Ex-security chiefs said to warn renewed judicial overhaul will harm Israeli security
TV report says some two dozen former heads of the IDF, Mossad, Shin Bet, military intel and police have convened secret forum to discuss overhaul legislation and effort to oust AG
A group of some two dozen former top security chiefs has recently convened a secret forum to air their concerns over the government’s renewed judicial overhaul legislation and efforts to oust Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Israeli television reported Tuesday.
According to Channel 13 news, the forum includes most of the living former chiefs of the Israel Defense Forces, Mossad, Shin Bet, Military Intelligence and Israel Police, who have expressed fears that the coalition’s fresh efforts to weaken the judiciary could result in a “constitutional crisis that will harm Israel’s national security.”
The former security officials reportedly intend to issue similar warnings about the potential security threats to those to that preceded the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror onslaught, such as then-defense minister Yoav Gallant’s speech in March of that year saying there was “a tangible threat to the security of the state.”
The forum has no designated leader and has so far held one meeting, added the network.
The report named the group’s members as former IDF chiefs of staff as Shaul Mofaz, Ehud Barak, Gabi Ashkenazi, Moshe Ya’alon and Dan Halutz; ex-heads of the Shin Bet Ami Ayalon, Yoram Cohen, Yuval Diskin and Nadav Argaman; former Mossad leaders Tamir Pardo, Nahum Admoni, Efraim Halevy and Danny Yatom; former Military Intelligence chiefs Tamir Hayman, Aharon Zeevi Farkash, Uri Sagi and Amos Yadlin; and retired police commissioners Shlomo Aharonishki, Roni Alsheich, Yohanan Danino, Assaf Hefetz, Dudi Cohen, Moshe Karadi and Rafi Peled.
Diskin, however, denied the report and said he was not involved in the forum.
No responses were cited from the other listed officials, many of whom are public critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the judicial overhaul, which divided the country and sparked mass protests in 2023 after Justice Minister Yariv Levin first unveiled his far-reaching package of proposed changes to the judiciary.
The effort was largely shelved after the Hamas attack and subsequent war in Gaza, but parts of it have been revived in recent months, drawing vocal opposition from Baharav-Miara, who Levin has now initiated the lengthy process to remove from office for allegedly politicizing her office and repeatedly thwarting the will of the government.
