For years, many of us warned about the political weaponization of Israel’s intelligence services, particularly the Shin Bet’s (Israel Security Agency) Jewish Department. For years, we were called conspiracy theorists, extremists, or worse. But now, thanks to fearless investigative reporting, the truth is out in the open.
This week, Channel 11’s Ayala Hasson dropped a bombshell report that should shake every Israeli citizen to the core – Left, Right, and Center. In a recording she exposed, the head of the Jewish Department in the Shin Bet is heard bragging to Israel Police Superintendent Avishai Moalem from the Judea and Samaria police unit: “We arrest these shmucks even without evidence, for a few days. Throw them in the detention cells with the mice.”
Yes, you read that correctly. No evidence. Arbitrary detention. Psychological torture.
This is not a slip of the tongue. It is not an outlier. It is a window into the dark soul of a rogue system. A system that sees religious Jews of Judea and Samaria as enemies of the state. A system that abuses its enormous powers to crush political dissent. A system that operates exactly like the shadowy regimes we were taught to despise.
Now we can also understand the investigation opened against Moalem because he is the first Israel Police senior commander who did not blindly follow the directives of the Shin Bet Jewish Unit to arrest Jews in Judea & Samaria without cause.
Even the Prime Minister’s Office, usually cautious and restrained, couldn’t ignore this one.
In an official statement, they condemned the recording as “a real danger to democracy,” vowing to demand a thorough investigation of the Shin Bet’s Jewish Department – and rightly so.
“In a state of law,” the statement read, “citizens cannot be arrested without evidence and thrown into illegal, brutal detention conditions. Only in dark regimes does the secret service operate in such a dangerous manner. There will be no shadow government in Israel.”
This isn’t just about rhetoric. This is about real lives being destroyed.
Rogue system ruins lives
Look no further than well-known Israeli pollster Shlomo Filber, who runs DirectPolls, a man who experienced this horror firsthand. He is now suing the state for the illegal and abusive methods used against him by the intelligence services and police when they tried to pressure him into turning state’s witness in a legal case against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Filber saw Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Zvika Klein being interviewed by Amit Segal on Channel 12 and breaking down in uncontrollable tears recounting just one day of interrogation. Filber rightly pointed out:
“You saw him break down after one day of questioning. He didn’t even experience full arrest, starvation, sleep deprivation, or the threat of life ruin. He didn’t go through solitary confinement, humiliation, or sexual harassment. And still – PTSD.”
Filber explains that 80% of people subjected to these brutal interrogations suffer from trauma, many needing psychiatric medication. Israel is a country where interrogated citizens have no rights. The system covers for itself: the prosecutors collude, the Police Internal Investigations Department (Machash) whitewashes, the courts look the other way, and the Knesset fails to supervise.
Klein is a journalist summoned for questioning and implicated in illegal activities connected to Qatar over his sources in the Qatargate case. The police confiscated his phone without even a warrant.
The same people – like Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and the current head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar – who lecture us with grave warnings about surveillance and arrests without due process are the ones perpetrating these abuses. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Imagine if the editor of Haaretz was interrogated under caution, his phone seized by force. Imagine if the Shin Bet demanded that anti-Netanyahu government protest leaders be arrested without evidence, smearing the IDF as a political militia.
The political camp of the Left, together with all the prominent media personalities in mainstream media and former politicians and security officials, would be screaming about the destruction of Israeli democracy. We must understand that this latest exposure of the Shin Bet head of the Jewish Department is not an isolated scandal.
Abuse of power
This is systemic rot, the deep state, driven by a radical left-wing political agenda embedded deep within our security and legal institutions. They target the ideological right not because of security concerns but because they fear the growing power, the unbreakable faith, and the dedication to the Land of Israel in this camp.
The good news? They have overplayed their hand. They are exposed. With more truths being exposed daily, there is no going back.
This should not be a Right-Left issue.
Israeli society can not allow a small elite to run the deep state in Israel and continue its abuse and hijacking of the legal system and law enforcement as a dark, shadowy police state.
We can not allow ideological warriors to masquerade as guardians of democracy while trampling it underfoot. Israel belongs to its people – proud, free, and unafraid.
Seventy-six years since the miraculous return of the Jewish nation as sovereign in our ancestral homeland, we are now experiencing this next step of achieving true freedom and independence as a nation: freedom from the deep state.
The writer is the host of the Pulse of Israel daily video/podcast and the CEO of 12Tribe Films Foundation.