Jon Polin thanks Ronen Bar for pushing to broaden hostage negotiators’ mandate when gov’t refused

Jon Polin, the father of slain former hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin expresses his gratitude to Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar after ministers voted to fire him last night, saying that the security chief was one of the individuals who pushed to widen the mandate of Israel’s hostage negotiating team amid pushback from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“I hope the true story of the failed negotiations to release the hostages will one day be revealed,” Polin writes on Facebook.

“I continue to believe that the government never gave a sufficiently broad and serious mandate to the Israeli negotiating team.”

“Some of the Israeli negotiating team pushed hard, but unsuccessfully, for a broader mandate. Thank you Ronen Bar for being one of the ones who pushed,” he writes.

Polin also praised Bar earlier this week after Netanyahu announced his intention to fire him.

“We have met many people in positions of power in the past 528 terrible days. One of those people who has shown the highest level of personal accountability, integrity, decency and humanity is Ronen Bar,” he wrote in a Monday Facebook post.

“While admitting his responsibility for the failure of October 7th and saying he will step down, Ronen has been committed to bringing home all hostages, returning the security of the State of Israel, strengthening national unity, and most recently, to establishing a national commission of inquiry that will examine everything and everyone, including himself.”

“There is a nobility in how Ronen Bar has conducted himself in these 528 black days,” Polin added.