Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprisingly named IDF Maj.-Gen. David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet late on Thursday. However, ratifying the appointment will face legal challenges following the High Court of Justice’s ruling on Wednesday, while Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara’s response threw the appointment process into doubt.
Current director Ronen Bar has already announced that he will step down on June 15.
The High Court had previously said Netanyahu could interview candidates to replace Bar, and this would make sense, since the prime minister has the power to appoint and fire Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Mossad directors.
Unlike some other senior posts – such as the IDF chief of staff, which is supposed to go through the defense minister first and only then to the prime minister and the government – the Shin Bet chief is bound specifically to the premier.
On the other hand, the High Court’s previous comments on the subject – endorsing Netanyahu’s power to interview candidates, if not his power to fire Bar – were before it had received all of Bar’s negative narratives about Netanyahu’s alleged actions that constituted a conflict of interest regarding the Qatargate scandal and other legal matters.
But after the High Court ruled that Netanyahu violated conflict-of-interest principles, possibly his normally unquestioned power to appoint a new Shin Bet chief may be uniquely and temporarily limited.
Netanyahu decided to appoint a new man and has now dared Baharav-Miara and the High Court to stop him.
Baharav-Miara is mainly concerned that Netanyahu would pick an unqualified loyalist who might politicize the Shin Bet, as many say National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir politicized the police by picking allegedly unqualified Police Insp.-Gen. Daniel Levy.
But Netanyahu has already messed with the script.
Netanyahu’s initial pick for Shin Bet
On April 1, he stunned the country twice, first rolling out former Israel Navy commander V.-Adm. (ret.) Eli Sharvit to head of the Shin Bet, only to have anonymous aides of his suggest later in the day that the pick might be withdrawn.
In initial reactions from Shin Bet sources to The Jerusalem Post, Sharvit was so unknown that most of them had little to say, despite a clear sense of shock that Netanyahu had not only refrained from appointing a deputy Shin Bet chief to the role (which has been customary in recent decades), but that he had taken someone outside of the agency and even outside of IDF Ground Forces.
Sharvit was well thought of in the defense establishment, but no one saw him as having the requisite experience to be Shin Bet director.
Still, given the fears that Netanyahu would pick a completely unqualified and politicized candidate, even many critics of Netanyahu rallied around Sharvit before learning that the prime minister had decided to ditch him.
Netanyahu’s choice of Sharvit seemed to be a sign not only that he did not trust Bar, but that he also did not trust the top tiers of the agency and sought to bring in an outside disrupter to wrestle greater control over it.
The same day his appointment was announced, however, many Likud and coalition officials, some anonymously and some publicly, attacked Sharvit for his participation in protests against the judicial overhaul, while others related to some public criticism he had made of the Trump administration.
Later in the afternoon, US Sen. Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican leader, was publicly calling for Netanyahu to drop Sharvit.
It seems Netanyahu dropped him due to these political considerations, which also could raise a red flag for the High Court about whether to defer to him to make a “clean” and proper appointment.
And that probably is the key to how this three-month-old showdown will end. If Zini is seen as someone who the Shin Bet and defense establishment can work with, most of the legal issues will probably fall away.
But if he faces stiff opposition, then the current constitutional crisis could reignite for another round of drama before the High Court.
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