Ministers assail AG at cabinet meeting; Regev calls for her ouster
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is assailed and condemned by ministers during a weekly cabinet meeting over the manner in which law enforcement agencies have dealt with protestors who have allegedly broken the law during anti-government demonstrations.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir says the small number of indictments against protestors is “disgraceful,” and Transportation Minister Miri Regev declares that Baharav-Miara should be fired in light of what she says is the attorney general’s unwillingness to prevent public order disturbances.
According to numbers presented during the hearing, the police have arrested 572 protesters since the demonstrations began in early January for disturbing the peace, not obeying police instructions, or attacking police officers. Of those cases, six indictments were filed, all for attacking police officers.
“If the attorney general decides everything but isn’t willing to help the government to function, maybe she should be fired,” Regev is quoted as saying by several Hebrew outlets, while minister in the Justice Ministry Dudi Amsallem says, “Your selective enforcement for the last 27 weeks has been driving me crazy.”
Baharav-Miara tells the cabinet she hopes that “the government is not asking me to say that it wants more aggressive enforcement to suppress the protest against it, which is not in accordance with the professional judgment of the [police] commanders on the ground and the state prosecution.”