Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Saturday that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Shin Bet security agency chief Ronen Bar only opened an investigation into his senior aides’ financial ties with Qatar in order to prevent the government’s firing of Bar.

The premier’s assertion appeared to be based on little evidence and contradicted the known sequence of events, as Netanyahu only initiated the process to dismiss Bar after the investigation into Qatar had already been launched.

Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously on Thursday to fire Bar and was set to meet Sunday to advance the process of firing Baharav-Miara.

In a prerecorded video message containing what he described as “a dramatic revelation of facts that will shake you,” Netanyahu presented what he said were “shocking” documents to back up his claim, though the claims, documents and dates he set out were at odds with the known timeline of the Qatar probe and did not appear to support his assertions.

“The facts prove unequivocally that the dismissal was not intended to prevent the investigation — the investigation was intended to prevent the dismissal,” Netanyahu said, having offered no clear evidence. “So tell me, who here is acting with ulterior motives?”

At the start of the video, Netanyahu pushed back against legal petitions to prevent Bar’s dismissal, stating that Bar “will not remain head of the Shin Bet” and that “there will be no civil war, and Israel will remain a democratic state.”

He did not say, however, how he would respond if the High Court rules to reverse Bar’s ouster.

“We are a nation of laws, and the law in the State of Israel, simply put, means that the government is entitled to fire the Shin Bet chief before the end of his term,” Netanyahu stated, dismissing “claims that the firing of the Shin Bet head was done to prevent the investigation into the issue of Qatar.”

Netanyahu then said that his distrust of Bar began on October 7, 2023, blaming the Shin Bet director for not waking him up as security chiefs discussed worrying signals from Gaza early that morning. He claimed his distrust of Bar grew as the war raged on.

In a Thursday statement to reporters issued by an anonymous Israeli official, who is widely understood to be Netanyahu himself, Bar is alleged to have known Hamas’s attack was going to take place but “did nothing” to stop it.

The premier in his Saturday video appeared to claim that the Shin Bet chief — realizing he was about to be fired — put off submitting the agency’s probes into October 7 and then colluded with Baharav-Miara to launch the Qatar investigation in an attempt to prevent his dismissal.

“I thought that the appropriate time to end the Shin Bet head’s tenure would be after he presented me with the Shin Bet’s probes into the failures of October 7. So it was with the IDF chief of staff. I instructed the Shin Bet head to present me with his probes by........

© The Times of Israel