‘Send her home’: At cabinet meeting, ministers double down on calls to fire AG
Ben Gvir accuses Baharav-Miara of ‘selective enforcement’ in face of ‘threats against the prime minister’; Karhi claims there is ‘absolute majority’ in cabinet for impeachment
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s absence from a cabinet meeting on Sunday morning sparked fresh calls for her dismissal by ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
According to leaked quotes published in various Hebrew media outlets, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir slammed Baharav-Miara for not appearing before the cabinet and also accused her of engaging in “selective enforcement.”
The attorney general’s office did not respond to a Times of Israel query as to why she did not attend the meeting.
Ben Gvir, who has been vigorously campaigning to have Baharav-Miara fired, was quoted as characterizing recent statements by opposition Democrats chief Yair Golan as “seditious and threatening” and arguing that the attorney general “doesn’t want to investigate” what he said were threats against the prime minister and other ministers.
“I don’t understand why the issue of impeachment [of the attorney general] isn’t raised,” Transportation Minister Miri Regev declared, urging Justice Minister Yariv Levin to bring up the issue immediately.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi agreed, calling for the cabinet to “send her home.” He claimed that there was “an absolute majority here for impeachment.”
After Education Minister Yoav Kisch — who said that the cabinet had to “act wisely” — noted that Ben Gvir has conditioned his voting for the budget on Baharav-Miara’s ouster, the far-right minister accused his colleagues of making excuses on the issue of the attorney general’s ouster for a year.
Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party has twice voted against bills related to the 2025 state budget following the last-minute cancelation of a planned meeting of Netanyahu’s senior coalition allies on the topic of firing Baharav-Miara earlier this month.
Since then, coalition leaders have reportedly agreed in principle on how to move forward with a disciplinary hearing for her ahead of a potential firing — although Ben Gvir has demanded that the process be expedited.
While the coalition did not officially announce the decision, Karhi appeared to confirm the reports last week with a statement saying that “the decision of the coalition leaders to begin the process of dismissing the attorney general is a courageous and necessary step to correct serious distortions that have taken root in the Israeli legal system.”
According to the Kan public broadcaster, coalition leaders are weighing waiting for a period of months before firing Baharav-Meira in order to avoid accusations of politicizing the process.
According to Channel 12, Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon told ministers on Sunday that it was “not right that you are speaking about this [matter] when the prime minister is here [because] he has a conflict of interest.”
Firing the attorney general could constitute a violation of a 2020 conflict of interest arrangement put in place to keep Netanyahu from being able to use government powers to influence his ongoing criminal trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
While Netanyahu was not quoted in any of the leaked discussions from the cabinet discussion, two spokespeople for the Prime Minister’s Office told The Times of Israel that he was present. The PMO said there were no photographs of the meeting.
Netanyahu was slated to be put under full anesthetic for a prostate removal operation on Sunday and will remain in the hospital for several days following the surgery, his defense lawyer told the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday.
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 and unprecedented 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 draft dodgers — have increased during ongoing investigations into alleged wrongdoing by Netanyahu’s aides.
However, support for the move is not universal, with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar recently arguing that “it’s better to go for a process of splitting the powers of this position [of the attorney general] than a process of splitting the people.”
Addressing the Knesset earlier this month, Levin appeared to indicate there was insufficient support within the cabinet to fire Baharav-Miara and called on ministers who have not yet joined the effort to “come out to the public and tell the truth.”
Responding to ministers’ calls to fire the attorney general, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party complained that only Netanyahu’s “detached” cabinet could focus on Baharav-Miara when the “hostages are languishing in Gaza, the reserve soldiers are collapsing under the burden, half the country is waking up every night to missiles from Yemen, and the Israeli economy is collapsing.”
