Opposition leaders slam Netanyahu as cabinet deliberates firing AG

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara are “corrupt” and will not come to fruition, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares, as the cabinet deliberates, ahead of a no-confidence vote.

“After being interrogated, Netanyahu tried to fire his investigator. Today, the accused Netanyahu wants to fire his prosecutor. Gali Baharav-Miara is a professional, decent and good attorney general. That’s exactly why they want to fire her. It’s illegal, it’s corrupt. It won’t pass,” Lapid says in a recorded statement.

In a similar video message, National Unity chairman Benny Gantz says that “a million excuses” will be heard at the cabinet meeting, but the main reason why the government wants to dismiss Baharav-Miara is that it “has pledged to pass a law that will exempt the ultra-Orthodox from conscription.”

“Netanyahu wants an attorney general who will allow him to bypass the High Court of Justice, step on the reservists who are enlisting for the fifth round, and anchor the evasion in the law,” Gantz states. “The goal is clear: to maintain the coalition at the expense of those who maintain Israel’s security. At the expense of us all.”

“Netanyahu ‘loses trust’ in anyone who is not willing to bow to him,” weighs in The Democrats chairman Yair Golan.

“He has no trust in the head of the Shin Bet, because Ronen Bar is loyal to state security — not to the ruler. He has no trust in the attorney general, because she is loyal to the law — not to the accused,” he writes on X.

“But Netanyahu has long lost what is truly important — the public’s trust,” he continues, arguing that efforts to oust Baharav-Miara constitute an attempt “to sabotage democratic Israel.”