Israeli political crisis deepens after voting against the general lawyer
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The government of Benjamin Netanyahu intensified the efforts to overthrow the Attorney General, enhancing the bitter quarrel with the legal authorities of Israel that brought the country to the edge of the constitutional crisis.
In an unprecedented move, the cabinet unanimously supported the proposal without trust against Gali Baharav-Miara, which is the highest legal official in the country, and one of the key checks of government power.
NetanyahuThe Allies have accused Baharav-Miara of working systematically against the Government’s agenda. Justice Minister Yariv Levin claimed two weeks ago that she had disabled “effective cooperation”, and Sunday said she had held the Government in “contempt”.
However, in a letter published on the eve of the vote, Baharav-Miara-Koji is also a legal advisor to the Government and the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office-he said the Government’s claims and accused him of asking him to act above the law.
The proposal of distrust “does not seek to promote confidence, but loyalty to political leadership, not management, but … power without restriction,” she wrote.
“The government seeks to be above the law and act without checking and balance, even in extremely sensitive periods.”
The vote inserts the way to convene a public committee to consider the release of the Baharav-Miara. This is the latest turn in a broader conflict between Netanyahu’s coalition and other organs of the Israeli state.
It comes as Israel enhances its renovated land operations in Gaza after completing a truce with Hamas last week, and Palestinian officials said on Sunday that the number of deaths from the Israel offensive had passed 50,000 because the Israeli forces pushed back to Rafah in the south of the broken endlands.
Netanyahu and his allies have been to Loggerheads with the legal authorities of Israel since the predecessor of Baharav-Miara accused him of charges of corruption-on denial-2019. years, causing a perennial trial that still does not show the signs of the end.
The conflict enhanced when Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022, and his government began a controversial effort to limit the authority of the judiciary, before putting it off with some of its plans despite the largest wave of street protests in Israeli history.
In recent months, disagreement has been burning again, and ministers have improved legislation that will give politicians a greater appointment of the Supreme Court judges, and Levin has refused to acknowledge the powers of the Supreme Court chief, whose appointment he spent a year trying to block.
The Government also tries to release the head of the domestic spy agency Shin Bet, Ronen Bar. Ministers threaten to neglect the Supreme Court if it rules it with such a move.
As the Government enhanced their efforts to remove the Baharav-Miara and at least in recent days, there were fresh protests, and tens of thousands of people participated in gatherings against plans on Saturday night.
In an interview with Israeli military radio on Sunday, the opposition leader Yair Lapid said that if the Government refused to obey court commands, Israel “no longer [be] Democracy ”and raised the odds that citizens threaten to refuse to pay taxes as a form of protest.
“If the Government announces that he will not adhere to the court order, this is … that is the end of the thing we knew. It’s a different country,” he said. “It’s all on the table, from a tax rebellion to the exclusion of Knesset.”