The head of the Jewish division in the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) suspended himself on Sunday after a recording of him discussing methods of handling Jewish terror suspects was aired on Israeli TV the previous night.
“I made a mistake in my language in a way that is not consistent with the service’s values and ethics, and therefore, in order to allow for a thorough investigation and out of my duty to set a personal example, I am suspending myself from my position as head of the division until the end of the comprehensive investigation into the matter,” said the Shin Bet official, identified only as A.
In the recording, which was aired on the Kan public broadcaster on Saturday night, A. called terror suspects from Judea and Samaria “scumbags” in a conversation with Avishai Mualem, a senior officer in the Israeli Police’s Judea and Samaria Division. A. told Mualem that the Shin Bet arrested Jewish suspects without evidence for evidence and “put them in detention cells, with rats.”
A. said, “We always want to detain them for questioning, as many as possible. Look at how Shin Bet interrogations are conducted with them.”