Despite Gaza war, AG bars Netanyahu from appointing new security chief

In spite of the war against Hamas ongoing and terror threats in Lebanon, Judea and Samaria, Israel’s attorney general urges Supreme Court to prevent Netanyahu from appointing new security chief.

By World Israel News Staff

Israel’s Attorney-General, Gali Baharav-Miara, has called on the Supreme Court to prevent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from appointing a new chief to head a key security agency, despite the ongoing war with Hamas and terror threats in southern Lebanon and Judea and Samaria.

Baharav-Miara, who is currently facing a government effort to remove her from office, penned a response to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, urging justices to reject a petition to permit the prime minister to name a successor to former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

Bar resigned earlier this month following efforts by the government to fire him.

Coalition members had accused Bar of stymying the government and weaponizing probes of the police department and Netanyahu’s aides. Bar had also faced criticism and calls for his resignation over his agency’s failures prior to the Oct. 7 invasion by Hamas.

However, the Supreme Court issued an injunction on Netanyahu from removing Bar from office after Baharav-Miara accused him of having a conflict of interest, given the Shin Bet’s role in investigating employees of the prime minister’s office.

“It is not the place of the prime minister, as a party with a conflict of interest, to determine the identity of the party in charge of investigating his associates,” she wrote.

After Bar stepped down on June 15, the agency’s deputy chief, whose identity has not been publicized, stepped in to serve as acting chief for a one-month period.

Netanyahu has named retired IDF Maj. Gen. David Zini as his choice to replace Bar as head of the Shin Bet – an appointment that has drawn criticism from the Israeli Left.

Baharav-Miara wrote to the Supreme Court Tuesday that Netanyahu cannot appoint a new Shin Bet chief, saying the conflict of interest he allegedly faces is not limited to Bar but touches on the Shin Bet as a whole, given the agency’s role in investigating two Netanyahu aides.

Under Israeli law, the Shin Bet agency operates under the authority of the Prime Minister’s Office and thus is under Netanyahu’s direct purview.

According to the statutes, Shin Bet chiefs are nominated by the prime minister and confirmed by the cabinet.

Appointments must be made in consultation with a special committee, though it is the vote of the cabinet, not the committee, that establishes a candidate’s position in office.

In spite of the law explicitly granting the premier the power of nominating candidates to head the Shin Bet, Baharav-Miara argued to the Supreme Court that Netanyahu should yield his authority and delegate it to a government minister.

That, the A-G argued, would be a “reasonable solution that correctly balances the conflict of interest in which the prime minister finds himself and the clear public interest in appointing a permanent Shin Bet head by the government, which is the appointing body by law.”