Ex-Shin Bet chiefs, department heads decry ‘unprecedented attacks’ on agency by coalition

A letter by former Shin Bet chiefs and department heads slams attacks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s associates on the security organization and calls out the silence of its current head David Zini.

“We have been witness recently to unprecedented attacks on former Shin Bet director [Ronen Bar] and his deputies, operatives and employees that served in the organization on October 7, all from the entourage of the prime minister and coalition members,” the letter reads.

The letter also decries the premier’s 55-page document, made up of selected quotes from internal government deliberations in the years and months before the massacres, that he delivered last week to the state comptroller for the latter’s probe into the onslaught. Netanyahu published the document in an attempt to present himself as having sought tough action against Hamas, with security chiefs opposing this.

The document, as well as the spread of conspiracies over the massacre, “are part of attempts by the prime minister, with assistance from his mouthpieces, to distance himself from all responsibility over October 7 and are designed to condition the audience, mainly his ‘base,’ that there is no need for a state commission of inquiry, which, the guilty parties have already signaled,” the letter reads.

The letter decries “silence” by the current Shin Bet head David Zini, and demands that he respond to the attacks by coalition members.

The letter is signed by 31 former Shin Bet department heads and five former organization heads.