Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in conversations behind closed doors with his ministers on Sunday that he does not rule out the possibility of dismissing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, Kan11 News reported. The Likud denied the issue had even been raised, but the alleged statement followed a five-hour clash between a very angry Netanyahu government and a very impervious AG over the failure of the justice system to prevent thousands of anarchists from routinely disrupting law and order in Israel.
Four Likud ministers, including Miri Regev and David Amsalem, went on the record describing the deep mistrust between the government and the AG, and openly called for her sacking, regardless of their party’s official denials.
According to the Shamgar committee’s decision 2274 from August 2000, there are four grounds for terminating the term of office of the Attorney General: 1. If there are substantial and prolonged disagreements between the government and the Attorney General, which create a situation that prevents effective cooperation; 2. If the AG committed an act that is not appropriate for his/her position; 3. If the AG is no longer qualified to perform his/her duties; 4. If a criminal investigation is underway against the AG.
You had me at substantial and prolonged disagreements.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin accused Baharav-Miara at Sunday’s meeting that she was preventing the distribution of a legal memorandum concerning the judicial, and preventing the promotion of government policies because she didn’t like them. “Doesn’t that raise a serious conflict of interest?” Levin asked.
Minister Regev said that “if the Attorney General decides everything but is unable to help the government function, then maybe she should be fired.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu shushed Regev.
The AG and the Police Commissioner both argued that they reject what they interpreted as the government’s demand for arrest quotas. Of course, there wasn’t any such demand, but the ministers did point out that as many as 6,000 protesters were arrested and some of them, including teenagers, spent many days behind bars for blocking major traffic arteries during the 2005 expulsion of the Jews of Gaza and northern Samaria. The current ministers compared the six anarchists who have been detained (and quickly released) in this year’s demonstrations, to the 6,000 of 2005. Hence the “quotas.”
The AG’s office issued a statement saying that the very demand on the part of the government to subdue the demonstrations against its policy is problematic. That’s a lie. The government is not against demonstrations, it’s against demonstrators who block Ayalon Highway for five hours at a time, complete with starting fires on the asphalt. It’s also against demonstrators sabotaging Ben Gurion International Airport when tens of thousands of Israelis are trying to catch their vacation flights.
Incidentally, the Im Tirtzu movement was told by the Tel Aviv police that its demonstration today outside Baharav-Miara’s home must be kept 300 meters away from the building. They said it had to do with structural issues. For weeks now, anarchists holler and blow their zambooras at five in the morning right under the windows of government ministers and right-wing MKs and no one tells them to stay away even an inch. In fact, the cops usually show up an hour and a half after the rowdy protesters have stretched their barbed wire fences and set fire to tires.
It’s called selective enforcement. Some people deserve police protection, and some deserve a smack on the head. Haredi demonstrators get torrents of stink water from a cannon for years and no one cares – the secular anarchists get hosed with clean tap water and the Israel Physicians Association demands a stop to this barbaric treatment of the good kind of citizens.
Still, the AG’s office decided to acquiesce to the PM’s demand for a report on the current protocol for dealing with the protests.
Throw the old man a bone.
