Bar doubles down on claims, says Netanyahu’s affidavit ‘full of inaccuracies’
Shin Bet chief says premier omitted details about night before Oct 7, ‘never took responsibility’ for funds transferred to Hamas; repeats allegation PM wanted him to act unlawfully
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Shin Bet director Ronen Bar doubled down Sunday on his allegations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressured him into acting unlawfully due to personal and political considerations, and lambasted the premier for failing to take responsibility for the years-long policy of allowing Qatari funds to flow to Hamas in Gaza.
Netanyahu on Sunday rejected those allegations and attacked Bar in an affidavit to the High Court of Justice. In a statement to the press, Bar insisted that all of his claims were “absolutely true” and supported by documentation he had provided to the court.
“The statements the prime minister made in his affidavit are filled with inaccuracies, tendentious quotes and half-truths, aimed at taking things out of context and altering reality,” Bar said.
Netanyahu’s affidavit was filed to the High Court in response to Bar’s affidavit, filed last week, in which the Shin Bet head accused the prime minister of firing him not for professional failings but because of his resistance to requests from the premier motivated by personal considerations.
Both documents were submitted in the framework of petitions to the High Court asking it to reverse the government’s March 21 decision to fire Bar on Netanyahu’s recommendation.
The High Court froze the decision to dismiss Bar, pending its ruling on the issue.
In a hearing on the petitions on April 8, the court appeared inclined to merely resolve procedural problems with Bar’s dismissal, but the grave allegations Bar made against Netanyahu in his affidavit appeared to make it difficult for the court to ignore the substance of the claims against the prime minister.
Bar asserted on Sunday that, in Netanyahu’s remarks concerning the night before Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, he “chose to omit the numerous operational instructions that were given, and even claimed twice that I did not instruct that the intelligence be passed on to the military secretary.”
“The truth is the opposite, as documented in the Shin Bet’s operational diary and submitted to the prime minister as part of the investigation, where it is clearly stated: ‘The main points of the discussion must be passed on to the chief of staff and the military secretary.'”
Bar said in his original submission that he took steps to alert the IDF and the security agencies to a heightened possibility of a Hamas attack, and that he updated the prime minister’s military secretary at 5:15 a.m. on the morning of October 7.
Netanyahu said Bar failed to alert him or the defense minister, that his evaluation of the developing security situation was deficient in the extreme, and that the summary of the security evaluation Bar sent to the military secretary only arrived at 9:47 a.m., more than three hours after the beginning of the Hamas attack.
Bar added Sunday: “Senior security officials have taken responsibility for the intelligence failure [on October 7]. But the prime minister never took responsibility for the quiet policy of funding Hamas, which was dictated directly by the prime minister.
“This historic policy failure built up Hamas, eroded deterrence, and contributed to fears of miscalculation in the decision-making of senior security officials that night.”
The Shin Bet chief asserted the need for a state commission of inquiry to investigate the October 7 massacre — a measure Netanyahu has continuously opposed.
Bar also reasserted his claim that Netanyahu had tried to avoid testifying in his criminal trial. Bar claimed in his original affidavit that Netanyahu tried to have him submit a position paper to the Jerusalem District Court, where the premier is on trial on corruption charges, stating that the premier could not make regular appearances in court due to security concerns that he could be targeted there by the terror groups the country is at war with.
In his affidavit, the premier cited transcripts in which he expressed a desire to testify under secure conditions, and which he asserted indicated that he did not want to delay the trial.
Bar said Sunday: “The truth is that an opinion paper was dictated to me and given to me on behalf of the prime minister, which I was instructed to sign and which, in practice, would forbid the prime minister to testify continuously at his trial. This phenomenon of pressure from the prime minister to influence professional opinions has recurred several times.”
In his affidavit, Netanyahu contested Bar’s claim he sought to use the resources and authorities of the domestic security agency against anti-government activists, saying he had only sought action against lawbreakers. At the same time he did not outright deny that he instructed the Shin Bet chief to obey him in the event of a constitutional crisis.
“The truth is, I was instructed to pass information on Israeli citizens who were protest activists. The truth is that I was instructed by the prime minister to obey him and not the court in the event of a constitutional crisis,” Bar added.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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