Shin Bet chief seeks rethink of decision that led to disqualification of extreme-right party

Shin Bet chief David Zini is seeking to reevaluate the information his agency had previously provided to court officials on the basis of which an extreme right-wing movement’s request to register as a political party was denied, according to information obtained by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site on Wednesday.

Zini asked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara for time to take another look at the validity of intelligence information that was passed on to the Justice Ministry during the term of his predecessor as Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar.

The information that the Shin Bet provided led to a 2024 decision by the Registrar of Political Parties Unit to reject an application by the “Yisrael Yehudit Shlema Ve’eitana” movement to be registered. The name translates roughly as A Jewish Israel, Whole and Strong.

Refusal by the registrar to record a new party must be approved by the Supreme Court, and a hearing on the matter had been set for Sunday, though the court on Thursday heeded a request by the State Prosecutor’s Office for a postponement. The court allowed a postponement of nine days, until July 14, rather than the full three weeks that Zini had instructed the prosecutor’s office to request, Zman Yisrael said.

No previous case is known in which a party was denied registration based on confidential information passed by the Shin Bet to the registrar.

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Zini asked that the court hearing be delayed for two weeks in order “to examine the validity and relevance of the intelligence information presented by the Shin Bet in this matter,” according to Zman Yisrael. The State Prosecution subsequently asked the court to delay the hearing by three weeks to give Zini time and the registrar an opportunity to reexamine its decision, if necessary.

Hebrew media reported in 2024 that the Shin Bet had raised concerns that those behind the party were former activists in the extreme-right Kach movement, founded by the late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, which was outlawed as a terror group in 1994.

The information warned that they had been activists in Kach before it was proscribed as a terror group. It said they “still maintain the group’s ideology and are working to spread it” while seeking to promote through the new party “the ideology of a terrorist organization.”

The movement was allegedly founded by activists who split off from Otzma Yehudit, the far-right Knesset party led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Otzma Yehudit members have described themselves as disciples of the late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane. Ben Gvir did so for decades and has spoken at the Kach founder’s memorial events, but now says he no longer agrees with some of Kahane’s most extremist statements.

Zini has made a string of controversial decisions since entering the role in October 2025.

Most recently, he ordered the dismantling of an unofficial memorial established at the entrance to the intelligence agency’s Tel Aviv headquarters for employees killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror onslaught.

Zini gave the order after Memorial Day in April, according to the Haaretz newspaper, which first reported the decision last month.

The memorial was removed shortly after Israel’s Memorial Day in April, according to Haaretz, which quoted sources as saying Zini believed there was no reason agency employees should “have to see the debacle [of October 7] in front of our faces every day,” while another source said he viewed the display as an expression of “defeatism.”

However, the move sparked fierce backlash among current and former officials in the security agency, Channel 12 reported Wednesday.

The decision — in addition to other reported decisions by Zini, including the cancellation of a planned Pride Month event within the agency and the removal of the budget of the organization’s LGBTQ employee group — prompted three former senior Shin Bet officials who returned to assist the organization after October 7 to decide to tell Zini in the coming days that he had “crossed a red line,” the report said.

The officials, who have continued serving in what the report described as a reserve capacity, told the network they plan to tell the Shin Bet chief: “Your decision to dismantle the memorial wall is a red line for us. It is something that should never have been done. We cannot continue as though nothing happened,” noting that their primary motivation for returning to service had been the desire to help rehabilitate the organization after October 7.

There is also considerable anger among families of fallen Shin Bet personnel over the decision, the report added.

One current official told Channel 12: “We are here precisely to look the failure in the eye every day, even if Zini does not want to see it. That is the fuel for our work after October 7.”

The Shin Bet later confirmed that the memorial had been removed, saying Zini believed a display commemorating only some of those killed on October 7 did not adequately reflect the scale of the attack. The agency noted that a separate memorial wall honoring all victims of the massacre remains in place.