Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency, Shabak)

History

According to the ISA, in 1948 the Internal Intelligence Service, headed by Isser Harel, was separated from the dissolved Haganah intelligence service and within a few months became the Israel Security Agency. Its existence was recorded in law on 18 February 1949, but the public learned of it only in 1957.^1,3

Originally the service had three tasks: countering foreign espionage, countering domestic subversion, and protecting key institutions at home and embassies abroad. Since 1967 it has also operated in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights to prevent terrorism; after the attacks of 1968 and 1972 it built a worldwide system for protecting Israeli facilities.¹

The 2002 Law

The Knesset passed the General Security Service Law on 11 February 2002. The head of the service is appointed by the Government, on the Prime Minister’s recommendation, for five years (s. 3). The service is subordinate to the Government, which sets its objectives; the Prime Minister oversees it on the Government’s behalf. The service must act in a non-partisan manner and may not be given tasks serving party-political interests (s. 4).²

Under section 7, the service protects state security and the democratic order against terrorism, sabotage, subversion, espionage and the disclosure of state secrets; its other functions include protecting persons and facilities, setting rules for security and the vetting of individuals, and providing the Government with intelligence assessments.²

Oversight

The Law provides for a five-member ministerial committee chaired by the Prime Minister (s. 5) and oversight by the Knesset Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services, which sits under the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee; its meetings are confidential (s. 6). The head of the service reports to both committees at least once every three months (s. 12).²

Internal control is carried out by the service’s comptroller, appointed by the Prime Minister for a single five-year term (s. 13). A decision finding a person unsuitable on security grounds can be appealed to a committee chaired by a retired district court judge (s. 15).²

The 1999 judgment on interrogation methods

On 6 September 1999 the Supreme Court of Israel, sitting as the High Court of Justice, held that the General Security Service has no authority to use physical means against those it interrogates, such as shaking, the “shabach” position or the “frog crouch”; deliberately depriving a suspect of sleep in order to break him is likewise impermissible.⁴

The Court found that the necessity defence can at most exclude criminal liability after the fact, but is not a source of authority; if the state wishes to permit such methods, it must pass a law. In a dissenting opinion Justice Yaakov Kedmi proposed suspending the judgment for a year.⁴

Scale

The ISA says that its staff are deployed throughout the country; among its roles it lists case officers, interrogators, operations officers, SIGINT specialists, analysts and security personnel.¹