Numerous government members responded harshly to the exposure of the shocking report on Tuesday, revealing that Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar threw a senior Shin Bet official into prison for revealing information that embarrassed them. Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli stated: “‘A.’ is a hero of Israel – a whistleblower who was willing to take a risk against a pair of dangerous officials. ‘A’ revealed that amid a war, the Shin Bet chief is obsessively spying on a sitting minister; he revealed that the parts published to the public from the Shin Bet’s investigation into the circumstances of the launch of the war present a false and distorted picture – Bar wanted to tell us that the political echelon was responsible for the strengthening Hamas, but forgot to mention that he himself set the rehabilitation of Gaza and the bolstering of its economy as a central goal.” “None of the information published by A’ meets the definition of secret material or has a speck of risk to state security. On the contrary, non-disclosure of these materials to the political echelon and the public is what harms the security of the state. Bar has already been unanimously ousted by the government, but instead of vacating his position, the man hijacked the organization and its draconian capabilities and turned them into a personal tool for revenge and political persecution, and not for the first time. Israel has never had a more failed, reckless, and arrogant Shin Bet chief in its entire history.” “Bar and Baharav-Miara act like King Louis XIV, who said: ‘I am the state.’ Bar doesn’t see himself as subject to the government, which means that he doesn’t see himself as subject to the laws of the state that clearly define his subordination to the government and its head. On such a state of affairs, in which the head of a service chooses to ignore his subordination to the laws of the state, Judge Zamir wrote: ‘In this way, control over the service may one day fall into the hands of a person or group of people without restraint, and from here there is only a short step between him and the tyrannical rule of a police state…'” “I will fight with all my might for the innocence of A’, a loyal servant of Am Yisrael and Israeli democracy, and against the political Stasi of the Bar and Miara duo,” Chikli concluded. Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich stated: “This is what a real coup looks like. When a secret intelligence organization uses the draconian powers granted to it for security purposes against elected officials and journalists, while completely losing its checks and balances. When an elected government seeks to remove a failing Shin Bet chief who has betrayed and undermined and the Attorney General and the Supreme Court violently prevent it.” “The State of Israel is on a slippery and dangerous slope on the way to losing democracy and a dictatorial rule of a security and legal junta. We will not let this pass. We will return the State of Israel to the people.” “I don’t know who the Shin Bet man in question is, but as far as I am concerned, he is the next Shin Bet chief – the only one in the organization with […]