As the cabinet voted to fire Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, an “Israeli official” late Thursday accused the spy chief of doing nothing to stop the Hamas October 7, 2023, attack even though, the official claimed without evidence, Bar knew it was going to happen beforehand.
“Ronen Bar preferred not to attend the government meeting [tonight] dealing with his case, simply because he was afraid of giving answers,” asserted the official, whom Channel 12 identified as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, “and especially of answering one question: Why, after you knew about the Hamas attack many hours before it happened, did you do nothing and did not call the prime minister – something that would have prevented the disaster?”
“If Ronen Bar carried out his role like he is now grasping to his job, we would not have reached October 7,” the official charged.
Netanyahu has sought to place the responsibility for the colossal failure on the shoulders of the security establishment, arguing he was not woken up when signs of an impending attack were being picked up by Israel’s intelligence services in the hours before Hamas’s invasion and slaughter.
The unfounded allegation of advance knowledge of the Hamas attack has been peddled online, including by pro-Netanyahu conspiracy theorists, against Israel’s security chiefs since soon after October 7, but not directly advanced by the prime minister.
The fiery statement against Bar came after the Shin Bet leader, in a letter sent to the cabinet earlier Thursday, accused Netanyahu of harming Israel’s security and getting in the way of negotiations to reach a hostage release deal, and linked his ouster to the “ongoing complex, extensive, and highly sensitive investigation currently underway into Qatar’s involvement in the heart of Israeli decision-making, the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Yair Netanyahu arrives for a court hearing in Tel Aviv, on November 29, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/ Flash90)
Yair Netanyahu, the premier’s eldest son who is known for lashing out online at his father’s critics and pushing conspiracy theories, also hit out at Bar following the letter, again claiming without evidence that the Shin Bet chief “is trying to carry out a coup by an armed organization, similar to third-world countries in Africa.”
“What world is he living?!? Did he and his friends in the deep state forget who is in power in America?!?” added the younger Netanyahu, referring to US President Donald Trump’s firing of senior officials and efforts to concentrate further governmental power in the executive branch.
Earlier this week, the Axios news site quoted aides to the prime minister saying that Netanyahu decided to move ahead with firing Bar in early February, after leaving his trip to Washington inspired by the moves Trump took “against the deep state” and his appointment of loyalists to key posts.
Netanyahu has additionally sought to harness Trump’s rhetoric.
“In America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will. They won’t win in either place! We stand strong together,” Netanyahu posted in English on Wednesday from his official X account, before deleting the tweet and reposting to his personal account.
Netanyahu later published a campaign-like social media video expounding in Hebrew on the term, which he described as “the permanent bureaucracy that is barely replaced and sits deep in the Israeli government, and decides that it knows better than the voters.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rails against ‘the deep state’ in a social media video filmed at the Prime Minister’s Office, March 19, 2025. (Screen capture X)
The X post and video came after police announced that they detained and questioned under caution two suspects as part of an ongoing investigation into whether thousands of dollars were funneled from Qatar to one or more of Netanyahu’s aides.
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