Netanyahu, Gallant condemn attacks against Shin Bet chief over 'Jewish terror' warnings

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar on Monday to express his support for him and the Shin Bet's "important work... for the security of the citizens of Israel."

Netanyahu's statement came in response to statements made by coalition members who blasted Israeli security representatives for claiming that "Jewish terror" incites Palestinian terrorism.

Earlier in the day, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF Spokesperson Rear-Adm. Daniel Hagari had defended the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security and intelligence agency, which is tasked with countering Palestinian terror.

"Thanks to the people of the Shin Bet and their director, who work far from the eyes of the public, every day the lives of Israeli citizens are saved," Gallant wrote on Twitter.

"I strongly condemn the statements by the Knesset members who cursed the Shin Bet director, and I advise them to take back and apologize for their statements. Any attack from public officials against the Shin Bet harms the security of the state and its citizens," Gallant added.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Sunday that Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week that Jewish terror against Palestinians would incite revenge attacks.

Knesset Member Tali Gottlieb of the Likud party condemned Bar for his warning and told Ynet news: "The ideas of the left have also reached the top of the Shin Bet,” adding that the “deep state has reached the head of the Shin Bet and the heads of the IDF... The timing of the Shin Bet chief’s announcement is outrageous.” 

The warning was made only days before a Palestinian man was killed in a violent confrontation with a group of settlers in the West Bank on Friday, and a terror attack in Tel Aviv on Saturday in which security guard Chen Amir was murdered.

"[Gottlieb's statement] harms the IDF, the commanders, the security of the state, and it shouldn't have been said," Hagari, the IDF's spokesperson, told Ynet.

"In the last two months, there is a rise in nationalistic crime and terror [among Israeli settlers], which pushes Palestinians to terror," Hagari continued.

"This is terror, no other way of defining it. Let there be no doubt, these things push people in the Palestinian Authority who aren't involved in terror, to get involved... As soon as we prevent this phenomenon, there will be less terror."

Hagari also said the IDF knows about specific cases of Palestinians who carried out terror attacks in response to "Jewish terror."

"To reduce the terror in Judea and Samaria we need to thwart it like we did yesterday with the cell that came from Jenin," Hagari added.

Israeli security forces on Sunday killed three terrorists on their way to execute an attack.

Coalition member Limor Son Har-Melech's former speaker, Elisha Yered, is one of the suspects arrested in connection with the death of the Palestinian man in the West Bank on Friday.

Son Har-Melech of the Jewish Power party defended Yered on Sunday after he was arrested as a suspect in the death of a Palestinian during a confrontation on Friday.

“We see that they got confused and don’t know how to define who is the enemy, and don’t know how to deter the enemy and overpower the enemy, so we find ourselves facing such distorted definitions. Who should you be taking care of and who should you be fighting?” Son Har-Melech said in response to the report about Bar.

“Unfortunately, today everyone already knows that there is a glass ceiling within the army and the security establishment. Only people with very specific opinions are promoted, and those who think otherwise are not promoted. Opinions that are very, very destructive to the nation of Israel,” Son Har-Melech claimed.