Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

Arab News

20-04-2025

TEL AVIV: Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he feared an outbreak of political violence connected to what he called a campaign of hate against the country's internal security chief, whom the government has moved to sack.
'The red line has been crossed. If we don't stop this, there will be a political murder here, maybe more than one. Jews will kill jews,' Lapid said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, adding that 'the most serious threats are directed at the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.'
Bar's dismissal as head of the internal security agency has been challenged in court by the opposition, which decried it as a sign of anti-democratic drift on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government.
Bar has suggested his ouster was linked to investigations into Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack 'and other serious matters,' while Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has warned of 'a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates.'
The supreme court froze the government's initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general's office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise.
Bar could resign soon, according to media reports, which would bring the matter to a close.
Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, argued that Bar should resign over his agency's failure to prevent the October 7 attack, and acknowledged the government had the legal authority to dismiss him, provided it was done through due process and 'approved by the court.'
But he also held Netanyahu responsible for a campaign of threats levelled at Bar.
Lapid presented screenshots of social media posts containing death threats against the security chief, telling Netanyahu: 'Stop this.'
'Instead of supporting incitement (to hatred), support the Shin Bet, the security forces, the systems that keep this country alive,' he added.
In 1995, the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist after a campaign of violent rhetoric against him sent shockwaves through Israel.
Some accused then-opposition leader Netanyahu of not doing enough to discourage incitement to violence at the time.