The Honorable

Shin Bet Director Nadav Argaman:

As expected. Most of the boys who were arrested at the Pri HaAretz Yeshiva were released to their homes with no charges. It turned out all the arrests the Jewish Section conducted were in vain. Apparently they were interrogated with their hands tied for twelve consecutive hours like ticking time bombs.

It turns out you besmirched them as if they were intended killers. It turns out all the shaming the Shin Bet spokesmen meted out to this yeshiva in the media and public was all for nothing. Who will pay the price for this terrible injustice?

You told the yeshiva heads and settlement leaders in Judea and Samaria that you want to cooperate with them for the benefit of the State. To prevent Jewish terrorism. To prevent attacks. I will propose to all my colleagues, rabbis, and to all public figures not to meet with Shin Bet Jewish Section heads until you apologize and ask forgiveness from the Rechelim Yeshiva in public.

Mr. Shin Bet Chief, we all appreciate GSS activity to prevent terror. The Jewish Section under your command spoils the entire organization that you lead. People in this department have forgotten that their job is to get to the truth, not to trump charges against those who aren't to blame. Certainly not to discredit an entire yeshiva as if it were anti-Zionist. Someone there needs to know that Shin Bet publication about burning the flag and the swastika constitutes a deep breach for us.

Your spokesmen painted a picture of a yeshiva that burns and desecrates state flags while no one like you knows that all this is a big deliberate lie. You besmirched an entire yeshiva in Shomron as if you were part of B'Tselem or Breaking the Silence and if that is your behavior, I'll propose you be treated accordingly from now on.

You should know that this loss of trust comes with a price. Recently someone came to me and told me he'd received an offer from the Jewish Section to help prevent terror attacks and Jewish terrorism. I told him that while we are against attacks, it wouldn't be constructive for him to work with the Jewish Section that paints every Jew's graffiti as if it were a hate crime and turns every Jewish stone-throwing into a murder attempt.

Mr. Shin Bet Chief, this is not the way the relationship between the public and the General Security Service should be. You need to bang on the table after their series of failures and call your Jewish Section head to order. I think this department should be closed or at least replaced. Focus the department's goals and do not to let them go back to the days of Avishai Raviv. You mustn't lose public trust. You must correct what you've done wrong.

Translated by Mordechai Sones