https://www.timesofisrael.com/this-is-not-a-drill-ronen-bars-affidavit-is-a-thunderous-alarm-call-for-israel/?utm_campaign=most_popular&utm_source=website&utm_medium=article_end&utm_content=7
Netanyahu made clear to Bar that, in the event of a constitutional crisis, he expects the Shin Bet chief to obey the prime minister, not the High Court. If Netanyahu indeed made such a demand, the very act of making it constitutes a serious criminal offense that warrants investigation.
Netanyahu repeatedly pressured Bar to issue a security decree that would effectively prevent the prime minister from testifying in his ongoing criminal trial. A draft of such an opinion, prepared by someone within Netanyahu’s circle, was passed to Bar for signature – but he refused.
Netanyahu asked Bar to deploy the Shin Bet’s surveillance tools against Israeli citizens – specifically, the leaders of the 2023 protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul – citing alleged “subversion.” In so doing, he disregarded the Shin Bet’s own criteria for deploying its powers in such cases, including the balance between preventing subversion and upholding the rights to protest and free expression, as well as the principle of keeping the Shin Bet out of the political arena.
Netanyahu delivered these requests orally, at the end of work meetings, after sending out his military secretary and the stenographer operating the recording device – in an apparent effort to avoid documentation.
Bar sent a letter to Netanyahu and Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs, in which he detailed the national security importance of establishing a state commission of inquiry into the events surrounding Hamas’s October 7 invasion and massacre – not only because it would be the right thing to do from a governance standpoint, but because the security establishment requires such a process to draw conclusions and implement structural reforms in doctrine and operations. Netanyahu continues insistently to resist such a probe.
Times also has an unofficial translation of the public portion of Ronen Bar's affidavit regarding Netanyahu.