him and commit to obeying the government rather than the court in the event of a constitutional crisis. These charges would make the perfect background for a new petition demanding that Netanyahu face legal incapacitation now.

Incidentally, in several of the incidents he mentions, Bar describes Netanyahu asking the typist always present in the room during security meetings to step outside. In other words, not all of his allegations are verifiable. But Netanyahu has produced evidence that of the 14 meetings at which no typist was present, in ten of them it was Bar who made the request. The typists may be the next to end up in the Shin Bet’s interrogations rooms….

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Netanyahu hesitated as to whether to respond with an affidavit of his own, or ignore the charges. But the outcome was never in doubt. Any allegation that Bibi doesn’t directly refute will be taken as fact.

Despite the media’s celebrations, it’s hard to see High Court justices declaring a right-wing prime minister legally incapacitated. If they couldn’t do it earlier, they’ll likely find it ever more difficult in the future, as liberal justices retire and the court takes on a conservative slant. Everything is relative in the halls of justice, but if the High Court convened today in a panel of 15 judges to deliberate regarding petitions against the “reasonableness” standard, the justices who support keeping the law as is would be in the majority.

But even if Bibi isn’t incapacitated, there’s no question that the sword hanging over his head has just become sharper. Netanyahu, who’s been as by-the-book as they come on a wide variety of issues — to avoid giving credence to the idea of legal incapacitation — will now be even more careful. Long after Ronen Bar resigns, his affidavit will continue to haunt Netanyahu.

For this reason, Netanyahu had no choice but to file an affidavit of his own.

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Line by line, claim by claim, Netanyahu tore into Bar’s affidavit in an affidavit of his own this Sunday, calling Bar’s quotes of him from transcripts of their meetings “incomplete, misleading, and false.

“In his affidavit, Bar chooses the path of dishonesty and deception. While his affidavit implies that the meetings he quotes from are carefully documented, the quotes are in fact highly selective, often omitting important context that utterly refutes his claims in order to mislead the court and the public.”

Netanyahu’s affidavit tackles Bar’s allegations one by one. He produces written evidence proving that his request to Bar to postpone his court sessions was filed the day after a drone hit his Caesarea home, for legitimate security reasons. He cites his own words from the transcript of a meeting with Bar at the time: “At the same time, we’ve acted to change the location of the government meeting that takes place in a secure bunker in Jerusalem. There’s no problem, I’m willing to testify in court. That’s not the issue. I want to testify — it’s important.”

Bar’s fatal mistake may have been his claim that he had in fact made a warning on the night of Simchas Torah, a claim witheringly dismissed in Bibi’s affidavit: “The explanation Bar gives in the classified part of his affidavit for why an instruction he allegedly gave at 5:15 was only implemented as 6:13 a.m. is highly questionable, and, if true, only magnifies his failure.”

Ronen Bar tried to turn his affidavit from procedural matter relating to his dismissal to a public showdown with Netanyahu, forgetting that as prime minister, Netanyahu can release almost any information in response. Bibi cites Bar’s own words regarding the failure to assassinate Hamas leaders, proving that it was actually the Shin Bet head who blocked the policy of assassinations Bibi championed.

“On January 8, 2023, I proposed the elimination of leading Hamas figure Saleh al-Arouri, which Bar opposed. I said during the meeting: ‘I would still put a cross next to the name of that guy Arouri. He’s a mastermind, a mover, an organizer.’

“The head of the Shin Bet responded: ‘I think that would put the Shin Bet in a complex position. I don’t think it’s right.’

“In another meeting he told me: ‘The Gaza strip is contained.’ And in yet another meeting he said: ‘Yahya Sinwar is a shrewd leader, he’s not ready for an existential war.’

“Ronen Bar bears massive and direct responsibility for the massacre,” Netanyahu asserts in his affidavit, which is backed up by a formidable amount of written evidence.

Just before the issue went to print, Bar announced his intention to resign on June 15, and Netanyahu responded that he was dismissed effective immediately upon the government's decision. Yet upon reading the affidavits — which shed light, and mostly darkness, on the conduct of the political and security leadership — all that remains for the citizens of Israel is to lower the flag to half-mast.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1059)