Ronen Bar will be remembered as an “excellent” Shin Bet chief—for overseeing one of the most catastrophic intelligence failures in Israeli history: the October 7 massacre. His supposed “sharp instincts” and “precise judgment” were nowhere to be found that day.
Fortunately for us, the sarcasm here writes itself. The man who “saved the day” and stopped Qatari money from claiming more victims in Gaza? Hardly.
And that wasn’t his only “achievement.” As a key member of Israel’s hostage negotiation team, Bar obsessively sought mandates from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to continue talks, along with fellow delegation members.
Their belief that Israel should keep offering concessions was exposed after the Biden administration's exit, when U.S. officials admitted that every new pressure campaign on Israel only emboldened Hamas.
Indeed, the ability of Bar and fellow alumni of the elite IDF unit Sayeret Matkal—Oren Setter and Nitzan Alon—to understand how Hamas thinks and how concessions encourage it was remarkable. Maybe they should open a school for negotiation tactics.
Bar was the worst Shin Bet director in Israel’s history—and those aren't his only failures. Under his watch, the agency missed the rise in Arab terrorism and instead treated “Jewish terror” as its core mission, as revealed by Israel Police Deputy Commissioner Avishai Muallem.
The kind of “outside-the-box” thinking Bar didn’t display on October 7 only surfaced once he was dismissed. Suddenly, he refused to step down, claiming the state couldn’t investigate the Qatargate scandal without him, while using his position to try and shift power away from elected officials and toward the judiciary.
His confidence in doing so came from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who backed him all the way.
That’s the pair of shoes Bar’s replacement must fill—tiny, narrow shoes that served narrow interests, not Israel’s security. Whatever his qualifications, Bar’s would-be successor—Eli Sharvit—was preferred by those who praised the nomination, such as Gadi Eisenkot, because he'd have stepped into them comfortably.
He’s affiliated with the Israeli left, joined the anti-government protests and that made him appealing to those celebrating Bar’s departure. It’s likely Baharav-Miara would’ve approved too. After all, Bar kept the Shin Bet a power base for her—not for Israel. That’s why she’s fighting David Zini’s appointment.
That’s the story. Opponents of David Zini wanted someone who’d be better than Bar but share the same worldview—because they view the Shin Bet as a pillar of political power and they fear losing it. Those who support Zini believe the agency should be focused not on power struggles between branches of government but on fighting the enemy.
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And there’s a chance—unless political pressure and media backlash tame him—that David Zini will lead the Shin Bet with a renewed focus on its founding purpose: national security. That he’ll refuse to cooperate with political actors like the attorney general, who dragged the agency into partisan whirlpools.
Naveh DromiPhoto: Ilya MelnikovThat he’ll recognize that residents of Kfar Saba face greater danger from West Bank terrorists than from hilltop youth settlers and that he’ll treat Hamas as an enemy bent on Israel’s destruction—not a group that money or work permits can pacify.
It’s a worldview the Shin Bet would do well to try. Baharav-Miara may oppose it, but fortunately for Israel, she’s only an advisor. No one’s obligated to listen to her.
The appointment isn’t just legal—it’s necessary.