From the Liveblog of
Friday, July 11, 2025
As mistrust in security establishment peaked, PM had IDF chief patted down for wire before meeting
The New York Times reveals that in order to prevent the leaking of conversations that could harm him politically, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides ordered military officials to stop using a recording device traditionally operated during meetings held by generals.
Weeks after the October 7 onslaught, Netanyahu’s meetings with generals were also moved to another room with no permanent recording device, allowing the premier’s aides to be the ones to record, even while the military officials could not.
Generals, including then-IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi, were patted down by Netanyahu’s security guards to make sure he didn’t have a hidden microphone on him.
Netanyahu’s suspicions were an extension of his belief that the security establishment was to blame for Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, and not the political echelon.
Also in the NYT story about how Netanyahu prolonged the Gaza war in order to remain in power, the paper reveals that Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during a March cabinet meeting to fire then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar called for the security agency to be stripped of its mandated requirement to protect Israel’s democratic institutions.
“It is time to remove the protection of democracy from the Shin Bet law. The people protect the democracy,” he said, according to minutes from the meeting obtained by the NYT.
A spokesperson for Smotrich claimed that the minister was misquoted and was only arguing that the Shin Bet shouldn’t meddle in court cases.
The paper also reveals how Justice Minister Yariv Levin — one of the chief architects of the government judicial overhaul that Hamas felt had exposed Israel to attack due to the bitter internal divisions that the initiative had sparked — was found on a staircase crying as the October 7 onslaught unfolded.
A Levin spokesperson denied that the minister had cried that day, but two witnesses testified to the contrary, including Moti Babchick, a senior ministerial aide.
The Times of Israel Community.