Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent Thursday being interviewed by several US networks, including ABC, CNN, FOX, and NPR. The two most important takeaways from this blitz are: 1. Bibi will not fire the AG, and, 2. Bibi is bringing back Aryeh Deri.
Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Netanyahu also refused to say if he would abide by a Supreme Court ruling that would revoke the reasonability amendment.
“What you’re talking about is a situation, or potential situation, where in American terms, the United States Supreme Court would take a constitutional amendment and say that it’s unconstitutional. That’s the kind of spiral that you’re talking about, and I hope we don’t get to that,” Netanyahu said, and warned that Israel country could enter an “uncharted territory.”
Speaking with NPR’s Morning Edition co-host Steve Inskeep, Netanyahu dismissed any notion that the new law removing the courts’ ability to use the largely subjective argument of lack of reasonability to knock down legal government action will make it easier for him to escape judgment in his own trial.
“It’s completely false,” the PM said. “There’s no connection between this judicial reform, which is very broad, and my trial.”
The argument that has been promoted by the left suggests that since the court may no longer use the reasonability clause, the government could now fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, whose office controls the prosecution in Netanyahu’s three criminal indictments, and the next AG would presumably withdraw the cases against the PM.
Netanyahu told NPR he had no intentions of removing the AG from her post. “It’s not even on the table and it won’t happen,” he said.
The fact is, Netanyahu doesn’t need the court’s approval if he were to sack the AG, based on the precedent of the Line 300 affair as the most blatant example. In 1984, Arab terrorists hijacked Egged Bus 300 with its passengers, whom they used to negotiate the release of terrorists from Israeli prison. One female passenger was killed, and, as it turned out, two hijackers were put down after they had surrendered. In 1986, AG Yitzhak Zamir was dismissed by PM Shimon Peres’s cabinet in a unanimous, lightning decision, for his decision to prosecute the Shin Bet agents who were suspected of the execution. The High Court of Justice supported (with Judge Aharon Barak’s objection) the government’s pardoning of the Shin Bet agents ahead of their trial.
In 1997, Netanyahu’s first government appointed attorney Ronnie Bar-On as Attorney General, a decision that created a public storm. Bar-On Asher was a political activist, a member of the Likud Central Committee, and not one of the first-rate lawyers in Israel (neither is Gali Baharav-Miara, but that’s an issue for a different story). Also, Justice Minister Tzachi Hanegbi started his career as an intern in Bar-On’s office, which raised additional objections (Avichai Mandelblit appointed his close aide Gil Limon as Deputy AG, but that, too, is a different story). Finally, some reporters suggested that Bar-On’s appointment was part of a secret effort to fend against the criminal conviction of MK Aryeh Deri. Deri and Netanyahu allegedly had a quid pro quo deal whereby the Shas chairman would support handing over Hebron to the Palestinian Authority in return for Bar-On’s promise to remove the disgrace clause from his criminal indictment.
The government established a public commission of inquiry headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Meir Shamgar to investigate the affair and offer its recommendations. Among those, the Shamgar committee suggested four reasons for terminating the term of office of the Attorney General:
If there are substantial and prolonged disagreements between the government and the AG, which create a situation that prevents effective cooperation
If the AG committed an act that is not appropriate for his position
If the AG is no longer qualified to perform his duties
If a criminal investigation is underway against the AG
Obviously, the PM is free at any moment, should he so choose, to fire AG Baharav-Miara based on the first item, and, naturally, face the inevitable consequences: a condemnation from the White House, riots in the streets, general strikes all over the country, a total breakdown of the IDF reserves system. You know, proper democratic reactions.
In his CNN interview with Wolf Blitz, Netanyahu pointed to the debate in the US over the activist right-dominated Supreme Court. “You have an internal debate in the United States right now, about the powers of the Supreme Court about whether it’s abusing its power, whether you should curtail it,” he said. “Does that make the American democracy not a democracy? Does that make that debate unworthy? Does that make that issue a symbol of the fact that you’re moving to some dictatorship personally?”
NPR noted that the Israeli Supreme Court used the reasonability clause in January to dismiss Aryeh Deri from his posts as Israel’s interior and health minister, and, in two years, Bezalel Smotrich’s replacement as finance minister. An 11-judge Supreme Court panel disqualified Deri, seven of them using the “extreme lack of reasonability” argument, three based on “judicial estoppel,” meaning that a defendant may not use an argument in one trial after arguing the opposite in a previous trial.
One justice sided with Deri.
When asked directly by NPR if he will reappoint Deri, Netanyahu responded: “Well, you know, it depends what happens, of course, with the legislation, we have to see. But if it stands, I expect it to happen.”
