The current crisis in civil-security relations is Netanyahu’s worst transgression (Yossi Alpher- May 5, 2025)

Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.

Q. Head of Shin Bet Ronen Bar has resigned after leveling unprecedented accusations against PM Netanyahu. No fewer than 21 former heads of services publicly back Bar. Why this crisis? What is it about?

A. The Netanyahu-Bar clash is symptomatic of Netanyahu’s attempt, over a period of years, to politicize Israel’s security establishment and bend it to his ideological and personal-political goals. This has generated a crisis in civil-security relations that is at least as dangerous as Netanyahu’s ‘judicial revolution’ that preceded and in some ways catalyzed the events of October 7, 2023. 

Nor is the crisis confined to the Shin Bet domestic security service. Netanyahu and his minions have also lately attacked the heads of Mossad and the IDF.

This is a crucial test of the viability of the governance system in Israel. One of the first signs of creeping fascism is when the security services are called upon to serve the regime rather than the wellbeing of the country and the public. Or when, alternatively (e.g., Watergate; January 6, 2021), the leader sets up his own security arm.

To be sure, in the past there have been problematic relations between the prime minister and/or defense minister (on occasion the same person, e.g., Ben Gurion, Rabin, Barak) and security chiefs. But they never became full-fledged public crises and never threatened the viability of governance like the present crisis, for at least three reasons. 

For one, in the early years everything in Israel was smaller and ‘cosier’, Prior to 1977 only one party (Mapai) ruled, and service heads did not benefit from Knesset legislation that fortified their independence. Then too, the Palestinian issue--which is at the heart of the current tensions--was not nearly as central as it became after 1967 and particularly as it is since October 7. 

Third, the identity of Mossad and Shin Bet heads and, indeed, the very existence of these intelligence arms, was secret: government-security relations were to a large extent hidden from the public. The ‘Lavon Affair’ of the 1950s, which had nothing to do with the Palestinians, was not public knowledge for decades. As a Mossad official in the 1970s, my kids and my neighbors knew only that I worked for the “security establishment.” The only Mossad that the public-at-large was aware of was the ‘Mossad LeBituach Leumi,” the government’s social security arm.

Moreover, then as now, that same security establishment shunned politics. I still recall how, as I was briefing a Knesset delegation in Mossad headquarters regarding the soon-to-erupt revolution against the Shah of Iran, the Head of Mossad cut me off when I chanced to compare a branch of Iran’s Islamist revolutionaries to an Israeli political party.

Then, as now, the heads of the security branches took responsibility. They admitted and analyzed their failures. The difference is that, back then, Israel’s heads of government--Begin, Rabin--did the same. Not so Netanyahu, who in recent years has presided over a broad strategic failure (October 7) and a major domestic disruption, while remaining set in his megalomaniacal ways.

Q. Explain what has changed…

A. Here is former Shin Bet head (2011-2016) Yoram Cohen, last month, after Netanyahu attempted to fire Bar and the High Court intervened: 

“I have no words to define the personal attacks that we are witnessing by the prime minister and his lackeys against the head of Shin Bet and the IDF chief of staff (who took responsibility publicly and resigned accordingly). The manner of these attacks is unprecedented. They stem from avoidance of responsibility, they are condemnable and they seriously damage the morale of Shin Bet personnel who risk their lives daily at the front.”

And here are five former Shin Bet heads, six former chiefs of police, four former heads of IDF Intelligence, three former heads of Mossad and three former IDF chiefs of staff, in a totally unprecedented full page ad on April 25:

“We have complete faith in the declaration of the head of Shin Bet [to the effect that] the prime minister ordered him to act against the law and against the citizens of Israel: to prioritize personal loyalty over state loyalty in the event of a constitutional crisis; to monitor citizens who violated no law in order to maintain his political power; to provide a biased opinion with the aim of advancing his [Netanyahu’s] personal interests, thereby deceiving the judicial system.”

That is the gist. Bar’s documentation of the Netanyahu government’s offenses against good government and the Israeli citizenry as well as the illegal orders Netanyahu tried to give him, goes on and on. It comes on top of ample evidence that Netanyahu has consistently prioritized his own values and lackeys over independent civil servants and security chiefs.

Q. How are Israel’s enemies reacting to this evidence of cracks in the Israeli institutional security structure?

A. They are reacting much as they reacted to Netanyahu’s pre-October 7 ‘judicial reform’ and the widespread public protest it engendered. Back then, early in 2023 Gaza-based Hamas leader Yihya Sinwar wrote that “the crisis is deep and reflects the melting of the glue that enables Israel to exist. It will lead to a stronger crisis than the [1973] Yom Kippur War.” Just recently, commentator Wadia Auda wrote in a Qatari daily on Israel’s “curse of the eighth decade” that “In the Arab world the Netanyahu-Bar confrontation… reflects a substantive controversy within Israel that can lead to a deep schism.”

We recall, of course, that on October 7 Sinwar acted on his assessment of Israel’s ‘deep crisis’ and attacked, with consequences we are living with to this day. As in the months leading up to October 7, once again we must beware of Israel’s enemies rejoicing over the glaring failure and violations of democratic norms by its elected government.

Q. Bottom line?

A. To keep the record straight, note that Bar has long been duty-bound to resign, and has openly acknowledged this, because of his share in the blame for the disaster of October 7. He has now set May 15 as the date of his resignation--a move that takes some of the pressure off the High Court and partially dulls the urgency of the current crisis over government-security establishment relations. 

(With Bar’s resignation, all senior Israeli security officials involved in October 7 will have resigned. All… except the prime minister.)

If is also true that in Israel’s democratic parliamentary system, the prime minister is within his rights to reject advice and assessments delivered by the security chiefs, even if this is not prudent. But Netanyahu is not within his rights to demand--of Bar and others--“loyalty” at the personal level. That demand and related behavior smack blatantly of fascist inclinations. 

Further, when 21 former security heads, men of the highest public integrity, publicly warn the prime minister about his “growing incitement against the Shin Bet and its personnel,” his “leaking intelligence in order to influence Israeli public opinion,” and his enabling of “intelligence penetration and influence operations of a foreign country [Qatar] on the prime minister’s closest advisers” -- you know something is seriously wrong.

Still, two dynamics currently militate in Netanyahu’s favor. First, his government still enjoys a solid parliamentary majority, backed by large religious, messianic and settler segments of the Israeli public who are happy to ignore his anti-democratic behavior. Second, in the Israeli reality the public is easily distracted by the need to focus on ongoing security developments: currently, by preparations for yet another futile and (for the remaining hostages) deadly IDF operation in Gaza; and, on Sunday, by a Houthi missile that easily evaded Israel’s interceptors and struck so close to Ben Gurion airport that a host of international carriers cancelled service to Israel.