AG to High Court: Netanyahu should be made to explain why he hasn’t fired Ben Gvir

In a High Court filing on Thursday, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir systematically abuses his powers, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must be ordered to explain why he hasn’t fired him.

The request is the latest in a long series of disputes between the attorney general and the national security minister, who oversees the police. A month ago, Baharav-Miara endorsed petitions calling for Ben Gvir’s dismissal, and the two have clashed over a range of issues.

According to Channel 13, the hearing on the matter will take place on January 15 in front of a panel of the High Court’s three most senior justices — Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Justices Noam Solberg and Daphne Barak-Erez — with the possibility that more justices may be included. The report added that the Court may issue a conditional order on the matter before the hearing.

Baharav-Miara has previously accused the far-right minister of exercising undue influence over the police, a force meant to operate independently, and has said that he has violated a compromise the two agreed on last year. Ben Gvir has maintained that he is fulfilling the will of the voters who elected him and branded the attorney general a “criminal.”

Now, she is calling on the court to force Netanyahu “to explain why he is not removing National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from his position.”

Through a “continuous (sometimes sophisticated) system of pressure” on police officers, Ben Gvir has inappropriately intervened in the force’s operations concerning anti-government protesters, the status quo on the Temple Mount and protection for Gaza-bound aid trucks, the attorney general wrote in a 68-page opinion on the petitions calling for Ben Gvir to be dismissed, which the court is expected to hear on January 15.

“At this time, there is no alternative but to conclude that the public cannot be protected from the systematic actions meant to harm the independence of the police,” wrote Baharav-Miara.

Shortly after Baharav-Miara filed the opinion, Ben Gvir wrote on X: “Crook, I don’t care about you.” The coalition has tried to fire Baharav-Miara, an effort Ben Gvir has supported, accusing her of undermining the government’s agenda.

The two officials have long been at odds, but a detente appeared possible last April, when Ben Gvir agreed to a compromise limiting his powers over police investigations and promotions, and his dealings with anti-government protests. The compromise was reached as a precondition set by Baharav-Miara before she would agree to defend him in court against the petitions demanding his dismissal.

But since then, the attorney general and national security minister have fought over all of those matters. Baharav-Miara has slammed Ben Gvir for blocking the promotion of an officer, pushing for a crackdown on protests, and interfering in investigations.

Earlier this week, the Kan public broadcaster reported that Ben Gvir is interfering in responses to Freedom of Information Law requests submitted to the police, in an apparent violation of the law.

In December, Baharav-Miara wrote to Netanyahu that the petitions against Ben Gvir have earned a “factual and legal foundation” due to his actions. In a speech to police officers, he shot back, “She doesn’t like that I am advancing my policies, for which I was elected.”

In her opinion on Thursday, Baharav-Miara also said that “the topic at hand is the preservation of the basic values of Israeli democracy, and protecting them in the face of active, deliberate and continuous abuse of the minister’s authorities,” including by influencing personnel decisions and “directly or indirectly handing out operational directives.”

Baharav-Miara noted that the court okayed Ben Gvir’s appointment in December 2022, upon the formation of the government, despite petitions that argued he was ineligible to oversee police, given his history of racist statements and criminal record, which includes a conviction for supporting a Jewish terror group.

At the time, the court took into account Ben Gvir’s own statements that he had changed, and judges also assumed “the professional independence of the police would be maintained and the minister wouldn’t serve as an ‘uber-commissioner'” of police, Baharav-Miara wrote.

But that assumption no longer held, wrote the attorney general, accusing Ben Gvir, among other things, of promoting harsher policing against anti-government protesters; ordering that police refrain from protecting aid trucks bound for Gaza that were being attacked by right-wing Israelis; and unilaterally changing the status quo regarding the Temple Mount, which Muslims revere as the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and where Jews are prohibited from praying publicly.

Baharav-Miara asserted that the prime minister “hasn’t engaged with the minister” on the matter, and wrote that “an interim injunction is required to transfer the burden of proof” to Netanyahu to explain how Ben Gvir can continue as national security minister.