From the Liveblog of
Monday, March 18, 2024
Ben Gvir urges PM to intervene to allow police chief to make appointments before he retires
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to intervene after the attorney general ordered that police chief Kobi Shabtai not promote people ahead of his pending retirement.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is “trying to do everything so that I don’t appoint the next head of the police investigations unit,” Ben Gvir says at a meeting of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party in the Knesset.
“I demand that the prime minister get involved” and “clarify the situation to her,” he says, insisting that the head of the police be treated the same as IDF chief of staff Lt Gen. Herzi Halevi — who has come under fire from far-right members of the coalition for recently appointing senior officers in the wake of the October 7 attack.
According to Hebrew media reports, the two clashed during a security cabinet meeting on Sunday evening when Ben Gvir challenged Baharav-Miara over the issue.
Today he accuses her of discriminating against the police chief because “he did not come from the right place [and] his name is Shabtai.”
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