Jewish Division head steps down temporarily, regrets calling Jewish extremists ‘shmucks’ and slamming IDF for perceived failure to combat settler violence
The Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday said it forbade Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar from investigating taped remarks made by the head of his agency’s Jewish Division, in which the official called radical settler youths “shmucks” and said agents detain them “even without evidence.”
In a message to members of the Jewish Division earlier in the day, the official known only as Aleph suspended himself from his post, saying, “I deeply regret the way the things were said, which does not characterize the way I conduct myself vis-à-vis the many other bodies with which we work in cooperation.”
The Shin Bet said that it would open an internal investigation into Aleph’s statements, clarifying that the conversation “solely addressed lawbreakers suspected of violence, who took the law into their own hands.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at the Shin Bet, issuing a statement rejecting the prospect that agency head Bar investigate the newly-surfaced recording.
“The Shin Bet chief, who was dismissed by the government from his position, is barred from investigating the serious incident in which the head of the Jewish Division was recorded acting illegally — because he is personally involved in it,” the PMO wrote in a statement.
Netanyahu recently dismissed Bar from his position, claiming that he had lost faith in the Shin Bet chief and could no longer work with him. The government is in the process of choosing a replacement. Bar’s dismissal came as the agency is conducting a probe into suspicions that close aides to the prime minister were paid by a Qatar-linked lobbyist to promote the Gulf country’s image.
The PMO said that the new Shin Bet chief, once appointed, “will handle the grave issue that has come to light,” referring to the taped call.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara responded to Netanyahu on Sunday evening that Bar does have full authority to investigate the comments, attributing to the Shin Bet chief “all the powers given to him, including in the field of investigation and command clarification.”
She also pointed out that High Court of Justice suspended Bar’s dismissal pending hearings and a decision on petitions against the government’s firing of the agency head, saying that Netanyahu’s comment would “empty of content the judicial decision.”
The attorney general added that the head of the Jewish Division’s comments do required “deep and urgent” investigation, as Bar has himself stated.
The leaked conversation was between Jewish Division head Aleph and Cdr. Avishai Muallem, a police officer, who is himself being probed and who recently led the West Bank police’s investigations and intelligence unit.
Muallem was placed on forced leave amid allegations he papered over Jewish nationalist crimes to earn a promotion from National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. He is suspected of bribery and other offenses and was previously arrested on suspicion of obstructing the investigation against him and abusing his authority.
In the taped phone call, Aleph told Muallem that “we always want to detain them for questioning, as often as possible.”
“Look at how the Shin Bet behaves with them in interrogations. We arrest these shmucks even without evidence for several days,” he continued.
When Muallem asked Aleph what to arrest them for, the latter instructed him to “first of all, catch them in a vehicle from the Havat Gilad outpost, maybe there were combustibles in there, maybe they [settlers] smell of gasoline.”
“What if nothing is found?” the cop pressed. “What do we do? Just arrest them?”
Aleph responded that Israeli security forces have had to deal with plenty of settler violence in the past, so “why have there been no arrests?”
The Jewish Division head also lambasted the IDF and its perceived failure to deal with settler violence. “The army is in Lebanon and Gaza, this isn’t an army [in the West Bank] — it’s a joke, it’s phalangists, it’s the settlers themselves,” he said.
The phone call gave credence to claims of increasingly strained relations between West Bank police and the Shin Bet’s Jewish Division, which deals with Israeli settler violence. Sources in the agency have complained that Muallem’s unit effectively ceased collecting intelligence on or arresting settlers suspected of nationalist attacks.
Responding to the taped conversation, an initial statement from the Prime Minister’s Office called it “a substantive threat to democracy” and urged a thorough check of the Jewish Division’s activities. “Only in dark regimes do the secret police act in this dangerous way,” said Netanyahu.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir also called for ousting the head of the Jewish Division and promised to ask Netanyahu to summon Bar to provide clarifications. “This is mafia-like behavior, illegal hounding of settlers,” he posted to X. “The time has come to stop criminality under the protection of the law.”
In a statement announcing his self-imposed suspension, Aleph said he would step down until “the end of a comprehensive investigation into the matter.”
“I have erred in my language in a manner that is not consistent with the values of the agency and my values, and therefore, in order to allow for a thorough investigation and out of my duty to set a personal example, I am suspending myself,” the statement read.
As reported by The Times of Israel