Head of Shin Bet Denounces Extremists in Israeli Government

The UN’s top humanitarian official for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, confirmed Aug. 22 that some 90% of 2.1 million residents of Gaza have been displaced, many of them several times, since Oct. 7. They are forced to flee into ever smaller areas, that are crowded and unsafe, where they are usually deprived of medical care, shelter, water wells and humanitarian supplies. The UN now estimates that some 20% of the population is facing hunger and starvation. And yet, Hamas has not been destroyed and the hostages it took have not been released, causing increasing anger and frustration in Israel itself.

In the West Bank as well, the Palestinian population has been subjected to increased violence and repression, from the Israeli security forces and the fanatics in the settler movement. The situation has reached the point where the head of Israel’s internal security force Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, sent a letter of protest to Prime Minister Netanyahu, reprinted Aug. 22 by Channel 12 News, denouncing the extremist settler movement and its chief sponsor, Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as posing an extreme danger to Israel. Their riots and violence, he writes, amount to terrorism.

The damage to the State of Israel, Bar explains, “is indescribable: global delegitimization, even among our greatest allies; spreading thin the IDF’s personnel … 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 … a massive stain on Judaism and us all.”

Minister Ben-Givr immediately responded by demanding that Ronen Bar be fired, and later even blamed him for the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. But Bar received the backing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who wrote on his X account, that given the danger to national security and to national unity of “Ben-Gvir’s irresponsible actions”, the head of the domestic intelligence service has the duty to warn of “the grave consequences of these acts”.