Attorney general says defense minister may be abusing power to protect fellow Likud MK

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday that his failure to sign a document needed for the prosecution of Likud MK Tally Gotliv has “raised concerns” that he is abusing his power to protect a member of his own party from being indicted.

Gotliv is alleged to have violated the Law for the Shin Bet in 2024 by disclosing the identity of a Shin Bet agent when she revealed that key anti-government activist Shikma Bressler’s partner was an official in the security service.

Writing to Katz, who, like Gotliv, is a member of the Likud party, Baharav-Miara told the defense minister that his signature on a confidentiality certificate — designed to prevent the disclosure of classified information during a trial — is necessary in order for an indictment to be brought against Gotliv.

The attorney general noted that Katz’s office had told the Shin Bet on August 10 that he had refused to sign the certificate, despite being informed that this could lead to exposing the intelligence community’s work methods.

“Your refusal to sign the confidentiality certificate… gives rise to a concern of an abuse of your power, and the obstruction of a legitimate legal procedure,” Baharav-Miara told the defense minister, noting specifically that Gotliv and Katz are members of the same party.

Katz, in response, accused the attorney general of sending her letter to the press before he even received it, which he said was “disgusting.”

The defense minister claimed he has not been able to deal with the issue of the confidentiality certificate “owing to my many and urgent dealings with matters of security and diplomacy,” and said he would address the request after consulting with the relevant officials.

In a video posted to her X account, Gotliv told Baharav-Miara that the defense minister “is not your rubber stamp.”

She claimed that the attorney general wanted Katz to sign the confidentiality form in order to prevent Gotliv from “asking important questions” during the trial regarding the role of Bressler’s partner in the Shin Bet, and suggested that the agent had been “in contact with enemy entities” prior to the devastating October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of Israel that killed 1,200 people and triggered the Gaza war.

In a post accompanying the video, Gotliv claimed Baharav-Miara fears that during the trial she will “reveal information about the attempted government and military coup under the auspices of the Shin Bet.”

Bressler has been a leader of protests against the government’s contentious judicial overhaul plan.

Opposition to the judicial overhaul effort drew hundreds of thousands of people to the streets and included calls by some IDF reservists not to volunteer for duty. The overhaul was briefly shelved when the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, but the government has since revived various pieces of legislation.

Last January, Gotliv repeatedly circulated unfounded claims that linked Bressler and her partner to Hamas and its October 7 onslaught, including a conspiracy theory that said US intelligence agencies had intercepted a conversation between Bressler’s partner and then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

At the time, then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar accused Gotliv of purposefully harming national security.

Gotliv’s accusation prompted a NIS 2.6 million ($715,000) defamation suit, though at a hearing in September 2024, the legislator was defiant, repeatedly interrupting the judge and telling him that he had no jurisdiction over her.

Gotliv has refused to appear when summoned by police in the case. She told The Times of Israel in an interview that she “cannot be forced to appear for questioning” because her statements were made in the course of fulfilling her duties as a lawmaker. She accused the legal system of trying to “silence and terrorize members of Knesset.”

Sam Sokol contributed to this report.