Chikli: Arrested Shin Bet official ‘Israeli hero’ who fought against ‘political Stasi’

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli calls the Shin Bet official arrested for leaking classified information to him an “Israeli hero” for revealing corruption in the security service.

Chikli says the arrested official revealed information showing the Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar carried out “obsessive spying of a serving minister,” and that the security service’s investigation into the beginning of the war with Hamas portrayed “a false and distorted picture.”

“Bar wanted to tell us that the political echelon was responsible for strengthening Hamas but forgot to say that he himself had made the reconstruction of Gaza and strengthening its economy a central goal,” Chikli writes.

Chikli vows to fight on behalf of the official, saying he is fighting for Israel against “a political Stasi” attached to Bar and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

Chikli asserts that the information leaked by the official does not harm the state’s security; rather, “not revealing the materials to the political echelon and public is what harms the security of the country.”

Chikli blasts Bar and Baharav-Miara, comparing them to France’s powerful King Louis XIV, who declared, “I am the state.”

“Bar doesn’t see himself as subject to the government, and the meaning of this is that he doesn’t see himself as subject to the laws of the country that sharply and clearly define his subordination to the government and its head,” Chikli says.