Liberman says he will ask president to intervene if government ignores High Court ruling

Should the government ignore a potential High Court of Justice ruling blocking the dismissal of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman says he will appeal to President Isaac Herzog to intervene.

Railing against “the transformation of the State of Israel from a democratic state into a dark dictatorship,” Liberman tells reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset that such a move would be a “red line that separates democracy from dictatorship.”

As he speaks, he holds up a picture of an old-fashioned bomb with a red line across it, similar to a prop displayed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations in 2012.

“Should the government decide not to respect the Supreme Court’s ruling, I will appeal to the president of the state by virtue of his authority as stipulated in Basic Law: The President of the State,” he says, in a statement widely interpreted by the Hebrew press as a threat to have President Isaac Herzog remove Netanyahu from office.

However, the clause quoted by Liberman says that the president may appoint and remove judges and other officeholders from their positions in line with Knesset legislation, none of which grants him the power to impeach the prime minister.

“The president of the state must appeal to all state institutions and bodies in the country and make it clear to them that they are obliged to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling and not with any other directive,” Liberman continues, saying that Herzog will also need to instruct the Shin Bet “to act decisively and do everything in order to preserve the democratic regime and its institutions in the State of Israel.”

“The president of the state will also have to instruct the IDF and the police to act in accordance with this law, and to provide full support to the General Security Service in its efforts to preserve the democratic nature of the state,” he adds. “We all need to remember that every officeholder and all state institutions must be loyal to the kingdom and not to the king. As soon as this changes, democracy becomes a dictatorship, and we will prevent this.”

Asked if Liberman meant that he would ask Herzog to remove Netanyahu, a spokesperson replies that what he was saying “is that when the State of Israel becomes a dictatorship, the president’s role is to protect democracy.”

A spokesman for the president’s office declines to comment.

According to Dr. Dana Blander, a research fellow at the israel Democracy Institute, the law cited by Liberman “says that the president will fulfill the duties he has in law regarding the appointment of judges and other office holders and their removal from office.”

“But there is no law that gives the president the authority to remove a prime minister from office,” she says.