Divisive vote on firing attorney general pushed off until after Tisha B’Av fast

The upcoming cabinet meeting, during which a contentious vote on dismissing Attorney General Baharav-Miara was ostensibly set to take place, has been canceled, senior officials said on Thursday.

The cabinet meeting scheduled for Sunday will now be held on August 4, the day after the Fast of Tisha B’Av, which marks the destruction of the ancient temples in Jerusalem, and some traditions cite as a warning on the consequences of internal divisions among Jews.

According to several Hebrew media outlets, the cabinet meeting was canceled to avoid addressing divisive issues during the Nine Days, the period leading up to Tisha B’Av, in response to requests from religious cabinet ministers.

At the beginning of this week, a ministerial committee recommended to the cabinet that it fire Baharav-Miara due to “substantive and ongoing differences of opinion between the government and the attorney general, preventing effective cooperation.”

The vote enabled the cabinet to make a final decision at its next meeting.

The High Court of Justice last Friday did not accede to requests in several petitions that the dismissal process be frozen, but did rule that if the government were to fire the attorney general, the decision would not take immediate effect, allowing the court time to rule on the matter.

Judge Noam Sohlberg, who made the ruling, seemed to hint that the court already views the dismissal process as problematic, stating he was making his ruling in light of “difficulties highlighted by the petitioners” and “the apparent chances of the petition.”

Firing the attorney general is highly controversial, since the role is considered to be one of the key guardians of the rule of law in Israel, owing to its power to determine whether the government’s actions comply with the law and authority as the top prosecutor.

The government’s current effort to fire Baharav-Miara is especially controversial, since it changed the process to fire her after having already tried and failed to dismiss her using the original criteria set out in a cabinet resolution from 2000.

In March, the government initiated the process of firing the attorney general through the recommendation of the professional committee used to appoint her in 2022, under the terms of the 2000 cabinet resolution.

But in June, after failing to staff that committee, the cabinet passed a resolution establishing a new five-member ministerial committee that could make the recommendation instead.

The five-member ministerial committee was chaired by Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli, and also included Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, and Religious Services Minister Michael Malkieli.

The committee’s recommendation was the last stage of the process before a final vote could be held on the matter by the cabinet.