Netanyahu moves to fire intel chief who is investigating his aides

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to remove Ronen Bar as head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency and will seek cabinet approval for the move this week, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Why it matters: No government has ever fired the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s most powerful security agency. Netanyahu’s decision comes as the agency is investigating two of his advisers for allegedly receiving payments from Qatar during the Israel-Hamas war.

• Netanyahu’s long-expected move has raised concerns among his political foes that he will replace Bar with a loyalist, politicize the organization, and potentially weaponize it against his political opponents and critics, or to crack down on the protest movement against him.
• Bar responded to the news by denouncing Netanyahu’s “expectation for personal loyalty to him” which he said violated both the public interest and the laws and values under which his agency operates.

The big picture: While the prime minister appoints the Shin Bet chief, and the cabinet approves the pick, the agency has long been seen as apolitical. Its mandate includes safeguarding Israel’s democratic institutions.

• Netanyahu is on trial in three cases of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
• He has also started taking steps to fire the attorney general tasked with prosecuting those cases.
• Netanyahu’s aides have said he was inspired by President Trump’s purging of “the deep state” and his decision to appoint loyalists to all key posts.

Behind the scenes: Netanyahu has been pressing Bar for several weeks to resign. Bar refused and told Netanyahu he can fire him if he wants to, an Israeli official tells Axios.

• Netanyahu’s loyalists in the Israeli press and on social media have been publicly attacking Bar, who spent two decades in the Shin Bet before being appointed director in 2021.
• Netanyahu’s allies have claimed the intel chief is working to undermine the PM for political reasons.
• In his statement, Bar said he’d told Netanyahu he had “several sensitive investigations” to complete, as well as getting Israel’s remaining hostages out, before offering the prime minister his resignation and offering two internal candidates to succeed him. He said he still intends to complete those tasks before stepping down.

Driving the news: Several weeks ago, with the approval of the attorney general, the Shin Bet opened an investigation into three of Netanyahu’s advisers for their alleged contacts with Qatar.

• The investigation, dubbed “Qatar-Gate” in the Israeli press, focused on alleged payments Netanyahu’s advisers facilitated and received from Qatar in return for working on improving the image of the country in Israel.
• Qatar is one of the key mediators in the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. But Netanyahu’s decision in 2018 to ask Qatar to transfer money to Hamas in Gaza for humanitarian purposes became one of the main points of criticism against him after the Oct. 7 attack.
• The Shin Bet determined a portion of that money went to Hamas’ military build-up.

Between the lines: Bar and Netanyahu both came under criticism for the intelligence failures that allowed the Oct. 7 attack to take place.

• Bar has taken responsibility in public and private for the failures and called for a national commission of inquiry.
• Netanyahu has blocked the formation of such a commission, arguing it would be “politically slanted,” and has refused to take any responsibility.
• Bar had indicated that he would resign once all of Israel’s hostages were returned from Gaza, and had played a key role in hostage negotiations until last month, when Netanyahu froze him out of the talks.

What they’re saying: In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu claimed he is moving to dismiss the Shin Bet director because of “ongoing and growing lack of trust.”

• “I believe this step is critical for rehabilitating the organization, achieving the objectives of the war and preventing the next catastrophe,” Netanyahu said.

The latest: Israel’s attorney general advised Netanyahu in a letter on Sunday that he can’t fire Bar because “there is a concern this decision is illegal and suffers from a conflict of interests.”

• Netanyahu and his cabinet are likely to disregard that objection, though the decision could ultimately come before the Supreme Court.

Flashback: While Bar would be the first Shin Bet chief to be fired, two previous leaders resigned, including the agency’s chief at the time of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995.