Israel’s Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar speaks at Reichman University in Herzliya on Sunday, September 11, 2022. Photo: Screenshot

In a wide ranging speech, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service warned on Sunday that while Israel faces a constellation of threats, its internal social divisions are providing a boon to its enemies that “should disturb us more than anything else.”

Speaking at an annual counterterrorism conference at Reichman University in Herzliya, Ronen Bar addressed “the deep and growing rift developing within Israeli society” over the character of the country. In November, Israel will hold its fifth election in under four years.

“The political instability, the growing internal division, the breaking up of the historical common denominators, and the radicalized discourse — all these are a shot of encouragement to the countries of the axis of evil, to terrorist organizations, and to lone threats,” said Bar.

“The prevailing feeling among our adversaries is that our historic comparative advantage, the same one that stood to our credit for thousands of years and is our national resilience, is dissipating,” he added. “This insight should disturb us more than anything else.”

In his remarks, which lasted for nearly 40 minutes, the Shin Bet chief outlined the complex security environment where these external adversaries operate, both online and within the physical arena.

Social media networks and algorithms that reward extreme content, said Bar, empower terrorist organizations “to manufacture a threat and advance an agenda without paying a price.”

“The social networks, in conjunction with ‘deepfake’ technology” — which can be used to produce realistic-looking but synthetic images and other media — “make this relatively easy,” he argued. “Last Ramadan, Hamas succeeded from the Gaza Strip to convince youth that al-Aqsa Mosque is in danger,” leading to riots among groups that don’t even identify with Hamas ideology, Bar added.

“The flat and uncontrolled world of social networks captures the free world when it is in an intergenerational crisis and under the very heavy challenge of governance following the Covid-19 pandemic,” the Shin Bet chief warned.

Touching on the “increased” violence emanating from the West Bank, he noted that with the limited extent of the PA’s governance, Israeli security personnel are required to operate in the area on a nightly basis for the protection of Israeli citizens. In turn, Israeli forces come under fire, Palestinians sustain casualties, and the status of Palestinian Authority governance and security oversight further declines.

Bar said that there were over 130 shooting incidents this year, compared to 98 in 2021 and just 19 in 2020. He added that Israeli security forces had thwarted 312 “significant” attacks, defined as stabbings, shootings, suicide attacks and car rammings.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz pledged on Thursday to continue operations in the West Bank if the Palestinian Authority does not act against an uptick in terrorism that has left more than 80 people killed or injured since March.

Egyptian sources, meanwhile, told Israel’s Kan news that these activities are eroding the PA’s legitimacy and may ultimately lead to “anarchy.”