Amid right-wing criticism, PM backs Shin Bet’s ‘professionalism’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backs the Shin Bet security service amid criticism of its handling of an alleged Jewish terrorist cell in the West Bank.

After praising the Shin Bet and security forces for the early morning capture of a Palestinian believed responsible for the deadly shooting of two IDF soldiers and the injuring of another Israeli, Netanyahu says the agency is the “best terror thwarting organization in the world.”

“We owe it a lot; it does its work with professionalism and commitment,” he says. “Attacks on it are unacceptable.”

Netanyahu’s remarks came a day after a lawmaker from Netanyahu’s own Likud party said the Shin Bet was using “KGB investigation methods” and “torturing Jewish boys” as it probes the October death of Aisha Rabi, a mother of eight killed by a rock thrown at her vehicle in the West Bank on October 12.

Right-wing politicians and activists have lambasted the intelligence agency over its arrest and detention without attorneys last week of several youths studying at the Pri Haaretz yeshiva in the West Bank suspected in the attack.