Oct. 7 bereaved families fume as ex-Shin Bet chief said co-founding leadership project

Families bereaved by the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught in southern Israel expressed outrage Thursday at the revelation that Ronen Bar, who was at the helm of the Shin Bet security service at the time of the attack, is part of an initiative to establish a school for political leadership at an Israeli university.

The families insisted that anyone who holds responsibility for not preventing the attack cannot be entrusted to shape the future leaders of the country.

During the October 7 onslaught, Hamas-led terrorists who burst into the country from the Gaza Strip killed some 1,200 people and abducted 251. It was the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust and the worst disaster in modern Israeli history. It triggered a war that lasted for two years.

The families’ response came the day after the Kan public broadcaster reported on Bar’s plan to help co-found the school in cooperation with Reichman University, a private academic institution in Herzliya.

In a follow-up report on Thursday, Kan said that Bar is interested in bringing on board, alongside himself, former senior officials from the defense establishment as well as former minister Shai Piron and former MK Roy Folkman.

Those behind the project envision it as being similar to other leadership schools around the world, forming partnerships and cooperation with top universities. It would grant those who complete the program an academic degree, the report said.

Shelly Meshel-Yogev, mother of Libby Cohen Meguri, who was among more than 360 people murdered by terrorists at the Nova music festival during the Hamas attack, slammed Bar’s role in the school.

“Can Ronen Bar open a course on leadership? What sort of leadership and leader is it suitable for him to lead and teach?” she said to Kan. “The same goes for the prime minister and [Aharon] Haliva,” she added, referring to the former IDF intel chief.

“I expect Haliva to come and sit with us at home… and say ‘I am choking with shame’; I expect Ronen Bar to do the same,” she said.

She said she supports any process that would lead to a state commission of inquiry and the removal from government of those responsible for the October 7 failures, a pointed reference to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition. Meshel-Yogev specified in an Army Radio interview on Thursday that she believes all Israel’s political and military chiefs, including Netanyahu, must step down and play no further role in public life.

The anti-government October Council group, which campaigns for a state commission of inquiry, sent a letter in the name of some bereaved families to the Reichman University president, its administrators, and members of its board, asking them not to work with Bar.

“Your decision to have former head of the Shin Bet Ronen Bar establish a program for political leadership crosses a red line and is a fatal blow to the fundamental value of public leadership in Israel,” Kan cited the letter as saying. “First and foremost is the need to take responsibility.”

“We will not allow someone who is responsible for the failure that led to the slaughter of our loved ones to shape the character of the next Israeli leader,” they wrote.

Yigal Cohen, who lost his daughter Hadar Miriam Cohen in the Nahal Oz military post, told Kan: “It is terrible.”

“Anyone who was in office on October 7, whether in the defense establishment or some sort of government position — any role that bears some responsibility for October 7 — needs to hand in their keys” and leave public life, he said.

Citing sources familiar with the developments, Kan reported Wednesday that Bar has met with public figures and held talks on the program that is aimed at preparing the next generation of political figures.

Bar would serve as a member of the board managing the school. The report noted that currently he has no formal role and isn’t slated to teach courses, but rather that he is assisting in establishing the program, which is still in its nascent phase.

In the wake of the initial report, Meshel-Yogev responded with a post to X that “my daughter won’t be learning in university.”

“Anyone who had their hands on the wheel on October 7 can’t teach us anything on leadership,” she wrote.

In December, Bar called for the government to establish a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7 attack, lobbing implicit criticism at Netanyahu in his first public address since leaving his post in June.

True leadership “does not end with taking responsibility for the failure,” he said. “It ends with taking responsibility for fixing it,” he said at the time.

Bar admitted responsibility in the first weeks of the war against Hamas for the Shin Bet’s failure to prevent the terror group’s onslaught. He announced last April he would step down on June 15 over his agency’s part in the failure to prevent. Netanyahu’s cabinet had voted to dismiss him earlier, prompting a legal battle in the High Court of Justice.

Bar is among a slew of senior officials who resigned over the October 7 failures, among them Haliva, former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi, former IDF Southern Command head Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, and former commander of the Gaza Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld.

Netanyahu, who has refused to accept responsibility for the failures, has strongly opposed establishing a state commission into the October 7 failures while also attempting to shift the blame to security chiefs and away from the political leadership.

Opposition politicians, good governance groups and hostages’ families have all demanded the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, with some turning to the courts to force the issue.

The government is instead trying to establish its own, politically appointed probe, claiming that a sizable portion of the public would not accept the findings of a traditional state probe shaped by the judiciary.