Ex-security chiefs said to warn renewed judicial overhaul will harm Israeli security

A group of some two dozen former top security chiefs has recently convened a secret forum to air their concerns over the government’s renewed judicial overhaul legislation and efforts to oust Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Channel 13 news reports.

According to the network, the forum includes most of the living former chiefs of the Israel Defense Forces, Mossad, Shin Bet, Military Intelligence and Israel Police, who have expressed concerns the coalition’s fresh efforts to weaken the judiciary could result in a “constitutional crisis that will harm Israel’s national security.”

The forum has no designated leader and has so far held one meeting, says the report, which adds that the former security officials intend to issue similar warnings about the potential threat of war to those to that preceded the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.

The report names the group’s members as former IDF chiefs of staff as Shaul Mofaz, Ehud Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi, Moshe Ya’alon and Dan Halutz; ex-heads of the Shin Bet Ami Ayalon, Yoram Cohen, Yuval Diskin and Nadav Argaman; former Mossad leaders Tamir Pardo, Nahum Admoni, Efraim Halevy and Danny Yatom; former Military Intelligence chiefs Tamir Hayman, Aharon Zeevi Farkash, Uri Sagi and Amos Yadlin; and retired police commissioners Shlomo Aharonishki, Roni Alsheich, Yohanan Danino, Assaf Hefetz, Dudi Cohen, Moshe Karadi and Rafi Peled.

Diskin, however, denies the report and says he’s not involved in the forum.

The network doesn’t cite responses from the other listed officials, many of whom are public critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the judicial overhaul.