Shin Bet internal crisis deepens amid recording scandal, Netanyahu feud

Tel Aviv [Israel], April 6 (ANI/TPS): The head of the Jewish division in the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) suspended himself on Sunday after a recording of him discussing methods of handling Jewish terror suspects was aired on Israeli TV the previous night.

"I made a mistake in my language in a way that is not consistent with the service's values and ethics, and therefore, in order to allow for a thorough investigation and out of my duty to set a personal example, I am suspending myself from my position as head of the division until the end of the comprehensive investigation into the matter," said the Shin Bet official, identified only as A.

In the recording, which was aired on the Kan public broadcaster on Saturday night, A. called terror suspects from Judea and Samaria "scumbags" in a conversation with Avishai Mualem, a senior officer in the Israeli Police's Judea and Samaria Division. A. told Mualem that the Shin Bet arrested Jewish suspects without evidence for evidence and "put them in detention cells, with rats."

A. said, "We always want to detain them for questioning, as many as possible. Look at how Shin Bet interrogations are conducted with them."

When Mualem warned of a backlash, A. replied, "It's being handled by the Shin Bet chief's office with the Minister of Defense."

The Prime Minister's Office said in response that Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar should not be involved in A.'s investigation, claiming Bar was involved in the scandal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bar have been blaming each other over what was known before Hamas' October 7 attack and whether it could have been prevented, as well as the "Qatargate" scandal. Two of Netanyahu's key advisers, Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein, were arrested on March 31 as part of an ongoing investigation into potential connections between Israeli officials and Qatar.

The government voted to fire Bar on March 21, but the High Court of Justice issued a temporary restraining order against the move. The court is expected to hold a hearing on the matter by April 8.

Bar claims that Netanyahu's decision to dismiss him was influenced by a conflict of interest related to the ongoing investigation.

The Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence service, is responsible for counterterrorism, counterintelligence, internal security, VIP protection, and cybersecurity. The only Shin Bet director to ever leave before the end of his five-year term was Carmi Gillon, who resigned in 1995 in the aftermath of the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. (ANI/TPS)

(The story has come from a syndicated feed and has not been edited by the Tribune Staff.)