Israeli Supreme Court dismisses spy chief’s firing as illegal
May 23, 2025 4 Comments
EARLIER THIS WEEK THE High Court of Israel delivered its ruling regarding the dismissal of the head of the Israel Security Agency (ISA, more widely known as the Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, who had already announced his intention to leave his position. The court ruled that the Bar’s dismissal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu violated the law and that Netanyahu had a conflict of interest due to the ISA’s ongoing investigation into the “Qatar-Gate” affair.
Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit and Justice Dafna Barak-Erez were in the majority, with Supreme Court Vice President Noam Solberg in the minority. “The government’s decision [to fire Bar] is unprecedented in the history of the State of Israel,” they ruled. The legal advisor to the government, Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, requested that the court issue a verdict of principle regarding the relationship between a prime minister and the ISA. Her request followed an earlier request by government for the court to dismiss the petitions against the dismissal, claiming that they were no longer relevant.
Justice Amit ruled that “Israel’s security agencies, including the ISA, are responsible for maintaining the security of Israel, the security of its citizens, and the institutions of the state and the democratic regime. Their activities, roles, and powers make the security agencies a central component of the country’s governmental and legal foundations. Having been entrusted with the holiest of holies of the state, all heads of the security agencies —including the head of the ISA— owe a duty of loyalty to the public.”
According to Amit, “[t]he loyalty of the heads of the security apparatus is not a party-political loyalty to a particular government or personal loyalty to one or another prime minister. It is loyalty to the entire Israeli public, which has entrusted them with what is most precious: its life and its security. This duty of loyalty does not contradict the duty of the Shin Bet head to fulfill and promote government policy, but rather expresses the core principle of the fundamental commitment of all state authorities to the rule of law.”
Justice Amit added that, although the petitions were dismissed, as the dissenting judge, Justice Solberg, emphasized, there is still a need to create a deterrent against the government so that such cases do not recur. “The matter may repeat itself, and it is necessary to deter similar and inappropriate behavior in the future, in the sense of preempting a disaster,” he stated. “A question of legality or interpretation of a general norm arises.”
Justice Amit also said that “the principle of statehood of the service’s work may stand in a certain tension with the service’s subordination to the government and the political echelon, and among other things, the concern in this context is a situation in which the responsible echelon will assign the ISA tasks and positions intended to realize partisan-political goals —contrary to the expressed language of the ISA Law. In the tension between the ISA’s subordination to the political echelon and the principle of statehood, the responsibility of the head of the ISA is to ensure that the use of the tools and powers granted to the ISA is done in good faith and not to realize partisan political goals.”
Justice Amit concluded his ruling by stating that “during the government meeting in which it was decided to end the term of office of the ISA chief, the Prime Minister did not explain the factual basis for which he lost professional confidence in the ISA head in recent months, and which, in his opinion, justifies the decision.” According to Justice Amit, “the paucity of the basis presented at the government meeting is further accentuated in light of what is stated in the Prime Minister’s affidavit, as submitted as part of the proceedings.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted negatively to this verdict, stating that it is a scandal, against the law, and detrimental to Israel’s democracy. A day after the ruling, Netanyahu appointed Major General David Zini as the next director of the ISA. In doing so he openly defied warnings from the attorney general and drew immediate backlash.
► Author: Avner Barnea* | Date: 23 May 2025 | Permalink
Dr. Avner Barnea is research fellow at the National Security Studies Center of the University of Haifa in Israel. He served as a senior officer in the Israel Security Agency (ISA). He is the author of We Never Expected That: A Comparative Study of Failures in National and Business Intelligence (Lexington Books, 2021).
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A. I agree security and intelligence agencies should be guided by apolitical principles. Yet there are occasional tensions over policies of the executive government of the day.
In the past the intelligence agencies of the US, UK and other governments cherry picked data from a narrow number of sources and wrote analyses to suit policy. An example is the non-existent Iraqi WMDs used as an excuse to invade Iraq in 2003. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Weapons_of_mass_destruction
B. A very simple explanation of “Qatar-Gate” (aka Qatargate) is two of Netanyahu’s senior advisors are under investigation for allegedly accepting payments from Qatar to promote its interests in Israel.
Netanyahu has not been implicated but analysts say the controversy links him “directly” to an appeasement of Hamas, which is backed by Qatar.
Bonjour,
En tant Qu’officier Sous-Traitant,
DOD/CUI/DNI/DSN/DCIA/DIA/SCI/CI/DCI/
Le Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahou a nommé le général David Zini à la tête du Shin Bet, l’agence de sécurité intérieure, malgré une interdiction formelle de la procureure générale Gali Baharav-Miara et une décision de la Cour suprême suspendant le limogeage du directeur actuel, Ronen Bar.
Dans Contexte et opposition juridique
Ronen Bar, nommé en 2021, a annoncé sa démission effective le 15 juin 2025, assumant la responsabilité de l’échec du Shin Bet à prévenir l’attaque du Hamas le 7 octobre 2023. Cependant, Netanyahou avait tenté de le limoger plus tôt, une décision que la Cour suprême a jugée illégale en raison d’un conflit d’intérêts. La procureure générale Baharav-Miara a souligné que Netanyahou ne pouvait pas nommer un nouveau chef du Shin Bet tant que la légalité du limogeage de Bar n’était pas résolue, en raison des enquêtes en cours impliquant des proches du Premier ministre Nomination controversée de David Zini.
Malgré ces restrictions, Netanyahou a nommé David Zini, un général sans expérience préalable au sein du Shin Bet et frère d’un proche allié politique du Premier ministre. Cette nomination a été critiquée pour son manque de transparence et pour les liens personnels entre Zini et Netanyahou, certains y voyant une tentative de renforcer le contrôle politique sur les services de sécurité/ Implications pour la démocratie israélienne
Cette décision a intensifié les tensions politiques en Israël, déjà exacerbées par des réformes judiciaires controversées et la guerre en cours à Gaza. Les critiques accusent Netanyahou de compromettre l’indépendance des institutions de sécurité pour protéger ses intérêts personnels et politiques, notamment en interférant dans des enquêtes sensibles telles que le “Qatargate”, impliquant des allégations de corruption liées à des fonds du Qatar- Entremelant l’union européenne.
Conclusion
La nomination de David Zini à la tête du Shin Bet, en dépit des objections juridiques, soulève des préoccupations quant à l’indépendance des institutions de sécurité israéliennes et à la séparation des pouvoirs/ En Belgique, on parle de Sacro-Sainte- j’en ai déjà fait les frais par le passé/ mal définit elle est un obstacle juridique, tout en constituant de l’instabilité pour nos services de renseignements internationaux Dod-CUI/ tout comme Elle illustre les tensions croissantes entre les branches exécutive et judiciaire du gouvernement israélien-européen.
Pascal lembree.
DOD/CUI/
Israel has no Constitution
@moskerr: Thanks for the correction. Fixed. [JF]