Shin Bet chief to far-right minister: The Palestinians do not burn the homes of Jews

Shin Bet chief David Zini warned, during a heated cabinet meeting Sunday evening, that he may seek to reinstate administrative detention for Jewish extremists in the West Bank to tackle settler attacks on Palestinians, according to Hebrew media reports.

Zini reportedly spoke about the potential decision during a bitter argument with Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock over West Bank violence, telling her she was “disconnected from reality” after she accused him of portraying Jewish settlers as perpetrators and Palestinians as victims.

The far-right minister was reported to have accused Zini of presenting a one-sided picture of the violence, “as if the Arabs are all sweetness and light, and only the settlers are the problematic ones.”

At issue was an ongoing series of attacks by Jewish extremists on Palestinian civilians and properties in the West Bank.

“The Palestinians do not burn the homes of Jews,” Zini fired back, calling on leaders associated with the settler movement to speak out against the violence.

Strock told him that everyone in a position of leadership had already condemned the violence. “I don’t understand who else he wants to condemn it,” she said, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

“The entire settlement leadership opposes and condemns this kind of violence,” she said. “All the regional council heads and rabbis have issued calls against it.”

Zini pressed her on when she herself had condemned the violence in the West Bank.

“I condemn it everywhere,” Strock responded. “On Reshet Bet. On Army Radio. Just listen.”

According to the Ynet news site, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that the extremist violence against Palestinians harms Israel’s international standing.

Following those comments, Zini said: “We need to see condemnations and denunciations from the entire leadership. This harms the settlement movement and harms security.”

The recent spike in settler violence has forced Zini to confront the question of how aggressively the Shin Bet should deal with Jewish extremists.

In the wake of heightened violence in the West Bank earlier this year, Shin Bet field agents recommended that several Jews — presumably extremist settlers — be placed in administrative detention. According to Channel 13, Zini declined to do so.

His position echoed that of Defense Minister Israel Katz, who halted the use of administrative detention, which allows for a suspect to be held without charge, against Jewish suspects.

Haaretz reported in April that Zini was considering removing the head of the Shin Bet’s investigations department from his position over the treatment of Jewish terror suspects. Sources told the newspaper that Zini and his associates criticized the “lack of proportionality” in the treatment of suspects by the department’s investigators.

According to the report, Zini at the time referred to settler attacks as instances of “friction,” rather than terrorism. Security officials reportedly said Zini deprioritized the Shin Bet division responsible for tackling right-wing extremism.

During Sunday night’s meeting, Zini reportedly moved away from his previous remarks, saying he would demand the return of administrative detention if the agency failed to deal with Jewish extremists in the West Bank by other means.

Increasing settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank come amid the annual olive harvest period, which frequently has seen clashes and attacks around Palestinian farmland. Israel has faced growing international criticism over the surge in settler violence in recent years. Netanyahu and other officials in his government have downplayed the attacks as the work of a small number of troublemakers.

Netanyahu tapped Zini to head the domestic security agency last May. Zini replaced former chief Ronen Bar, who left his position the following month after a controversial dismissal. At the time, Netanyahu said he had lost faith in Bar after the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught by Hamas on southern Israel.

Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously in March to dismiss Bar, in what was the first time an Israeli government had fired a Shin Bet chief. Bar challenged the dismissal, arguing that Netanyahu was concealing political and personal considerations. Later, the cabinet unanimously approved Zini’s appointment.

Zini entered his post as head of the Shin Bet last October. Early into his new role, the backgrounds on all computers at the agency were changed from the logo of the internal security service to a photo of the Temple Mount, according to Channel 12.

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