Ben-Gvir uses position to politically influence Israel Police, attorney-general warns High Court

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara argued that Ben-Gvir had continued to interfere in operational police matters, comment on ongoing investigations and the use of force, and wield his authority over appointments in a manner that threatens the police’s professional and apolitical character.

The framework and an accompanying interim order have not restrained his conduct, she said, while negotiations over more detailed procedures have left fundamental disagreements unresolved.

“The rules and principles are one thing, and reality is another,” the Attorney-General’s Office wrote.

The documented violations showed that efforts to prevent Ben-Gvir’s political interference through measures short of removing him from office were insufficient, the filing said.

Ben-Gvir responded directly to Baharav-Miara, saying: “Gali, I couldn’t care less about you. You will continue trying to bring down the right-wing government, and we will continue working – and with God’s help, we will win.”

The update was filed in four petitions seeking to compel Netanyahu to dismiss Ben-Gvir over his involvement in police affairs.

Baharav-Miara had previously asked the court to order Ben-Gvir’s removal, arguing that all other means of protecting police independence had been exhausted. Netanyahu and the government’s failure to act against his conduct had given him a “tailwind” to continue, she said.

After a nearly 10-hour hearing on April 15, a nine-justice panel stopped short of ordering Ben-Gvir’s dismissal. The following day, it instead gave binding force to a principles framework governing his involvement in police matters, ordered both sides to complete more detailed procedures, and imposed immediate restrictions in the areas of appointments, investigations, and the police’s use of force.

The arrangement was intended to distinguish between the minister’s authority to set general policy and prohibited intervention in operational policing, individual investigations, protest management, and sensitive appointments.

The court also allowed the parties to return with allegations that Ben-Gvir had violated either the framework or the procedures adopted under it.

Monday’s filing argues that the additional attempt to resolve the dispute through those safeguards has now failed.

“The conduct harming police independence continues throughout, and the attempts to stop it through various means have not succeeded,” the Attorney-General’s Office wrote.

It added that the known incidents offered only a “very partial” picture, as many alleged violations were neither reported nor made public. A request sent to Police Commissioner Danny Levi immediately after the April ruling, asking him to report breaches of the framework or court orders, had not been answered, the filing said.

Representatives of the Attorney-General’s Office, the National Security Ministry, the police, and the government held four meetings between April 26 and May 6 to draft four sets of procedures.

The procedures were intended to regulate the minister’s setting of police policy; contacts between Ben-Gvir, his political staff, and police officers; appointments and promotions of senior police and prison officers; and the work of the ministry’s security secretariat.

The Attorney-General’s Office said it made several concessions in response to Ben-Gvir’s demands. These included allowing him to participate in several preparatory discussions before mass events, creating a general mechanism for real-time updates, and clarifying that he could inform the police commissioner of alleged criminal incidents brought to his attention.

Nevertheless, it said substantial disagreements remained over the prohibition on direct or indirect influence on investigations and protests, restrictions on direct contact with police professionals, the minister’s interviews of promotion candidates, and his involvement in police operations while they were underway.

The filing said Ben-Gvir’s proposed changes reflected a rejection of the police’s apolitical character and the prohibition against political intervention in the use of police power against citizens.

It specifically noted that his representatives had sought to remove language referring to the police as apolitical from the proposed procedures. It also listed several incidents since the April hearing that it said breached the framework and, in some cases, the court’s order.

In May, Ben-Gvir publicly defended commander Avishai Moalem while he was under investigation by the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigation Department on suspicion of bribery, breach of trust, and abuse of office.

Ben-Gvir called Moalem an outstanding officer and “hero of Israel,” claimed that a case had been fabricated against him because the minister sought to promote him, and accused the “deep state” of persecuting him.

The court had expressly ordered Ben-Gvir not to comment on police use of force against civilians, including in ongoing investigations.

The filing also cited Ben-Gvir’s response to police use of stun grenades at an ultra-Orthodox (haredi) protest against the military draft. He announced that he would hold an urgent discussion and warned that the police would lose access to stun grenades if their use was not restricted. He also wrote to Levi that he was considering firing officers who had acted beyond what was expected of them.

Baharav-Miara acknowledged that the minister was entitled to ask the commissioner to examine allegations of excessive force and to hold a general policy discussion on police equipment. The legal difficulty, she argued, lay in Ben-Gvir’s differing responses according to the identity of the demonstrators.

Officers accused of excessive force against protesters supported by the minister faced threats of dismissal, while an officer involved in throwing stun grenades at anti-government protesters received Ben-Gvir’s public backing and an attempted promotion, the filing said.

That disparity could send officers the message that their advancement depended on exercising their authority in accordance with the minister’s political preferences rather than police orders and professional judgment, it argued.

The damage was done even if the threatened dismissals never occurred, since publicizing the threat was itself capable of influencing officers’ future conduct, the submission argues.

The filing also cited a televised interview with a businessman who said Ben-Gvir’s office contacted him following crimes against his business network and placed him on a conference call with a senior police official.

According to the account quoted in the filing, the participants discussed operational assistance, including providing the police with the addresses and contact information for 46 branches and potentially stationing officers outside of them.

Ben-Gvir did not deny participating in the call, the Attorney-General’s Office said. He instead responded that he was available to every Israeli citizen and would continue acting in that manner.

The filing described the incident as direct intervention in an operational police response and evidence that the framework could not effectively prevent systematic interference because Ben-Gvir did not consider himself bound by it.

It further accused him of behaving as a kind of “super commissioner” by joining police operations and tours in Sakhnin, Jaffa, Tuba-Zanghariya, and Ramle’s Juarish neighborhood, directly confronting residents and portraying himself as leading enforcement activity.

Videos of those visits were then used for political messaging, blurring the distinction between the police’s operational work and the activity of Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party, the filing said.

The chairman of the Central Elections Committee had already ordered the removal of several such publications for improperly using police officers or facilities in election propaganda and warned that identifying Ben-Gvir with the police could damage public confidence in its nonpolitical character.

It cited the promotions of Rinat Saban and Ruthi Hauslich, which were completed only after lengthy delays and legal proceedings, as well as the still-pending cases of Reut Rosenberg and Itzik Alfasi.

The filing said Rosenberg’s promotion had been delayed for approximately 10 months despite recommendations from Levi and the police senior command. Alfasi’s appointment as spokesman for the Investigations and Intelligence Division had also allegedly remained unsigned for about 10 months.

The unresolved cases joined a recurring pattern of delaying appointments in sensitive law-enforcement units, raising concern that Ben-Gvir was consistently misusing his appointment authority and creating a chilling effect throughout the police, Baharav-Miara argued.

Ben-Gvir has repeatedly said that he appoints officers who carry out his policies. On the day of the April hearing, he said Baharav-Miara was correct that he had appointed more than 1,100 officers to implement his agenda.

For the Attorney-General’s Office, those statements and appointment decisions are inseparable from his operational messages to officers: Officers may understand that promotion depends on acting in accordance with his political agenda.

Police possess coercive powers capable of limiting life, bodily integrity, liberty, movement, and expression, the filing concluded. Their legitimacy, therefore, depends on their remaining professional, independent, and apolitical.

The April decision gave one further opportunity to exhaust alternatives before the court considered Ben-Gvir’s removal, Baharav-Miara said. The remaining fundamental disagreements and continued violations now demonstrate that neither the framework nor further negotiated procedures are sufficient.