Explainer: The Prime Minister’s Decision to Pursue the Dismissal of the Head of the Shin Bet
On March 20, 2025, Israel’s government voted in favor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet, citing "growing distrust" in the security chief. The following document answers key legal questions around this announcement.
Director of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar. Photo by Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90
The Israel Security Agency, or ISA, is the domestic security agency of Israel. According to the 2002 General Security Service Law, the Shin Bet is entrusted with preserving the security of the State of Israel, and the order of Israel’s democratic regime and institutions, against threats of terrorism, sabotage, subversion, espionage and the disclosure of state secrets. Like any intelligence agency entrusted with domestic security, the Shin Bet relies on ramified set of powers related to collecting information, procedures for processing and gathering the information into a relevant intelligence picture, and numerous powers that enable it to foil or disrupt activity the threatens state security.
According to the 2002 General Security Service Law, the head of the Shin Bet is to be appointed by the government, based on the recommendation of the prime minister (section 3(a)). The term of office of the head of the Shin Bet is five years, unless the government sets a shorter term of office in its formal appointment decision (section 3(b)).
According to section 3(c) of the law, “the government is entitled to end the service of the head of the Shin Bet before the end of his term of office.” That is, the government is authorized to remove the head of the Shin Bet from office. However, prior to a decision by the government, the prime minister must first bring the matter for the consideration of the Advisory Committee on Senior Civil Service Appointments. The decisions of this committee, headed by a former president of the Supreme Court, are not binding upon the government but still carry public and normative weight.
Since the General Security Service Law was passed, no head of the Shin Bet has been dismissed.
The law does not specify possible grounds for a government decision to remove the head of the Shin Bet from office. However, the government’s powers in this regard, as with any decision made by the executive branch, are not unlimited, and are subject to the rules of administrative law, including:
- Reasons for the decision must be given, along with an appropriate factual basis
- Decisions must not be made by a public official where there is a conflict of interest
- Only relevant considerations should be used in decision-making, and not improper considerations
- Decisions must be reasonable (that is, there must be a proper balancing of the relevant considerations, including giving proper weight to the public good)
- The head of the Shin Bet must be given the right to a fair hearing and to respond to the claims made against them
The prime minister’s decision to initiate dismissal proceedings against the head of the Shin Bet, even before a proposed resolution has been submitted to the government, is also a decision that is subject to the rules of administrative law.
These restrictions are particularly relevant in the case of an agency such as the Shin Bet, which also holds law enforcement powers regarding certain offenses against state security.
Yes, there is. The main legal difficulty stems from the fact that the Prime Minister, and consequently the entire government, are in a situation of conflict of interest, which disqualifies them from deciding to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet at the present time.
A conflict of interest is defined as a situation in which a public official has a personal interest that may affect the performance of their public duties. Officials are prohibited from being in a situation of conflict of interest, and they certainly cannot make decisions in such circumstances.
The Shin Bet, with the approval of the Attorney General, is currently conducting several security investigations into officials in the Prime Minister’s Office. This is by virtue of the agency's role as defined in section 7(b)(1) of the General Security Service Law, to act to “thwart and prevent illegal activity aimed at harming the security of the state, the democratic regime, or its institutions.” According to reports, these investigations relate, among other things, to the leaking of secret documents, as well as to suspicions of relations between officials in the Prime Minister’s Office and a foreign country (Qatar), which included the secret transfer of payments to those officials. Such acts could potentially constitute serious national security offenses.
This state of affairs places the Prime Minister in a personal conflict of interest with regard to any decision over the continuation in office of the head of the Shin Bet, since there are concerns that such decisions will be influenced by the Prime Minister’s personal interests regarding the course and outcomes of the investigations (for example, there is a concern that by removing the incumbent head of the Shin Bet and appointing a replacement in his stead, the Prime Minister may be seeking to block the continuation of the investigations, or to influence their direction and outcomes, or to deter the Shin Bet investigators from pursuing their duties with due determination).
Given the existence of a personal conflict of interest, there is no need to prove that the Prime Minister’s decision-making was indeed influenced by his personal interest in the matter. It is sufficient that there is a reasonable concern that such an influence may be present, for the Prime Minister to be barred from making such a decision. Thus, from a legal perspective, the Prime Minister was forbidden from the outset to initiate dismissal proceedings against the head of the Shin Bet.
The Prime Minister’s personal conflict of interest also places the entire government in a state of conflict of interest with regard to the decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet, which bars it from dealing with this issue at the current time. The Prime Minister is charged with oversight of the Shin Bet on behalf of the government (section 4(b) of the General Security Service Law). It was he who initiated dismissal proceedings. Since launching these proceedings was legally invalid, so is their continuation (especially given that, as a matter of custom and practice, when the prime minister submits a proposal to the government, particularly regarding an issue that is within his area of responsibility, the government always supports such proposals).
There is also another legal barrier to dismissing the head of the Shin Bet at the current time, in light of the government’s refusal to establish a state commission of inquiry into the events of October 7. Among the issues that a state commission of inquiry would certainly have been required to address, had been established, is the question of the responsibility of the political echelon and the Shin Bet for those events, as well as the inter-relations between those two bodies. Indeed, the Shin Bet internal investigation, an abstract of which was recently published, includes weighty allegations on this matter. There are thus very real concerns that the attempt to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet at this time, and to replace him with someone else, is intended to make it more difficult to reach the truth and to protect the political echelon from investigation into its responsibility for October 7. It can be argued that in this sense, the Prime Minister and the government are tainted by improper considerations and that a decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet would be unreasonable.
In light of the administrative legal restrictions that apply to the Prime Minister’s decision to launch dismissal proceedings against the head of the Shin Bet, and to any government decision to enact that dismissal, particularly given the actual circumstances surrounding these decisions, the Prime Minister and the government are under an obligation to submit them to advance review by the Attorney General so as to ensure that there is no legal barrier to this dismissal.
The Deputy Attorney General has made clear that proceedings toward the dismissal of the head of the Shin Bet will require prior assessment by the Attorney General's office (see his letter of February 28, 2025 [link is to Hebrew text]).
Following the Prime Minister’s announcement that he has decided to launch dismissal proceedings, without advance review by the Attorney General, the Attorney General sent a letter [link is to Hebrew text] to the Prime Minister on March 16, 2025, in which she wrote: “Proceedings for ending the term of office cannot be opened, as stated, until the proper clarification has been concluded of the factual and legal basis underpinning your decision, and of whether you may engage with this issue at the current time. This is due to the exceptional sensitivity of the issue; its precedential nature; concerns that the proceedings are tainted by illegality and by conflict of interests; and the fact that the position of the head of the Shin Bet is not a political appointment made personally by the prime minister.”
In principle, this legal opinion given by the attorney general is binding on the prime minister and the government. Should Prime Minister Netanyahu decide not to act in accordance with this opinion, then a petition will presumably be submitted to the Supreme Court.
In a video posted by the Prime Minister on March 16, 2025, he said: “At all times, but especially during an existential war of this kind, the Prime Minister must have full trust in the head of the Shin Bet. But unfortunately, the situation is the opposite—I do not have such trust. I have an ongoing lack of trust in the head of the Shin Bet, a lack of trust that has grown over time. Due to this ongoing lack of trust, I have decided to submit to the government this week a proposal for a resolution to remove the head of the Shin Bet from office.”
The position of the head of the Shin Bet is not a political appointment. If the Prime Minister’s only reason for dismissing the head of the Shin Bet is his internal subjective feeling that he does not trust him, then this consideration does not constitute sufficient grounds for dismissal. In the State of Israel, public servants, and certainly the heads of the security services and law enforcement agencies, do not have a personal duty of loyalty to the prime minister, but rather are obligated to serve the public interest.
The prohibition against taking into account personal considerations of loyalty is particularly relevant when it comes to the head of the Shin Bet. In the past, the Shin Bet was used for political purposes, which is why the General Security Service Law explicitly stipulates that the Shin Bet must operate in a nonpartisan manner, and that it should not be used for political purposes. It is clear, then, that the mere fact that the Prime Minister believes that the head of the service is not personally loyal to him is not sufficient to bring about his removal from office.
The Prime Minister could, of course, claim that the dismissal of the head of the service is based on a loss of trust related to the latter’s professional performance and to his responsibility regarding the events of October 7. However, the Prime Minister would have to supply evidence for this “objective” loss of trust, and explain why the loss of trust has increased, in particular, recently (among other things, in order to allay concerns that the timing of the decision is related to the security investigations of officials in the Prime Minister’s Office that are being conducted by the Shin Bet, and to the publication of the Shin Bet internal investigation regarding the events of October 7).
In this context, it is worth noting the fact that in recent months, the argument of loss of trust has also been used by the Prime Minister in relation to other elected officials and public servants, including the former Defense Minister, the IDF Chief of Staff, and the President of the Supreme Court, and that moves are currently underway to dismiss the Attorney General on similar grounds. There are thus viable concerns that the Prime Minister, and the entire government, are interpreting such loss of trust as a loss of loyalty, such that anyone who disagrees with them, or believes that their responsibility for the events of October 7 should also be investigated, must leave office.
It is. Both the Prime Minister’s decision to launch dismissal proceedings against the head of the Shin Bet (without a prior assessment from the Attorney General) and to call a government meeting on the issue (in contradiction of the legal opinion given by the Attorney General), and any other decision by the government, are subject to judicial review.
The Prime Minister's decision to convene the government was already challenged before the court in a petition filed by an Israeli NGO. In a ruling handed on March 18, 2025, a panel of three judges decided to reject the petition being "premature," as the government has yet to decide on the matter.
If the High Court of Justice is further asked to rule on this matter in the event of a government decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Ben, it is likely to assess the government's decision based on the doctrines for judicial review of administrative government decisions, which include:
- Lack of a solid factual basis
- Existence of conflict of interests
- Use of improper considerations during decision-making (such as political considerations)
- Extreme unreasonableness
The High Court of Justice is empowered to issue various orders, including an preventing the implementation of a decision to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet.
As in previous cases in which the Prime Minister and the government made decisions that went against the legal position taken by the Attorney General, it is possible that in this case, the government will once again request separate legal representation. The decision on whether to allow such a step lies with the Attorney General.
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