AG to High Court: Netanyahu must be ordered to fire Ben Gvir from National Security Ministry

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara calls on the High Court in a new legal filing to approve petitions to remove National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from his position, arguing that he “systematically undermined the independence of the police.”

Baharav-Miara further accuses the far-right minister of violating court rulings and showing “contempt for the rule of law.”

As such, she says that unless there is a significant change and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu submits a filing justifying why he is not going to fire Ben Gvir, then the attorney general’s position is that the High Court must put out an order for his removal “stipulating that he cannot serve as the minister in charge of the Israel Police.”

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.”

Hitting back at Baharav-Miara, Ben Gvir says that “While the State of Israel is engaged in one of the most fateful and important wars in its history, a dismissed criminal official is trying to promote a coup in a democratic country and dismiss an elected official.”

The High Court last December annulled a government decision to fire Baharav-Miara on procedural grounds, leading much of the government to refuse to recognize her authority.

Calling his potential firing an unprecedented move for a democracy, Ben Gvir asserts that the attorney general “thinks we are in Iran and soon she and her fellow criminal officials will establish Revolutionary Guards here.”