On 1st day, Shin Bet chief changed background pic on all agency PCs to Temple Mount – report

Days after David Zini entered his post as head of the Shin Bet, the backgrounds on all computers at the agency were changed from logo of the internal security service to a photo of the Temple Mount, Channel 12 revealed in a Saturday report.

Sources who disclosed the development to the network said it was an indicator of Zini’s plans to take the agency in a more religious messianic direction — one in line with his own religious background, as a student at the ultra-conservative Har Hamor yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Zini’s views were seen as so extremist in the past that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly refrained from appointing him as his military secretary because he was “too messianic.”

After enough Shin Bet agents pushed back on the change to the computer backgrounds, they were changed back to the agency’s logo, Channel 12 said.

Shin Bet employees were told that Zini had asked to change his own screen background to an image of the Temple Mount, and a technician accidentally changed the backgrounds for the entire agency, according to the report.

This was one of a series of controversies surrounding Zini, who is marking six months as head of the agency.

The network said that upon entering his role in the Shin Bet, Zini changed the agency’s priorities to downgrade the importance of combating Jewish terror. The violence was reclassified as “skirmishes.”

A former senior official in the Shin Bet revealed to Channel 12 that Zini’s own son was involved in racially motivated attacks against Druze towns near where the family lives in the Golan Heights.

An agent from the Shin Bet department responsible for combating Jewish terror phoned Zini shortly after he entered his post warning him that his son was a target of the agency and that he should keep an eye on him.

The agency declined Channel 12’s request for comment on the matter.

In February, one of Zini’s brothers, Bezalel Zini, was charged with participating in a ring that smuggled goods into Gaza during Israel’s war with the Hamas terror group.

Since taking over the agency, the former general reversed the Shin Bet’s long-held opposition to legislation mandating the death penalty for Palestinian attackers — something the security establishment has for decades deemed as ineffective in curbing terror.

Zini more recently signed off on a legal opinion sought by Netanyahu that used reasons of  national security to justify why the premier need not show up to testify in his criminal trial.

The previous Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar pushed back on Netanyahu’s efforts to have him sign off on such a legal opinion and it led to a major deterioration in their relationship. Bar was later pushed out of his position by the government before he planned to wrap up his tenure.

“When Ronen Bar refused the request” to tell the courts that it was unsafe for Netanyahu to testify, “the risks were much greater,” a former senior Shin Bet employee told Channel 12. “We are in a ceasefire today. Back then, we were in the middle of war… So you have to wonder what changed.”

“It was pressure,” said another former senior member of the agency.

Zini also agreed to change agency policy regarding its involvement in curbing Arab Israeli communal violence.

The Shin Bet had long resisted having its spying techniques used on Israeli citizens over concerns of violations to their democratic rights.

Responding to the Channel 12 report on Zini’s performance, the agency said in a statement: “Since taking office, Shin Bet Chief David Zini has devoted all of his time to action to realize the agency’s mission and ensuring readiness for all security challenges that may lie ahead. The agency will be judged by the results of its work protecting the citizens of the state, not by words.”