AG calls on PM to weigh firing Ben Gvir for illegal interventions in police conduct
Deputy AG sends warning letter to PMO official who reportedly demanded aides tell him about probes; coalition heads claim declaring PM incapacitated amid testimony would be a ‘coup’
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that he must reevaluate National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s tenure, in light of the latter’s repeated and ongoing intervention into operational police matters and his politicization of police promotions.
The warning, one of several dramatic statements on Thursday regarding the government’s run-ins with the law, had been expected for some time. Ben Gvir termed the move “an attempted coup,” and called for Baharav-Miara’s firing, as he has done numerous times in the past.
The two have clashed repeatedly over Ben Gvir’s handling of the police, with the attorney general declaring a promotion by the far-right minister “illegal” and ordering the police commissioner to halt the dismissal of the force’s top legal advisor.
In a letter to the prime minister Thursday, the attorney general told Netanyahu that Ben Gvir has on a number of occasions seemed to violate High Court decisions, as well as orders instructing him not to refrain from intervening in operational police matters.
“It appears that the minister is using his authority to make appointments and end the tenure of officers in a manner which constitutes illegitimate intervention in the operational running of the police,” Baharav-Miara wrote.
Baharav-Miara cited numerous acts of intervention by Ben Gvir into police operations, including publicly summoning senior police officials for a dressing down due to his displeasure at their handling of anti-government protests; declaring at a police operations room that he had gone there to ensure the police carried out his directives for handling protests; and a letter by former police commissioner Kobi Shabtai that Ben Gvir had instructed senior police officers to disregard cabinet orders regarding the protection of humanitarian aid convoys on their way to Gaza.
She pointed out that when the High Court of Justice rejected petitions against Ben Gvir becoming a cabinet minister at the beginning of the current government, it placed considerable weight on his statement that despite his previous criminal convictions, he had changed his ways.
The national security minister is an ultranationalist activist-turned-lawyer with a history of security-related offenses.
The attorney general said that Ben Gvir’s actions in office reflected a pattern of behavior of “contempt for the law, violation of the law and harm to the foundational principles of governance, and by the politicization of police work.”
As such, she said Netanyahu must address these issues and ask Ben Gvir to respond to the claims. She added that the prime minister should then sit down with her to discuss their response to the High Court petitions demanding Ben Gvir be removed from office.
Another warning
The warning from the attorney general came the same day it was reported that her deputy, Gil Limon, had sent a stern warning to a deputy director-general of Netanyahu’s office for allegedly asking the prime minister’s legal advisor to inform him of any developments in the ongoing investigations into the government.
Limon reportedly stressed in the letter that workers in the Prime Minister’s Office have no obligation to provide such updates.
The deputy director, Alon Haliva, allegedly asked many of those who worked under him — not just the legal advisor — to provide him with updates on the investigations.
He reportedly disciplined a security officer who after being questioned declined to share details with him, having been told by police he was not allowed to.
Preemptive criticism
Also on Thursday, leaders from all the parties in the coalition issued a statement denouncing any effort by the attorney general to force Netanyahu to step aside, even for a short period, amid reports that she may deem the prime minister incapacitated while he’s testifying in his ongoing corruption trial.
The statement came a day after the Jerusalem District Court rejected a request to delay Netanyahu’s testimony, currently set for next month, with premier’s legal arguing that he was unable to properly prepare due to the time pressures of managing the current, multi-front war.
A slew of unconfirmed reports have suggested the attorney general might seek to sideline the prime minister during the time he is testifying, though the attorney general has not publicly suggested any such move.
“We the heads of the coalition parties reject outright any attempt to declare the prime minister incapacitated, even for a very short period of time,” the statement read, calling any such move a “coup.”
“At this time, the prime minister must continue to stand at the head of the security and political systems. We see this as a national interest,” the party heads said in the statement.
“We stand and will continue to stand to protect democracy. Only the people, through their elected representatives in the Knesset, will determine who will lead the nation and who will serve as prime minister.”
The statement was signed by the heads of the Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism, Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, New Hope and Noam factions.
Netanyahu’s legal team, during the proceedings in 2020 demanding that the High Court of Justice bar him from serving as prime minister under indictment, asserted that he would be capable of standing trial while fulfilling his duties as premier, including in emergencies such as a war.
The prime minister was charged in January 2020 with fraud and breach of trust in two cases and bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a third, and the trial began in May of that year.
He denies all the charges against him.
