Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth on Wednesday sent a letter to Shin Bet Director David Zini, apparently seeking his intervention against the High Court of Justice and possibly also in the upcoming Knesset elections.
Bismuth hinted that his request was based on the High Court's recent interim order freezing the election of Michael Rabello as the next comptroller, following allegations of tampering with the secret ballot rules.
The FADC chair implied that the High Court's intervention to probe the impact of the tampering in the secret ballot vote for comptroller could somehow lead to their intervening in the Knesset elections, though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been elected the premier six times with no judicial interference, including the court paving the way for him to run even once under indictment for alleged corruption.
In addition, while polls are often wrong, most polls over the last several months have shown the opposition bloc leading the government bloc by between three and six seats - without any intervention.
Although to date Zini has not expressed any public interest in such issues, critics of the Shin Bet chief who believe he is too close to Netanyahu have warned that he could try to interject himself into the elections on the prime minister's behalf - meaning the opposition fear election interference from the government and its supporters.
Shin Bet acknowledged receiving the letter, yet to respond
Early indications suggest that the Shin Bet will not publicly respond to Bismuth in the near future, though the agency acknowledged receiving the letter.
At press time, the court spokesperson had not yet responded.
Curiously enough, Bismuth mixed the request regarding the courts and general elections with a separate, more standard request for updates from Zini on what the agency is doing to protect elections from external social media influences and potential hacking.
This is an issue viewed as authentic by virtually all cyber experts, which every Shin Bet chief has warned about for the last multiple rounds of elections and which has become a feature of election security in Western countries since Russia tried to influence the US presidential election in 2016 (top security officials have said that Donald Trump would likely have won regardless of Russian interference)
However, there is no apparent connection between Russian, Iranian, and other countries' attempts to intervene in elections using cyber attacks and influence, which cyber experts have said have failed consistently to date, and the comptroller election.