A Likud candidate on Tuesday dismissed former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar's threat to sue Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a political maneuver, escalating a bitter dispute over who bears responsibility for the intelligence failures that preceded the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.
"The lawsuit threat is an empty threat, it is a political threat," Erez Tadmor told Galei Yisrael radio. "It is to create a headline a month before the elections."
Tadmor, a longtime Galei Yisrael host and author of a book arguing that Israel's security chiefs sidelined the elected government on the night of the attack, said Bar had clear warning signs in hand and failed to act on them.
"On the night of October 7, different types of intelligence information arrived with indications that in my view were clear," Tadmor said. "When senior Hamas figures go down into tunnels, when Israeli SIM cards are brought in, and when there is a gathering of Hamas members in mosques at three in the morning, we were taught in the army: when there is doubt, there is no doubt. You prepare for the worst-case scenario. He did not do that."
He added that Bar's decision not to update the political echelon "cannot be explained away as a 'miscalculation,'" and said that after the disaster, Bar "did not resign and continued in his position."
Tadmor's remarks came after an unusually public exchange between Netanyahu and Bar on Monday, weeks before Israel's October 27 election, in which responsibility for October 7 has emerged as a central issue.
On Monday, Netanyahu denied a Wall Street Journal report that he had received a warning from Egypt's then-intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, before the attack, and said he had instructed his lawyers to file a defamation suit over the claim. In the same statement, he turned his fire on Bar.
"In recent weeks, the left-wing media has been conducting a despicable and false campaign designed to shift all of Ronen Bar's failures and crimes on the eve of October 7 onto Prime Minister Netanyahu," the statement said.
According to Netanyahu, Bar held numerous conversations on the night of the attack with then-IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and then-Military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva, in which they discussed the warning signs. "Despite this, Ronen Bar decided not to call and update the Prime Minister, not to alert the standby squads and IDF forces in the field, not to evacuate the Nova festival, and only to send a limited Tequila team, which proves he knew about a real danger," the statement said.
Bar responded Monday evening, announcing that he had instructed his attorneys to file a defamation suit against Netanyahu. He is also demanding the disclosure of documents and testimony related to information provided to the prime minister before October 7, including Netanyahu's schedule of meetings with the security establishment and foreign entities, and said he would summon Netanyahu's office staff and aides to testify.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has launched an unbridled incitement campaign with no grip on reality against the former Shin Bet chief," Bar's statement said, accusing Netanyahu of blocking a state commission of inquiry for three years and of publishing documents selectively and out of context.
Bar claimed that, "as will yet be revealed," he had warned Netanyahu of an impending disaster "in an unprecedented manner," and that the prime minister ignored the warnings. He said he had preferred to wait for a state commission of inquiry, but that "the string of lies cannot be allowed to continue."
"Lies, distortion of facts, manipulation of protocols, and dissemination of misleading information to the public: this is what the Prime Minister does when the scope of the warnings he received before the October 7 massacre begins to become clear," the statement said.
Netanyahu has consistently denied receiving advance warning of the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza.
