Ben Gvir fumes as proposal to put police chief under his thumb pushed off

A planned Knesset committee meeting aimed at advancing legislation that would make the police commissioner subject to the command of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has been called off, after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara raised technical objections.

The discussion had been slated to deal with parts of a proposal that were shorn off of a larger bill dealing with Ben Gvir’s powers ahead of the government’s swearing in.

However, Baharav-Miara says the leftover parts of the proposal should be treated as a new proposal and should go to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which will decide whether the measure has the coalition’s backing and which path it will need to take through the Knesset.

The committee typically meets on Sundays.

Ben Gvir responds angrily to the last-minute cancellation, which comes hours ahead of a planned press conference with him and Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai.

“The attorney general knew about the discussion for several days and we even held a meeting about it last night, but she waited until the last second, half an hour before the discussion, to delay it by another week,” he says through his office. “This is outrageous behavior by someone who keeps thinking that she’s running the government, not advising it.”