Security discussion nixed after Smotrich refuses to attend alongside Shin Bet chief
Hostages’ families ‘alarmed’ important cabinet meeting called off due to ‘personal, political reasons’ amid probe into leak of secret info by Shin Bet agent
Tuesday’s security cabinet meeting was canceled after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that he would not attend if Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar was invited.
The far-right minister’s refusal to attend the meeting if Bar was present came amid a wave of coalition criticism of the security agency chief after reports of an investigation into a leak of classified information from a Shin Bet agent to journalists and a cabinet minister.
Smotrich’s office said he notified Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he would not participate in the discussion if Bar was attending, calling him a “dangerous man” who uses Shin Bet tools for “personal needs” and to “take revenge on politicians and journalists.”
Smotrich also said that Israel is on a “slippery and dangerous slope,” charging that the actions of law enforcement agencies threaten democracy and declaring that the Shin Bet agent under investigation for leaking should be the next head of the security service.
The canceled security cabinet meeting was reportedly scheduled to discuss the ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip as well as developments in the negotiations to free the remaining hostages from Hamas.
Reacting to the meeting’s cancellation, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that it was “alarmed” that “sensitive security discussions are being canceled due to personal and political disputes,” calling this an “ominous sign of the government’s priorities.”
“What other discussions will be canceled due to the same conflicts?” the forum asked. “Will the fate of the hostages be decided based on petty politics?
“Show responsibility, sit in one room and come up with an agreement that will return everyone,” it added, in a direct appeal to decision-makers.
The cancellation also sparked ire from Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who said that calling off a security cabinet meeting “because of a threat from an extremist minister is a direct violation of state security.” He added that the “criminal government is a danger to every citizen of the State of Israel.”
Similarly, Benny Gantz, chairman of the opposition National Unity party, said that the cancellation of the meeting was “reckless” and could harm Israel’s national security.
The investigation in question, which was revealed on Tuesday morning, led to the arrest of the Shin Bet agent. He is suspected of leaking classified information about a probe into growing “Kahanism” in the police force, which comes under the purview of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. According to the suspect’s lawyers, material he conveyed that was not classified also relates to unpublicized parts of the Shin Bet’s investigation of failures surrounding Hamas’s October 7 assault.
After rumors of the affair began to swirl on Monday, including comments from members of Knesset, the judge overseeing the case partially lifted a gag order on the investigation, which is being carried out by the Shin Bet itself, along with the Justice Ministry’s Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI).
The court kept in place a prohibition on the media reporting the name of the arrested Shin Bet agent, who has been identified only by the Hebrew initial Aleph.
However, the initial ban on identifying the alleged recipients of the leaked information was lifted, and they were named as Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal, and Israel Hayom reporter Shirit Avitan Cohen.
The development further increased tensions between the political leadership and the country’s security and judicial system, already at boiling point with the government’s moves to fire both Bar, the Shin Bet chief, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Outraged coalition members said the investigation was further proof that Bar must not remain in his post, with some ministers claiming it was evidence of a “deep state” — including Bar and Baharav-Miara — working to oust the government. Netanyahu’s cabinet voted last month to fire Bar and began the process of ousting Baharav-Miara.
The High Court of Justice issued an interim injunction freezing the dismissal until further notice and giving the government and the attorney general until April 20 to reach a compromise over the bitter legal dispute regarding the government’s authority to make the move.
Smotrich led the charge, saying, “This is what a real coup looks like.”
“When a secret intelligence organization uses the draconian powers granted to it specifically for security purposes against elected officials and journalists, while completely losing its brakes and controls. When an elected government seeks to remove from office a failed Shin Bet chief who has betrayed and undermined it, and the attorney general and the court violently prevent this,” he wrote on X.
Chikli, who was one of the three recipients of the leaked information, called the arrested Shin Bet official an “Israeli hero” for revealing “corruption” in the security service and said that Bar carried out “obsessive spying on a serving minister” — seeming to refer to Ben Gvir.
While Netanyahu did not comment directly about the new Shin Bet probe, he shared a post on X written by Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, who called Bar “a real danger to society,” and said that under his leadership, the Shin Bet has been used to “persecute public figures and intimidate journalists and their sources.”
Milwidsky said that Bar and the rest of the so-called “deep state” should “be the ones under investigation, not running them.”
Critics charge that Netanyahu had a conflict of interest in dismissing Bar given the Shin Bet’s ongoing probe into the so-called Qatargate affair — in which senior aides to the premier are suspected of maintaining illicit ties to Doha — and more broadly accuse the premier of seeking to pin all the blame for the failure of October 7 on Bar and the security establishment, while shirking responsibility himself.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.