Sa’ar says attorney general thinks she’s ‘Dutch Boy with finger in dike’

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of ‘harming’ Israel’s democratic process, in lengthy remarks at Sunday’s cabinet meeting ahead of a vote of no-confidence in her, his office says.

Sa’ar, who appointed Baharav-Miara to the post in 2022 while serving as justice minister under then-prime minister Naftali Bennett, says that her claim of “lack of effective cooperation” with the government — which she laid out in a letter earlier today — is “disconnected from reality.”

He says that her letter, which she published in lieu of attending this morning’s meeting, did not address any of the government’s claims against her or the reason it is seeking her dismissal, and was instead “a document of slogans.”

“The role of the attorney general is not to impose their worldview on the government, but to serve the government according to its worldview within the limits of the law,” Sa’ar says.

“It is clear from the letter that the adviser wrote, and not only from that, that she sees herself as that Dutch child with their finger in the dam from the famous children’s book.”