Coalition turns Gotliv hearing into attack on AG, who opposes immunity for Likud MK

As the Knesset House Committee held its second hearing on MK Tally Gotliv’s request for immunity from prosecution on Tuesday, the Likud lawmaker and her coalition allies tore into Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and aired more conspiracy theories involving the judiciary, anti-government protesters and security forces, in a range of areas unrelated to the indictment against Gotliv.

Meanwhile, the attorney general maintained that Gotliv violated the law by exposing the identity of a Shin Bet officer and that parliamentary immunity does not shield her.

The Attorney General’s Office announced last month that it was indicting Gotliv over social media posts from 2024 identifying the partner of anti-government protest leader Shikma Bressler as a Shin Bet agent, while promoting baseless conspiracy theories linking him to Hamas and insinuating that he bore responsibility for the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.

According to the Knesset’s legal advisory team, Gotliv’s immunity request rests on three of the four grounds provided under the law: that her actions were carried out in the course of her duties as an MK, that the indictment was filed in bad faith or constitutes selective enforcement, and that the prosecution would impede the Knesset’s functioning or Gotliv’s ability to represent her constituents.

The committee is scheduled to hold a third hearing on Monday, after which it is expected to vote on whether to recommend granting Gotliv immunity.

Given the coalition’s majority on the committee, the request is widely expected to be approved and then forwarded to the Knesset plenum, where the coalition is also expected to have the votes needed to ratify it. Any immunity granted, however, would expire at the conclusion of the current Knesset’s term in the coming weeks.

Gotliv does not deny exposing the officer’s identity, but claimed throughout the first hearing on Monday and again on Tuesday that her actions were justified.

In her remarks, delivered amid near-constant interruptions and heckling from coalition lawmakers, Baharav-Miara maintained that the case concerned an alleged straightforward violation of the law and that parliamentary immunity does not exempt lawmakers from criminal liability.

“Information security is not protected by immunity,” Baharav-Miara told lawmakers, as coalition members shouted over her.

“The indictment is not intended to interfere with a lawmaker’s freedom of action,” she said. “It concerns one thing only — the exposure of a Shin Bet operative.”

“A member of Knesset cannot fulfill their role by committing criminal offenses,” she added, and noted that Gotliv admits to the actions at the center of the case.

During wartime, Baharav-Miara argued, exposing the identities of Shin Bet employees and operatives “endangers them, endangers the information they possess, and limits their freedom of action.”

She also noted that the case did not stem from a single lapse in judgment, arguing that Gotliv’s actions constituted “a repeated pattern of conduct.” The lawmaker, she said, had disclosed the information deliberately, repeatedly, and unabashedly.

Everything but the indictment

The proceedings frequently drifted far from the question of Gotliv’s alleged conduct, as coalition lawmakers used the hearing to launch lengthy tirades against Baharav-Miara, the judiciary, and the security establishment.

Opposition lawmakers argued that coalition members were using the proceedings as a platform to attack the attorney general rather than address the merit of Gotliv’s immunity request. Yesh Atid MK Merav Ben Ari noted that despite hours of testimony over two days, Gotliv “did not address even once the offense for which she is here today.”

Although Gotliv had already spoken for most of Monday’s roughly five-hour hearing, coalition whip and committee chair Ofir Katz allowed her to continue her remarks on Tuesday. During her address, the Likud lawmaker accused Baharav-Miara of “persecuting” the government and likened the relationship between senior legal and security officials to a “criminal syndicate.”

She also continued to advance conspiracy theories about the events leading up to October 7, again suggesting without evidence that senior military and Shin Bet officials concealed information from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the attacks, while accusing protest leader Bressler, her Shin Bet agent partner and others of collaborating with Hamas.

“Gotliv’s violent spectacle of incitement against the attorney general and the justice system continued for a second day. Any connection between the committee hearing and Gotliv’s immunity request is purely coincidental,” said Yesh Atid MK Karin Elharrar.

Katz likewise used the hearing to attack the attorney general, whom he referred to as “Gali” — prompting objections from opposition lawmakers — accusing her of selectively targeting right-wing lawmakers and telling her that “in a role that is supposed to be the cleanest, most professional and fairest, you chose to behave as a de facto opposition leader.”

At the same time, opposition lawmakers said they were largely prevented from asking questions, were repeatedly interrupted by Gotliv with no interference from Katz, and were ultimately ejected from the room one by one.

“For six hours, Katz gave a platform to his fellow party member’s bizarre and outlandish conspiracy theories, despite her failing to present a single shred of evidence,” said Ben-Ari, adding that “opposition lawmakers were thrown out one after another. When it came time for me to speak, she interrupted me constantly, because everyone is afraid of her.”

The spectacle comes as Likud gears up for party primaries set to be held by the end of July. Many lawmakers are eager to burnish their standing among the party’s base, for whom Baharav-Miara has been cast as the government’s primary political foil and which regularly blames her for many of the country’s ills.

The current government has clashed with Baharav-Miara since its first weeks in office and has repeatedly vilified her, largely over her opposition to efforts to weaken judicial oversight and limit other checks on executive power.

The coalition voted to dismiss her last year, but the decision was frozen by the High Court. The coalition is now advancing a pair of controversial bills that would curtail the power of the attorney general and make it harder to indict high-ranking government officials.