Shin Bet chief warns Netanyahu, ministers that Jewish terror endangering Israel
Railing against settler violence, Ronen Bar also warns that Ben Gvir’s visits to Temple Mount, attempts to change status quo, can ‘lead to bloodshed,’ ‘change State of Israel’
Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other ministers that Jewish terror carried out by violent settlers and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s actions on Temple Mount are doing “indescribable damage” to Israel in a letter published by Channel 12 News on Thursday.
“I’m writing you this letter in pain, great fear, as a Jew, as an Israeli, and as a member of a security force,” Bar wrote in the letter, which he also sent to Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Education Minister Yoav Kisch, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, Religious Services Minister Michael Malchieli, and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.
The letter was not sent to Ben Gvir, who reportedly demanded that Bar be fired during the cabinet meeting and stormed out when Netanyahu and other ministers defended him.
“The ‘hilltop youth’ phenomenon long ago became a hotbed of violence against Palestinians,” Bar continued, referring to a group of extremist settlers who regularly clash with and riot against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Bar wrote that he didn’t see the phenomenon as nationalist violence because the violence was committed to “fear monger, meaning terrorism.”
He added that the hilltop youth were encouraged by light-handed treatment and “a secret sense of backing” from the police. The Israel Police, under far-right Ben Gvir, have repeatedly been accused of turning a blind eye to actions by settler extremists.
“The loss of fear of administrative detention due to the conditions they get in prison and the money given to them upon their release by MKs, together with legitimization and praise, alongside delegitimization of security forces,” contributes to the phenomenon’s continuation, Bar wrote.
He wrote that recently, it was evident that the hilltop youth had felt safe enough to be more open, confident, and prolific with their actions and were often using “weapons distributed by the state legally,” seemingly referring to Ben Gvir’s policy of making gun licenses significantly easier to obtain since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
“These are our sons, we are responsible for their education, for legitimization or a lack thereof, for setting the path and setting boundaries,” Bar wrote.
He went on to warn that the solution to the problem was not the Shin Bet and that the situation had to be remedied by the country’s leaders.
“The damage to the State of Israel, especially now and to the vast majority of the settlers, is indescribable: global delegitimization, even among our greatest allies; spreading thin the IDF’s personnel which is already struggling to keep up with all its missions and which wasn’t intended to deal with this; vengeful attacks that are sparking another front in the multi-front war we are in; putting more players into the cycle of terror; a slippery slope to the feeling of a lack of governance; another obstacle to creating local alliances that we need against the Shiite axis; and above all, a massive stain on Judaism and us all,” Bar wrote.
Extremist settlers regularly riot in West Bank Palestinian towns, causing damage to property and even injuring or occasionally killing Palestinian people.
While four Jewish suspects were detained on Thursday in connection with a riot in Jit last week where Palestinian authorities said a man was killed, indictments in such cases are rare and convictions even more so, in what has led the US and other Western countries to begin sanctioning Israeli settler extremists earlier this year.
He added that another risk to Israel was Ben Gvir’s recent visit to the Temple Mount on the Jewish holy day of Tisha B’Av when Jewish visitors were filmed praying and prostrating themselves, in violation of both police instructions and the status quo governing the compound, the holiest site in Judaism and third-holiest in Islam.
Ben Gvir later said that the footage showed there he had changed the status quo on Temple Mount.
“Jews were filmed praying here, this is my policy,” he said.
Netanyahu later denied there had been any change to Israeli policy on the flashpoint holy site that houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
Bar warned that “developments in this direction will lead to bloodshed and will unrecognizably change the face of the State of Israel.”
“I am convinced that we need an explicit statement that this is wrong and dangerous – morally and for security. We need an inter-ministerial effort to stem the phenomenon. I’m convinced that this needs to be one of the government’s main goals before it’s too late,” he ended.
In response to the report, Ben Gvir’s office accused Bar of “trying to create spin and attack Minister Ben Gvir to deflect from the discussion of his responsibility for the concepts and failures that led to October 7.”
“It won’t help him. After [former IDF intelligence chief Aharon] Haliva, he is the next one who must quit,” the statement said.
