Israel’s Shin Bet chief meets CIA director for talks on Palestinians, Iran

Shin Bet head Ronen Bar met on Thursday in Washington with CIA Chief William Burns amid growing concerns in the Biden administration over the weakening of the Palestinian Authority and growing tensions in the West Bank.

Israeli outlet Haaretz  and Axios reported that Bar arrived in the US capital on Thursday, was set to meet with senior officials at the White House, the State Department and the CIA to discuss both the Palestinian and the Iranian files. The Shin Bet is Israel's powerful internal security service and a strong arm of country's intelligence apparatus. 

Senior American officials including the CIA chief have recently expressed concerns over the destabilization of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank.

Last February, in an interview a few days after traveling to the West Bank, Burns expressed fears of a third Palestinian uprising. “I was a senior US diplomat 20 years ago during the second intifada, and I’m concerned — as are my colleagues in the intelligence community — that a lot of what we’re seeing today has a very unhappy resemblance to some of those realities that we saw then too,” said Burns, adding that his talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders sparked his concerns about "more vulnerability and greater violence" between the two sides.