Industry group takes out front-page ads in defense of attorney general

The front pages of all of Israel’s major daily newspapers are festooned with a full-page ad in support of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara amid her clashes with the governing coalition.

The ads are placed by the Israel Business Forum, which represents most private-sector workers from 200 of the country’s largest companies.

Ministers have repeatedly called for Baharav-Miara’s ouster over her opposition to measures she says run counter to Israel’s laws and norms. The Ynet news site recently reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “no longer ruling out” her dismissal.

The advertisements, which run on dummy front pages covering Haaretz, Israel Hayom and other papers, call on the attorney general to “continue to safeguard the rule of law for us all.”

המסר שלנו ברור!#פורום העסקים של ישראל# pic.twitter.com/bmuFYphzHa

— Itay Ben Horin (@itaybh) November 20, 2024

Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet and other coalition politicians take aim at business leaders for placing the ads.

“The tycoons love Gali,” tweets National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, only days after Baharav-Miara told the prime minister that he must reevaluate Ben Gvir’s tenure in light of the latter’s intervention into operational police matters and his politicization of police promotions.

“I have news for the Business Forum. It is not protecting the rule of law,” tweets Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. “The law is determined by the authority of the legislature…and if the public wishes to replace its representatives, whether it dislikes their legislation, their actions, their behavior, or the color of their eyes, every so often they have the right and opportunity to do so.”

“The public cannot replace the rule of the jurists, which took upon itself power and strength that the legislature or the public never gave it,” he writes.