Kariv: Israelis must take to the streets over government proposals to weaken AG’s office

By Sam Sokol 10 November 2025, 11:39 am

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Sam 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"

Labor MK Gilad Kariv leads an Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee meeting at the Knesset, in Jerusalem on March 26, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv calls on Israelis to take to the streets in response to a series of government-backed proposals to significantly weaken the power of the attorney general, effectively depriving the position of all authority and independence.

During a meeting of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the left-wing lawmaker argues that the government is taking Israel back to January 2023, when it announced its contentious judicial overhaul agenda, and is now working to “completely politicize” the judicial system.

The committee is discussing a bill by far-right Religious Zionism MKs Simcha Rothman, Ohad Tal and Michal Woldiger, which, if passed into law, would split the position of attorney general into three separate jobs. It is also discussing several additional bills aimed at making it more difficult to open legal proceedings against elected officials by stripping the attorney general of the authority to do so.

The goal of this legislation is to free all government officials from the need to have to operate in line with the law, Kariv alleges, calling for mass protests against what he calls an “anti-democratic” threat.

In response, Rothman, who chairs the committee, dismisses what he calls “populist hysteria.”