Terror, crime and spies await new Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar

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The new head of the Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, came out unscathed from an anonymous letter written about him. The only victim of the affair turned out to be an indirect victim. Intelligence Affairs Minister Elazar Stern insisted on committing glorious political suicide. In his jihad against unsigned, defamatory letters, he confessed to also having tended to shred them when he was head of the army’s manpower directorate.

The ensuing public storm surprised even Stern, who served as the military’s chief troll well before the term was coined. Less than two days after his pathetic interview on 103FM radio, he was forced to withdraw his candidacy for the prestigious and superfluous position of Jewish Agency chairman.

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Meanwhile, Bar took over at the Shin Bet on Wednesday. The only surprise for those working under him involved his name. Granted, they didn’t know him as R., as most of the public did until the gag order on his name was lifted this week; instead, they discovered he had Hebraicized his last name from Berezovsky to Bar.

The anonymous letter against him, which was rather poorly written, didn’t impress the Goldberg committee on senior government appointments. The allegations were not backed up by a single complaint or any real evidence. Retired Justice Eliezer Goldberg and his panel colleagues were more likely impressed by outgoing Shin Bet director Nadav Argaman’s assertion that there would be no difficulty in producing a forged letter against Argaman himself or against any one of those present within five minutes. The committee didn’t deliberate much before confirming Bar.

While en route to meet with the committee in Jerusalem, Bar happened upon a car that had caught on fire. A somewhat ardent supporter of his saw to it to make a picture of R., fire extinguisher in hand, available to the press. It didn’t take long though before the story became grist for social media parodies. Bar will be facing more stubborn fires during his five-year turn.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett with new Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar (M) and outgoing chief Nadav Argaman (L)Haim Zach

The relative quiet on the security front shouldn’t deceive. Like Argaman, Bar will also have to deal with the possibility of an outbreak on various fronts – Palestinian terrorism, Jewish terrorism – and Iranian terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.

Argaman did manage to remove one ticking time bomb from his successor’s agenda on the Palestinian front. At the end of September, security forces arrested dozens of Hamas members throughout the West Bank on suspicion of involvement in planning terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere within the Green Line. The investigation yielded the discovery of numerous explosives. This is looking like the most ambitious Hamas operation in the West Bank in many years.

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Hamas is continuing to operate in the triangle ranging from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and onto military headquarters that it runs in Turkey. From the standpoint of Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, terrorist attacks from the West Bank could assist in undermining security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at a time when a continuation of the cease-fire in Gaza would permit his group to recover and reconstruct what it lost in its most recent round of fighting with Israel in May, which Israel dubbed Operation Guardian of the Walls.

The rules of the game have reverted to May 9, on the eve of the fighting, and Hamas has recovered everything it lost, save $10 million – a third of the monthly Qatari financial assistance – in a dispute over which still lacks resolution.

And yet, it stands to reason that Israel will fail in its effort to condition widespread reconstruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure on progress in efforts to return two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two of its soldiers. Sinwar is committed to work for the release of Hamas’ top inmates in Israeli jails, just as he himself was released exactly 10 years ago in a prisoner swap for soldier Gilad Shalit. The disparities in the positions of the two sides at the moment appear unbridgeable. The main question is how long Israel will be able to drag out the current situation without permitting substantial reconstruction and without Hamas deciding to resume hostilities.

As for the Palestinian Authority, it’s been a long time since President Mahmoud Abbas, who turns 86 next month, has looked so active or indispensable. In contacts with Israelis, he has been adamantly refusing the suggestion that the PA take any role in Gaza upon itself.

Israeli security officials are concerned about three possible risk factors: damage to the status quo on the Temple Mount, which the Palestinians might meet with a nervous response; a worsening of the anarchy in the refugee camps in the northern West Bank, where the PA is afraid to take any action; and an escalation of battles for succession in the PA and Abbas’ Fatah party, if and when his condition deteriorates.

There is nothing to talk about at the moment when it comes to diplomatic negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians given the lack of consensus within the Bennett-Lapid coalition and the limited interest that the Biden administration has displayed in such a process.

But the Israeli government is also holding up economic initiatives and cooperation that could improve the situation in the West Bank and highlight the contrast between the situation there and Gaza’s grimmer reality.

In a rare move, Argaman, spoke publicly about these things in his farewell speech as Shin Bet director on Wednesday. “The absence of dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and steps taken by Abu Mazen [Abbas] have enfeebled the PA,” he said. “The current reality is a strong Hamas and a weak PA. Israel must find the way toward cooperation with the PA and promote economic projects with international assistance.”

New Shin Bet chief Ronen BarShin Bet security agency spokesperson

Taking a bite out of crime

The most urgent and politically charged issue facing Bar involves the role the Shin Bet can play in combatting the rampant crime wave in Arab communities. Argaman was very hesitant to mobilize his organization for this campaign, worried that such activity could put him on a collision course with Israeli citizens not involved in terror or espionage. As Haaretz’s Yaniv Kubovich reported this week, Bar is setting up a team headed by a senior Shin Bet operative, tasked with examining the limits of possible assistance the organization can provide the police.

One of the salient problems is the weakness of investigators at the police’s disposal, not the investigative tools. Other than the anti-fraud 433 Lahav unit, the police have over the years lost their ability to extract information during investigations, making it desperately dependent on evidence gathered before a suspect is hauled in for questioning. In the fabled battle of wits between investigator and suspect, brains have grown feebler. The Shin Bet has an advantage, in investigators and authority, but this raises yet again the issue of the slippery slope. What measures are legitimate in the effort to prevent crime, when the issue does not involve terror and ticking time bombs?

The part receiving little attention about the security service’s work regards the foiling of espionage and attempts by foreign powers, mainly China, to attain local influence. The Russians were very active here in the past, focusing on attempts to recruit agents among the large community of residents from the former Soviet Union. China is attempting to gain influence and is engaging in industrial espionage. Chinese involvement is growing, becoming in recent years a stumbling block in Israel’s relations with the United States.

Under American pressure, Israel’s previous government established in 2019 an agency devoted to reviewing foreign investments, meant mainly to block the Chinese takeover of sensitive infrastructure projects which could worry the Americans. In recent years, Israel halted the involvement of a Chinese company in the operation of Ben-Gurion Airport, as well as a bid involving a Chinese firm for constructing a second desalination plant near the nuclear facility at Nahal Soreq. If the Chinese were hoping to participate in bids for laying down the infrastructure for the fifth generation (5G) of mobile phones, it seems these hopes have been quashed.

But this mechanism has a vulnerable spot, since it is under the purview of the Finance Ministry, which has an innate tendency to favor increased foreign investments in the country. The Shin Bet’s position is heard, but not always given the appropriate weight. Perhaps the right move, given the matter’s sensitivity, is to subordinate the agency to the prime minister, who is familiar with all the complex considerations and is capable of striking the right balance between them.

Another question which will cause the new Shin Bet chief some sleepless nights concerns the foiling of terror attacks overseas, an area in which responsibility the Shin Bet and the Mossad share responsibility. The Shin Bet protects Israeli institutions and provides advice about protecting Jewish community institutions. Recently, following attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists attributed to Israel, there has been a steep increase in the number of warnings. The last attempt was thwarted only two weeks ago with the arrest of an Azerbaijani and a Pakistani citizen on suspicion of planning to attack Israeli businessmen in Cyprus, at the behest of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. There will be more such attempts, some of them certainly more sophisticated ones.

Shin Bet security agency chief appointment ceremony – new chief Ronen Bar (L), Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (M), outgoing chief Nadav Argaman (R)Haim Zach

On one issue, at least, the incoming chief has been spared, for now: the pleasure of serving under Benjamin Netanyahu. Moreover, there will be no need to repel the exorbitant demands for security made by the prime minister’s wife. Bar will apparently not experience the oppressive feeling, described so well by the late Mossad head Meir Dagan and others, suffred during appearances at the Prime Minister’s Office. Participants at diplomatic and security forums have the impression that, despite Naftali Bennett’s lack of experience, including numerous mistakes made, the atmosphere has greatly improved. Discussions are to the point, devoid of the feeling of paranoia that Netanyahu displayed during the final two years of his term.

In retrospect, there is no doubt the danger hovering over government institutions was real. Netanyahu strove to rid himself of many of the senior professional cadres, including the attorney general, the state prosecutor, the police commissioner and the Shin Bet chief, replacing them with his confidants. The story has not yet been fully told. Many of the people who were there believe Israel was only a razor-thin distance away from irreversible steps, with halting Netanyahu’s criminal trial constituting only the first step. To this was added the atmosphere of incitement and divisiveness, stoked by the former prime minister and his supporters, which often threatened to deteriorate into serious violence. Netanyahu’s last days were characterized, on one hand, by a release of violent genies on social media, and by his attempts to expand emergency measures he was authorized to employ during the coronavirus epidemic for use in other areas.

What people tend to forget is that there is no guarantee this nightmare will not return. The Bennett-Lapid government is not that stable. At least until the budget is passed, it may collapse, given the plethora of conflicts and internal dissensions.

Sword of Damocles

Ronen Bar’s appointment is the new government’s first in the security realm. It’s not the first time a last-minute attempt has been made to scuttle an appointment at this level. Previous appointments, such as that of Yoav Gallant as IDF chief of staff in 2011, were canceled. There was also the wave of retirements by police major generals following the conclusion of Roni Alsheich’s term as commissioner in 2018.

New Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar with Defense Minister Benny GantzAriel Hermoni / Defense Ministry

But despite the multiple scandals, considerable disorder continues to reign in the process of senior-level appointments. The heads of the Movement for Integrity, attorney Avia Alef and Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov (Mendi) Orr, cautioned about this in a letter they sent on Thursday to Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev. The letter mentions a critical report issued by the state comptroller about appointment procedures in 2013. Bills to enshrine in law the procedures to appoint the chief of staff and the police commissioner were submitted in 2015, but the legislation was frozen when the 19th Knesset was dissolved.

A concrete case in point is the inconsequential anonymous letter regarding Bar’s appointment. Orr told Haaretz that no proper procedure exists for contacting the Goldberg committee vetting senior appointments, and that the committee does not have its own investigative arm. When the committee approves an appointment it does not even have a detailed personal file about the candidate. The army has procedures for appointments up to the rank of colonel; however, when it comes to more senior positions, neither commanders’ opinions nor the results of a sociometric test are considered. On top of this, there is no proper definition of the senior appointees’ length of service, other than that of the director of the Shin Bet, which is set by law.

Orr said: “The term of office of the Mossad head is determined by government decision. The term of the chief of staff and the police commissioner is four years, but sometimes it becomes three years with a possible one-year extension – thus leaving both of them as hostages. The fourth year hangs over their heads like a sword of Damocles in the hands of their superiors.”

The vague legal situation leaves the minister with considerable power, but doesn’t detail the status of the prime minister in the process. “It’s all done in secret and nothing is documented,” Orr added. “I am somewhat surprised that we have not yet seen a petition [to the High Court of Justice] by a candidate who was disqualified at the last minute. It’s a political process containing no supervisory mechanism. The time has come to change this, before the appointment of the next chief of staff in around another year.”