{"id":575692,"date":"2026-08-05T16:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/575692\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:36:11","slug":"benjamin-netanyahu-opposes-firing-itamar-ben-gvir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/575692\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Netanyahu opposes firing Itamar Ben-Gvir"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the High Court of Justice<\/a> on Wednesday that there were no legal or administrative grounds to dismiss National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, rejecting the attorney-general\u2019s renewed argument that continued interference in police affairs had made his removal necessary.<\/p>\n

The filing makes clear that Netanyahu<\/a> will not remove Ben-Gvir voluntarily, leaving the court to determine whether it should compel him to do so or continue relying on narrower restrictions intended to protect the police\u2019s professional independence.<\/p>\n

After reviewing Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara<\/a>\u2019s latest submission and receiving a detailed response from Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu\u2019s position remained unchanged, his attorneys wrote.<\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir<\/a>\u2019s appointment was lawful, they said, and none of the incidents raised by the attorney-general or the petitioners established grounds for his \u201cadministrative or judicial removal.\u201d The government asked the court to reject all four petitions seeking to force Netanyahu to dismiss him.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s attorneys accused Baharav-Miara of informing the government for the first time through a court filing that negotiations over detailed restrictions on Ben-Gvir\u2019s conduct had been exhausted. They argued that she should have raised that position directly with the government before asking the court to intervene.<\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir attends a hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem on petitions challenging the UNRWA laws passed by the Knesset, August 3, 2026. (credit: CHAIM GOLDBERG\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

The dispute follows an effort ordered by the High Court in April to draw a clearer line between Ben-Gvir\u2019s authority to set general police policy and prohibited involvement in individual investigations, appointments, protests and operational decisions.<\/p>\n

The court gave binding force to an agreed framework of principles, ordered the sides to draft more detailed procedures and imposed immediate restrictions concerning investigations, police use of force and sensitive appointments. The arrangement was adopted after a nine-justice panel spent nearly 10 hours hearing the petitions but stopped short of ordering Ben-Gvir\u2019s dismissal.<\/p>\n

A-G says Ben-Gvir intervenes in operational matters, abuses authority position<\/p>\n

Baharav-Miara told the court in July that the additional safeguards had failed. She said Ben-Gvir had continued to comment on ongoing investigations, intervene in operational matters and use his appointment authority in ways that threatened the police\u2019s professional and apolitical character.<\/p>\n

Her office said four meetings held between April 26 and May 6 failed to resolve fundamental disputes over contacts between the minister and police officers, his involvement in promotions, his participation in police activity while operations were underway and the prohibition against political influence over investigations and protests.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu rejected the conclusion that those disagreements showed Ben-Gvir opposed police independence.<\/p>\n

The minister\u2019s response expressly accepted that the police must operate according to law, equality before the law and without political considerations, the government\u2019s filing said. A failure to agree on every provision of the proposed procedures did not amount to grounds for disqualifying or removing a serving minister, it argued.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu also rejected the attorney-general\u2019s attempt to treat the incidents as a cumulative pattern. His attorneys accused her of inflating isolated events and attempting to turn individual \u201cgrains\u201d into a broader \u201ccluster\u201d despite what they described as a weak and incomplete evidentiary basis.<\/p>\n

Some of the conduct cited by Baharav-Miara involved actions that were within the minister\u2019s authority, the filing argued, while other incidents concerned public statements supporting police officers rather than attempts to undermine police independence.<\/p>\n

The government further argued that individual administrative decisions by Ben-Gvir could be challenged separately in court and that the current petitions were not the proper forum for reviewing every appointment, statement or decision attributed to him.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem court rules Ben-Gvir refusal to approve police supt. promotion unlawful<\/p>\n

One such decision has already produced a direct judicial finding against the minister. In February, the Jerusalem District Court ordered Ben-Gvir to approve the promotion of Police Supt. Rinat Saban, ruling that his refusal was unlawful, influenced by irrelevant considerations and harmful to police independence. Baharav-Miara and the petitioners have cited the ruling as evidence that Ben-Gvir crossed the line between policy-setting and improper political intervention.<\/p>\n

The attorney-general\u2019s latest submission also cited Ben-Gvir\u2019s public defense of police commander Avishai Moalem during an investigation by the Justice Ministry\u2019s Police Investigation Department, his response to police use of stun grenades at an anti-draft demonstration, his participation in a call concerning police protection for a private business network and delays in sensitive appointments.<\/p>\n

Those incidents demonstrated that measures short of dismissal had not succeeded, Baharav-Miara argued. Netanyahu\u2019s refusal to act had instead encouraged the minister to continue, she said.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s filing also urged the court to exercise particular restraint during the election period. It noted that the Knesset entered its election recess on July 18 ahead of the October 27 election and argued that the government\u2019s decisions would soon be subject to public judgment.<\/p>\n

His attorneys cited a 2006 High Court ruling that warned of the political sensitivity of judicial intervention in a prime minister\u2019s decision whether to dismiss a minister shortly before an election. Even if the court disapproved of a minister\u2019s conduct, the filing argued, that did not necessarily make the prime minister\u2019s decision unlawful.<\/p>\n

The government also maintained that Ben-Gvir meets the formal constitutional requirements for serving as a minister and that the doctrine previously used to require the removal of ministers facing serious criminal charges does not apply in his case.<\/p>\n

During the April hearing, several justices expressed concern about the allegations against Ben-Gvir but also questioned whether the court had the authority and practical tools to impose the unprecedented remedy sought. Justices raised difficulties surrounding the disputed factual record and explored enforcement mechanisms that would stop short of dismissal.<\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir welcomed Netanyahu\u2019s filing on Wednesday and again attacked the attorney-general.<\/p>\n

\u201cI congratulate the prime minister on his clear response to the criminal attorney-general,\u201d he said. \u201cDeep-state officials have no authority whatsoever to remove ministers from office. After the elections, we will remove the deep-state officials.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the High Court of Justice on Wednesday that there were no legal or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[957,49,3194,16376,42,835,954,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-575692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-ben-gvir","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-court","tag-gali-baharav-miara","tag-headlines","tag-high-court-of-justice","tag-israeli-politics","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}