In leaked remarks from cabinet meeting, ministers trade jokes at AG’s expense, accuse her of acting like ‘leader of the opposition’

Government ministers railed against Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara during a cabinet meeting this morning, as they discussed a no-confidence motion against her, according to leaked remarks from the meeting

The Walla news site reports that ministers decried what they saw as Baharav-Miara’s unacceptable treatment of the current government, compared to the government of former prime minister Naftali Bennett, under which she entered the role.

Regarding the attorney general’s absence from the meeting — which Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he views with “utmost severity” — Economy Minister Nir Barkat sniped: “She probably went to a different government’s meeting.”

Environment Minister Idit Silman, who resigned from Bennett’s party to rejoin Likud in 2022, is quoted as saying that, “in the previous government, she [Baharav-Miara] was the cabinet secretary, but here she is the leader of the opposition.”

During the meeting, Ynet reports that Negev and Galilee Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf turned to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar — who, like Silman, served in Bennett’s short-lived government before returning to the fold of Likud and its allies — and reminded him that he had been the one to appoint Baharav-Miara to the role in the first place.

“Gideon, what have you brought upon us?” Wasserlauf quipped, to laughter from the other ministers.

In response, Sa’ar said that the attorney general “sees herself as the child in that book [‘Hans Brinker; or, the Silver Skates’] with a finger in the dam, but a finger in the eye is not a finger in the dam.”

Turning to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government claims is a concerted effort by the attorney general to prevent its legislation from passing, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir claimed, according to Walla, that she stifled his efforts to “fight crime.”

“She was against administrative detention for crime families in the Arab sector, which would have saved lives; she was against blocking cellular services for terrorists in prison; she opposed the establishment of the National Guard, she opposed gun reform — which has proven to be a lifesaver — and she wanted to force me to hand out fruit to the Nukhba terrorists,” he asserted, according to the leaked remarks.

The ultranationalist minister has long clashed with the attorney general, who most recently told Netanyahu that Ben Gvir could not be reinstated to his ministerial post, likely due to her concerns regarding the legality of his actions while serving as national security minister, prior to his temporary resignation from the government.