Minister blames Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught on attorney general, High Court justices

Escalating government rhetoric against the judiciary, Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem charged Wednesday that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and High Court justices were responsible for creating the conditions Palestinian terror group Hamas needed to carry out its devastating onslaught on the country on October 7 last year.

Amsalem accused the legal figures of dividing and weakening Israeli society with their opposition to the government’s overhaul of the judiciary, which it attempted to steamroll through the Knesset last year. Critics viewed the legislation as a grave threat to democracy, and it drew intense public backlash, mass anti-government demonstrations, and threats from reservist pilots to stop showing up for duty if the plan wasn’t halted.

That societal upheaval was abruptly replaced by another in October 2023, when some three thousand terrorists burst into the country, quickly overrunning communities and IDF bases in southern Israel where they massacred those they found, amid widespread atrocities. Gunmen killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people who were taken as hostages to the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s military and political leaders have since been widely accused of a series of strategic, intelligence and operational failures that enabled the unprecedented Hamas assault, which the terror group had planned for years while convincing Israeli leaders it was deterred and didn’t want a confrontation.

Speaking Wednesday to the ultra-Orthodox Kol Beramah radio station, Amsalem fielded questions about why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to establishing a state commission of inquiry into the failures that led up to the onslaught, which sparked the still ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

Amsalem, of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said that in his opinion, any such commission should start by probing “the judges and the attorney general.”

“There is no doubt that they created the atmosphere Hamas wanted and planned” when it carried out its attack.

“It understood that Israeli society was embroiled [in dispute] and those who were causing the dispute among us were the judges themselves.”

Amsalem said such a commission should question under caution “the judges and attorney general who created the infrastructure” for the Hamas attack.

When challenged over his remarks, Amsalem claimed he was not accusing the attorney general and justices of causing the war, but rather saying that Hamas had been looking for a moment to strike when the country seemed particularly weak from a social point of view.

The government’s judicial overhaul initiative sought to advance legislation aimed at radically watering down the authority of judges or judicial officials to act as a check on the cabinet and Knesset. The hugely divisive program sparked unprecedented nationwide demonstrations and made little headway before being put on the back burner following Hamas’s attack and ensuing war in Gaza.

Right-wing supporters of the government have in the past blamed those who opposed the judicial overhaul for enabling the Hamas attack. Reports have said that Hamas worked on the attack plans for up to two years before it was carried out.

While several security chiefs have publicly taken responsibility for the failure to prevent the attack, Netanyahu and almost all members of the government have not done so.

Netanyahu has rejected setting up a state commission of inquiry, which would be appointed by the top court’s chief justice and would have the broadest powers to investigate the matter, contending that such a commission would be politically slanted against his government. He also argues that any inquiry should wait until the war is over. Earlier this month Baharav-Miara urged the government to set up a state commission, saying “it is clearly the most appropriate legal tool for investigating the events of October 7 and [the ensuing war].”

Amsalem’s remarks came as a growing number of coalition lawmakers and cabinet ministers have called for ousting the attorney general due to their frustration with her refusal to defend various controversial measures the government seeks to advance, which Baharav-Miara has determined would be unlawful.

The disagreements — over issues ranging from the selection of the civil service commissioner to daycare subsidies for ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers — have increased during ongoing investigations into alleged wrongdoing by Netanyahu’s aides.

Coalition leaders have reportedly agreed in principle on how to move forward with a hearing for Baharav-Miara to discuss her potential ouster.

Amsalem has been among the most vocal critics of the attorney general, reportedly declaring at a November cabinet meeting: “She is essentially the most dangerous person to the State of Israel. She allows the left to run wild, to do whatever it wants. She gets in our way in the government. She calls herself the law.”

In April, he reportedly said at a cabinet meeting that Baharav-Miara is the “enemy of the people.”