Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar said on Sunday that the instability and internal discord within Israel is fodder for terrorist organizations to attack Israel. Bar said that Shin Bet has interrogated captured terrorists, who have admitted they are closely monitoring the rift inside Israel.
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This comes 50 days until Israelis go to the polls in a severely divided election. His comments were at the annual conference of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University.
"From the intelligence that we have read, from the interrogations of attackers we have conducted and also from many years of familiarity with our adversaries, wherever they are, we can say today without a shadow of a doubt that the political instability, the growing internal strife … are an encouragement to the axis of evil, to the terror organizations and individual attackers," he said. Some 500 officials from security services around the world are attending the event to strategize on countering terrorism. They are hearing from about 130 speakers during the course of the event, including 40 keynote speakers and 15 – panel discussions.
In his comments, Bar also discussed the Iranian threat. "Iran is not only a nuclear problem – it is the fundamental problem of the Middle East," he said. "We can only imagine the future scope of influence if a nuclear agreement is signed and the Iranian coffers are enriched … some of which will be designated, apparently, for the purposes of terrorism and strengthening organizations like [Hezbollah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza]," he added.
US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides also spoke at the conference, talking about the escalating tensions in Judea and Samaria. "I try to keep the vision of the two-state solution alive. I fundamentally believe that to keep Israel a democratic state, we need a two-state solution. I want to change the situation on the ground to make that possible," said Nides.
i24NEWS and JNS.org contributed to this report.
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