Protests erupted in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in mid-March after the government announced it would be firing the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar. The decision will be debated before Israel’s High Court of Justice in the coming weeks, with many Israelis expecting a fierce legal battle around the matter.
Why is Bar’s dismissal causing so much controversy? Let’s unpack it.
The decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet
The Shin Bet is Israel’s internal security service, one of three main intelligence agencies in the country alongside the Mossad and the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate.
Unlike the Mossad, which focuses more on external threats, the Shin Bet is tasked primarily with monitoring internal national security. For example, it handles cases in which Israeli residents plan terrorist attacks or collect intelligence for an enemy state.
The Shin Bet also handles security for the prime minister, the protection of Israeli embassies and infrastructure, and efforts to counter domestic political subversion.
In mid-March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he intended to fire Bar, claiming he lost trust in the Shin Bet chief. The prime minister noted that he had removed Bar from the ceasefire negotiating team in February. He argued that Bar had weakened Israel’s position during the negotiations.
An unnamed political source, which Israeli journalists identified as the Prime Minister’s Office, accused Bar of knowing about Hamas’s plan to attack hours before the Oct. 7 attacks began and not informing Netanyahu when this was discovered.
The source cited a popular social media conspiracy theory that claims the Shin Bet and the IDF knew well in advance that Hamas was going to attack, but purposely did nothing to stop it.
In opposition to the claims, Israeli media has reported that as soon as the Shin Bet and the IDF received intelligence about the attacks, just a few hours before the attack was launched, they informed Netanyahu’s intelligence officer, who made the decision not to wake the prime minister.
Part of the issue surrounding the government’s decision to fire Bar lies in a government resolution passed by Netanyahu in 2016. The resolution requires any dismissal of the Shin Bet or other senior officials to receive the approval of the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee.
The government argued, however, that there was an “urgent” need to dismiss Bar immediately and this meant that they could override legal precedent. Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara argued, however, that the government couldn’t simply ignore precedent and that the motives for the decision needed to be reviewed by her office.
The government’s decision to fire Bar stipulated that Bar’s term would end either on April 10 or when a replacement is found, whichever occurs first.
A day after the government’s decision, the High Court of Justice issued a temporary injunction, freezing Bar’s dismissal until April 8 so that it could hear arguments concerning the legality of the move.
It remains unclear if the government will respect the court’s order to freeze Bar’s dismissal. The possibility that it could move forward with the dismissal and violate the order has raised concerns about what consequences that decision would have, as the government would be violating the existing law by doing so. This would also, in a way, create two parallel systems of government: The courts on one side, and the government on the other.
A day after the High Court’s announcement, Netanyahu published a video stressing that Bar would be fired but not explicitly stating whether this meant that the government would violate the court order or if they would wait until after April 8.
In the video, Netanyahu also accused the Shin Bet head of working with the attorney general to fabricate a criminal case against individuals working in the Prime Minister’s Office. He claimed that the case was meant in part to prevent the government from being able to fire Bar, but insisted that his decision to fire Bar was not due to the investigation.
What is Qatargate?
The case Netanyahu referenced in his video, known as Qatargate, involves accusations that at least three people working in the Prime Minister’s Office received large sums of money from Qatar in exchange for organizing PR campaigns meant to improve Qatar’s image internationally.
Many of the details of the case are under an unusually strict gag order, but some of the central details have been released to the public.
The case first emerged in December 2023, when the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published several leaked documents alleging that Netanyahu received large sums of money from Qatar. The documents were found within a collection of related documents leaked by a team of hackers known as Project Raven.
Further documents were published in July 2024, including documents noting that Jordanian authorities had spotted suspicious financial activity by Qatar aimed at transferring funds to Hamas with Netanyahu’s cooperation.
Additionally, a classified letter was found that was sent in 2012 from then-Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani to then-economy and finance minister Yousef Husain Kamal. In the letter, Al Thani wrote that the Emir of Qatar had ordered that $15 million be sent to Netanyahu and that $5 million be sent to Avigdor Liberman, the head of the Israel Beytenu party, for their election campaigns.
Yigal Carmon, president and founder of MEMRI, told The Jerusalem Post that the documents appeared to be “completely authentic” and that no one had tried to sue him concerning the publication of the documents.
“I haven’t been contacted nor sued for spreading misinformation, and no other public figure mentioned in these documents has filed a single complaint. The Qataris themselves never bothered to deny any of the findings. I’m convinced that these documents are real, and I deem it necessary to conduct relevant inquiries, because the public deserves answers,” Carmon said.
In November 2024, the case was brought back into the spotlight after Haaretz reported that Yonatan Urich and Israel Einhorn, two close advisers of Netanyahu’s, organized a PR campaign for Qatar to improve its image internationally, at the same time that they were working for the prime minister.
In February, new reports emerged that Eli Feldstein, who was working as a spokesperson in the Prime Minister’s Office during the war, worked for an international company funded by Qatar to improve its image during the negotiations between Israel and Hamas throughout the war.
Last week, Israeli businessman Gal Birger told Israeli media that he helped transfer payments from Qatar to Feldstein at the request of lobbyist Jay Footlik, who advocates for Qatar in the United States. During the war, Footlik also helped the families of Israeli hostages arrange meetings with Qatari officials who served as mediators in the negotiations for a hostage release deal.
N12 reported last week as well that Footlik told his associates that he met with Feldstein and made clear he was paying him to improve Qatar’s image in Israel. Footlik added that he only worked with Feldstein for a short period before it was revealed that Feldstein was a suspect in a criminal case and he ended their connection. Footlik also insisted he didn’t know Feldstein worked in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The case Footlik referenced emerged in November, when Feldstein was accused of illegally leaking a confidential document concerning Hamas’s aims in the ceasefire negotiations to the German newspaper Bild. The leak was allegedly conducted with the aim of influencing public opinion in Israel.
Feldstein’s lawyers claimed that he didn’t work for Qatar and instead worked exclusively for Netanyahu. They added that Feldstein never provided information to Qatar nor received money from Qatar or any entity connected to Qatar.
The attorneys admitted that Feldstein received funds from Birger, which Birger recently admitted were from Qatar, but insisted that this was for strategy and communications services that he provided to the Prime Minister’s Office. This was done due to an issue that arose because Feldstein could not receive security clearance and, therefore, couldn’t work directly in the Prime Minister’s Office, forcing officials to find a different way to pay and employ him.
The attorneys added that “To the extent that there is a connection between the businessman in question and other entities, including Qatar, this was not presented to Feldstein and was not known to him.”
In mid-February, the Shin Bet announced it was looking into the allegations in the Qatargate case. On Feb. 27, the attorney general ordered the police to open an investigation into the case.
Feldstein and Urich are suspected of contact with a foreign agent, bribery, money laundering, and fraud. Last week, they were detained for questioning by Israel Police. The investigation is set to intensify in the coming days and weeks, including plans to question Feldstein and Urich together, in the same room, to address reported contradictions in their testimonies.
Netanyahu and his office have denied any wrongdoing in the case. A spokesperson for the Likud said the documents revealed in December 2023 and July 2024 were “false and illusory news, and false propaganda against the State of Israel, in the midst of a war.”
The Prime Minister’s Office has rejected the allegations concerning Qatari payments to Feldstein as “fake news,” stressing that “the Prime Minister’s Office does not ‘arrange’ payments to anyone.”
“Every payment in a government office is made in accordance with the provisions of the law and through authorized entities only. Any other claim is baseless, aimed at breathing life into yet another fabricated affair,” said the Prime Minister’s Office.
On Monday, the police detained Feldstein and Urich for questioning, the second time they were questioned within a period of two weeks. An additional, unnamed suspect was questioned as well.
Netanyahu also testified in the case on Monday, although he is not considered a suspect in the case as of yet. At least one journalist related to the case also delivered testimony to police.
The protests that erupted against the decision to fire the Shin Bet chief accused Netanyahu of firing Bar in order to disrupt the investigation into the Qatargate case.
Netanyahu has rejected the claims, saying that the decision was made due to a “lack of trust” in Bar and his role in the failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attacks.
The prime minister pointed to the decision of former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and other defense officials to resign in recent months, insisting that Bar refused to follow their example and was trying to hold onto his position and not take responsibility for the failures that occurred under his watch. He added that he made the decision to fire him now because the Shin Bet had just completed its internal investigation into the failures surrounding the Oct. 7 attacks.
Bar responds to the decision to dismiss him
In a letter published ahead of his dismissal, Bar insisted that he had already committed to resigning before the end of his term, but felt it would be inappropriate for him to leave right as the conflict in Gaza was being renewed and in the middle of a sensitive investigation involving senior government officials.
Bar stressed that the government’s resolution to fire him did not include concrete evidence backing up the claims made against him. He insisted that the decision was based on “improper, and illegitimate motives, aimed at undermining the ability of the Shin Bet to carry out its mission professionally, in accordance with the law, and for the benefit of the citizens of Israel rather than for personal interests.”
The Shin Bet head claimed that the government was also trying to “prevent the uncovering of the truth – both regarding the events that led to the [Oct. 7] massacre and the serious affairs currently being investigated by the Shin Bet.”
Bar insisted that he and Netanyahu had worked together without any major issues throughout the war, although he added that the prime minister had blocked him from holding meetings with government ministers over the past year.
The Shin Bet chief also addressed claims that he had weakened Israel’s position in the hostage negotiations, arguing that he led the talks following the goals set by Netanyahu himself and that the prime minister and the government approved the deal themselves.
Bar additionally noted that “a complex, far-reaching, highly significant, and particularly sensitive investigation is currently underway concerning Qatar’s involvement at the highest levels of Israeli decision-making, including the Prime Minister’s Office.”
“Any disruption to this process through a hasty and sudden attempt to remove me, based on fundamentally flawed justifications, is entirely motivated by improper considerations and a severe conflict of interest,” added the Shin Bet chief.
“Dismissing the head of the Shin Bet at this time on the prime minister’s initiative sends a dangerous message to all those involved – one that could jeopardize the optimal completion of the investigation. This poses a direct threat to Israel’s security.”
The Shin Bet head additionally addressed complaints by some government officials that he had called for an independent investigation into the events surrounding Oct. 7, including the government’s role in the failures. He argued that treating this as grounds for his dismissal “reflects a distorted view of loyalty – personal loyalty instead of loyalty to the public.”
Originally Published Mar 25, 2025 06:23AM EDT
