The chief of Israel’s domestic security agency said in an affidavit published Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly pressed him to spy on those Israeli citizens who had led and funded anti-government protests.
But perhaps more astonishingly, Ronen Bar, who leads the Shin Bet, said that Mr. Netanyahu had demanded personal loyaltyabove the rulings of the Supreme Court in the event of a constitutional crisis.
These and other stunning allegations appeared in a written, public affidavit that Mr. Bar submitted to the Supreme Court on Monday as part of a case brought by Israeli watchdog organizations and opposition parties against Mr. Netanyahu’s attempt to fire his domestic security chief.
Mr. Bar said that Mr. Netanyahu’s desire to dismiss him had coincided with his decision to investigate Netanyahu aides suspected of security breaches in cases involving the leaking of classified documents and ties to Qatar.
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The scathing affidavit laid bare the depths of a domestic crisis that pits Mr. Netanyahu’s ultranationalist and religiously conservative ruling coalition against more liberal Israelis over the balance of power between branches of government and the nature and future of Israeli democracy.
Mr. Netanyahu tried to fire Mr. Bar last month, citing a lack of trust between them. Mr. Bar wrote that he did not know all the reasons behind Mr. Netanyahu’s desire to terminate his services but that he had concluded that they did not stem from professional considerations, “but from an expectation of personal loyalty on my part toward the prime minister.”
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