Avi Dichter, who served as director of the Shin Bet (Israel's internal security service) before entering politics and now serves as Agriculture Minister in the Likud party, opened up in an interview Wednesday on Radio 103FM about a painful personal fallout following the October 7 Hamas attack.
Dichter said he never concealed his political views during his tenure at the Shin Bet, where debates and disagreements were common. "In my private reserve of friends from the unit, some of my team members were among the founders of Peace Now, and they held left-wing worldviews," he explained. Peace Now is an Israeli organization that advocates for a two-state solution and has long opposed settlement expansion.
What surprised him most, Dichter said, was discovering that these friendships had been conditional on shared politics. "I was very disappointed to learn they were political friends," he said. "The moment October 7 happened, they attributed responsibility for the massacre to me and cut off contact. I was more disappointed by their cutting off contact with my wife."
