There is shock and dismay within the Shin Bet and Israel’s broader security establishment over the appointment of “N” as deputy head of the Shin Bet — the first significant senior appointment by new Shin Bet chief David Zini. N left security service eight years ago, and his last role in the organization was as a regional division head in the South. What is particularly controversial among senior officers is that Zini chose N despite the fact that he has never served as a head of a major department, a position equivalent to a major general in the IDF.
“This is a hallucination, it’s like naming a brigadier general as deputy chief of staff tomorrow,” a senior security official who works closely with the Shin Bet told ynet on Thursday. “It’s unthinkable. It means Zini doesn’t trust any of his current department heads, and even if he wanted to appoint a division head — he couldn’t find one serving in the Shin Bet today, and had to bring someone from outside who isn’t up to date on the organization’s work.”
Criticism of Zini’s appointment — and of Zini’s own controversial selection by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which sparked a public outcry and reached the Supreme Court — has also come from within the secret service itself. “This is total madness, pure disintegration,” one insider raged, predicting resignations within the Shin Bet as a consequence of the appointment.
A major source of anger inside and outside the organization stems from N’s past. He once served as a trusted appointee directly under Netanyahu, and also held a role in the National Security Council (NSC) where he was close to then‑NSC head Meir Ben‑Shabbat, who is also associated with the prime minister. N grew up in a religious upbringing and lives in a community aligned with Religious Zionist circles.
Senior current and former security officials argue that N’s appointment is a serious blow to the Shin Bet, noting that Zini himself lacks experience in intelligence work, and now his deputy is someone who has been outside the organization for many years with no senior managerial experience.
“This is a bad thing; in the end Zini doesn’t understand the Shin Bet. He has never worked in the organization in any role, and he wasn’t a division commander or a corps commander who worked with the Shin Bet. Maybe he met a Shin Bet coordinator equivalent to a battalion commander in the army,” a former senior security official said of Zini.
“The Shin Bet is an intelligence service responsible for the symbols of democracy, for counter‑subversion and many other things. With all due respect to Zini, even if his appointment is great — it’s clear he has a gap in experience.”
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David Zini was a controverial choice by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Photo: Haim Zach, GPO)
According to the former official, “The deputy head of the Shin Bet is responsible for operational force deployment and must have experience within the organization. He complements the head of the Shin Bet where he lacks. N is not a department head; he was a middle‑ranking division commander. How can he be the right hand of the head of an organization with no experience? It’s like appointing a division commander as deputy chief of staff — and even if that division commander is excellent, it’s not reasonable. What does that say about the department heads, that none of them are fit and they’re all ‘rags’?”
“Zini brought N from the outside. Isn’t there a single head of a division in the organization fit to be deputy? You decided you don’t trust anyone — not one division head who’s current, who even knows what Shin Bet software is used these days? N is an unreasonable appointment,” the official said.
Another former senior official commented: “Can you imagine a brigadier general in the IDF who left to work as a civilian in the Defense Ministry or the NSC coming back to become deputy chief of staff? We are normalizing the abnormal. This already happened in the police — nowadays you can become a deputy commissioner in two years if you are loyal to Minister Ben‑Gvir. In the NSC, N had a negligible role, he was not significant. People in the Shin Bet are in shock; they are stunned. All boundaries have been crossed.”
Another concern raised over N’s appointment — given his close ties to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — is the potential conflict of interest if he oversees Shin Bet investigations involving Netanyahu’s office, such as Qatargate or the leaks of classified documents to the German newspaper Bild — two cases involving members of Netanyahu’s own bureau. “It doesn’t look good,” warned one former senior official.