In the 17 and a half years that Benjamin Netanyahu has served as prime minister, dozens upon dozens of senior security officials have served under him — chiefs of staff, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) heads, Mossad heads, military Intelligence chiefs, National Security Council heads, and senior officers at the rank of major general across various branches and organizations.
As someone who has followed Netanyahu's conduct closely, I can state that almost all of them — somewhere between 100 and 200 senior security officials — agree with the chilling diagnosis provided on Monday by Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar regarding the functioning, motives, and actions of the man who is trying to turn Israel into a dictatorship.
Remember the “Look me in the eye, Bibi," statement made by Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai in 1999? Or Ami Ayalon and Israel Hasson during the events regarding the opening of the Western Wall tunnel and negotiations with Yasser Arafat?
You can count them: Yitzhak Mordechai, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Shaul Mofaz, Moshe Ya’alon, Gabi Ashkenazi, Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman. And the list goes on — long, diverse, and filled with names and stories.
Almost all of them share one thing – they are familiar with the phenomenon that Ronen Bar described on Monday. They believe Ronen Bar. Every word. They know who the liar is.
Mossad heads — Meir Dagan, Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy, Danny Yatom, Shabtai Shavit — and many more senior and diverse officials knew about Netanyahu’s conduct, his priorities, and the fact that he rarely took responsibility while frequently shifting blame to others.
Add to them Udi Levi, head of the Tziltzal Unit [a Mossad unit which fought against terror funding and is no longer operational], and his shocking testimony regarding terror financing and Qatar.
It is the same with Shin Bet chiefs such [Yuval] Diskin, [Ami] Ayalon, [Carmi] Gillon, Yoram Cohen, Nadav Argaman, senior officials like Israel Hasson, and many more along with deputy heads, generals, district and command chiefs, and a significant number of police commissioners and investigation division heads.
A vast and seasoned group that has witnessed Bibi-ism in its ugliest form and knows the truth from the inside. Nearly all of these dozens of individuals have, either in real-time or retrospectively, defined Netanyahu as a tangible threat to Israel’s national security. Unfortunately, only a few have been willing to say so on record.
The concluding paragraph of Bar’s public affidavit on Monday read: “In the current situation, and out of deep concern for the country and the functioning of the Shin Bet, it is my duty to ensure that those who follow me will be able to fulfill their responsibilities, while maintaining that the agency’s tools are used solely for their intended purposes. This is to uphold the clear distinction between trust, which is essential in a democratic system, and loyalty, which enables other forms of regimes.”
Let’s try to get inside his head: Ronen Bar is not fighting for himself. He would have preferred to resign a long time ago. He has taken full responsibility for the October 7 failure. That responsibility will haunt him for life. Whether he remains Shin Bet chief until June, August, or January is meaningless. He was one of the first to demand a national commission of inquiry — and that, too, worked against him.
Bar’s battle is for us. That might sound like a cliché, but it’s accurate. This man, who served as a fighter in the IDF General Staff Reconnaissance Unit and in the Shin Bet’s operational unit in countless battles, enemy territory operations, and dangerous arrests, is now afraid. The threat he currently faces is not one that any Shin Bet chief is trained to handle.
Bar is in the room. He knows Netanyahu is trying to take over the Shin Bet and turn it into a secret police force. In his affidavit to the High Court of Justice on Monday, Bar filed an indictment — backed by evidence, meeting summaries, protocols, discussions, and testimonies — against Netanyahu. What matters to Bar is to “lift the curtain” on this attempted takeover, not only to thwart it now but to prevent future attempts.
A historic, resounding High Court ruling is needed — one that declares that a Shin Bet head cannot be dismissed over a false, baseless claim of “loss of trust” without due process.
A ruling that ensures the Shin Bet’s capabilities cannot be co-opted for the political goals of a ruler. A ruling that prevents Netanyahu from appointing one of his loyalists to this highly sensitive post, who would say “yes” to the insane, criminal, and dictatorial demands he may present in the future.
Netanyahu, who does everything possible to avoid a commission of inquiry, has now received, through this affidavit, quite a few devastating truths to his face.
Each of these truths is terrifying in itself, revealing what has been written here for many years: Netanyahu is trying to destroy Israeli stateliness and replace it with monarchy.
Instead of loyalty to the state, loyalty to the king. He once asked a Mossad candidate whether he would be personally loyal to him. When the answer was hesitant, he appointed someone else. But now he faces Bar.
Bar’s mission is simple: he is fighting to preserve the Shin Bet’s independence, the independence of the next Shin Bet chief, and the ability of gatekeepers like the Shin Bet head to stand firm and say no to the prime minister.
No, we won’t spy on protestors, because protesting against the government is a basic right in a democratic state. No, we won’t sign fabricated “blank” legal opinions to help you escape justice. No, we won’t pledge allegiance to you instead of to the High Court in a constitutional crisis. We are a state institution, not a family one.
It’s hard to believe that anyone is still unsure whom to trust here — a fighter who dedicated his life to the security of the state, or a pathological liar caught in countless lies (the latest, absurd one delivered on Monday in court when he said that Arnon Milchan forced the Netanyahu family to accept gifts: “We don’t like to receive,” he claimed).
Netanyahu’s own finance minister already called him “a liar, son of a liar.” There’s no respectable world leader who doesn’t receive a Netanyahu personality briefing before meeting him, and it always includes the universally accepted diagnosis: this man is a liar.
Bar’s affidavit is sworn testimony. If it turns out to contain falsehoods, he is subject to legal penalties.
Now let’s see if Netanyahu will submit a counter-affidavit under the same rules. He has received the classified section of Bar’s affidavit, which constitutes most of the document. It includes a great deal of evidence. Some of it, Netanyahu already knows. Some he does not.
The question is what the High Court judges will do. Will they request to question Bar about his affidavit? Will they demand a response from Netanyahu even if he doesn’t submit a sworn affidavit? The court cannot shirk the heavy responsibility placed upon it in this case: to define the limits of corrupt power and to defend what remains of Israeli democracy and the rights to protest, privacy, and human dignity.
In the affidavit, Bar used the fact that it is a sworn legal document to vehemently refute the especially vile conspiracy theories spread by Netanyahu and his emissaries about him and the Shin Bet.
He reiterated the agency’s failures on October 7- the fact that the warning signs weren’t complete and didn’t lead to the correct conclusion — but added: “The actions taken by the Shin Bet that night did not lead the security system to thwart the meticulously planned attack, which had been in preparation for years. A thorough internal investigation has been conducted within the Shin Bet to ensure such a disaster never recurs.
"However, the attack was not ‘coordinated by us.’ Our teams were not ‘sent to rescue Shin Bet employees,’ and nothing was hidden that night — not from the security establishment and not from the Prime Minister. The opposite is true. From this, I can only conclude that this is an attempt to deflect the discussion — which must be had — from the political-security factors that led to the massacre.”
Prime minister leading the conspiracy
That paragraph contains the monstrosity.
The prime minister of Israel is the one who led these conspiracy theories — theories that turned the Shin Bet head into a traitor and his team into plotters, rebels, or traitors.
These absurdities were spread by Netanyahu himself and by his people.
In another era, this horror would have remained in the hands of fringe, deranged elements. Today, it’s practically mainstream – until Bar was forced to testify under oath to disprove it.
In conclusion, there is no honest or sane person who does not know that Bar’s words are accurate, valid, and true.
There is no honest or sane person who does not understand that the motivation to oust Bar at this moment stems from accumulated ulterior motives: his refusal to rubber-stamp a delay in Netanyahu’s testimony, and the ongoing investigations surrounding the Prime Minister’s Office in the Qatargate affair.
But Bar has chosen to go to war. Not for his innocence, not for his reputation, and not for his position — for the country. For democracy. For us. We must all stand behind him.
