Dina Zilber slams behavior of government, likening attacks on the judiciary to faked document of plan for global domination.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

The outgoing deputy attorney general who is retiring at the end of December delivered a scathing speech on the weekend against what she implied was a leadership failure in Israel, saying senior government officials were fighting against judges, the media, academia and the world of culture.

In a video conference hosted by the Israel Democracy Institute, Dina Zilber likened the attacks against the judiciary and other institutions in Israel to a conspiracy theory that the Jews are trying to control the world.

“Instead of dealing with difficulties, [government officials] look away and point an accusing finger out” from themselves, Zilber said. “They produce a completely imaginary reality of ‘Deep State’, or of ‘the State Attorney’s Office within the State Attorney’s Office’ or of a state of evil civil servants who are secretly planning a coup.”

Zilber likened it to a blood libel, saying the attacks on are like “a glorious comeback with a twist, of the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'”

In the past, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has listed examples what he said were state prosecutors abusing their power to open investigations into politicians with whom they didn’t agree, calling it a “method.”

The outspoken lawyer has been involved in controversy during her tenure, seen as working against right-wing governments, and her comments reflected her apparent disdain.

“The government accuses officials of a coup d’etat instead of acknowledging the lack of leadership,” she said, accusing the government of being “the refuge of the fake leader,” although not mentioning Netanyahu by name.

Zilber, who has had a fractious history of opinionated remarks on the government, recounted a long list of attacks by members of Netanyahu’s government against not just the judiciary, but also the Left and Israel’s Arab minority.

“We create an imaginary reality of a prosecutor’s office within the prosecutor’s office, or of a state of evil officials in secret who are planning a coup,” Zilber said.

Zilber also slammed the government for failing to appoint dozens of senior positions in the civil service that remain unfilled, including senior justice appointments.

“No court or bureaucracy is preventing these appointments, which are cars on the stuck government train,” she said.

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Attorney General Mandelblit asked Deputy Attorney General Zilber to stay away from politics while appearing at a Knesset committee. She ignored him. 

By Jack Gold, World Israel News

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit met with Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber before her controversial appearance at the Knesset’s Education Committee debate on the Culture Loyalty Bill and warned her against making provocative statements, IDF Radio reported Sunday.

According to the report, Mandelblit asked Zilber to refrain from adding personal comments while defending the government’s bill at the committee, but she did so anyhow and made harsh remarks against government policy instead of representing it at the committee.

Zilber faces possible dismissal after she sparked controversy Tuesday when she spoke at the Knesset’s Education Committee against the Cultural Loyalty Law promoted by Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev. The proposed law would allow the government to withhold funding from cultural institutions or events that harm or defame Israel.

Zilber claimed that the bill wounded “social discourse. If someone can be loyal, then someone else is a traitor? A fifth column? … Show us a disciplined and educated people whose thought is uniform. Loyalty in culture is an oxymoron like a deafening silence,” Zilber said.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked responded Wednesday by stating said that “the attorney general or someone on his behalf can come and present an opposing legal position, but not political positions.”

Shaked underscored that policy must be determined by elected officials and not state employees, “otherwise it would be impossible to run the state.”

Shaked is demanding that Zilber resign or be dismissed. In the meantime, Zilber will not represent the government at Knesset deliberations until Mandelblit finishes his inquiry into the possibility that Zilber broke the law.

Speaking on Saturday in an interview on Channel 13, Shaked again said that she thinks that “the institution of the Attorney General must be clean and professional. Once it becomes political, it cuts off the branch on which it is sitting.”

Saying that “a public official cannot go to the Knesset and speak out against the government,” she said she “will not allow the institution of the Attorney General to become political, bringing politics into this institution will destroy it.”

Shaked stressed the necessity for trust between the ministers and their legal advisers. “The moment an attorney comes out publicly against the government, he cannot work and represent it,” she said.

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