The government took an unprecedented step by voting to express a lack of confidence in Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara – the first stage in what could potentially lead to her dismissal. Although the vote, which took place on Sunday, is not legally binding, it sends a strong political message that the government no longer views its top legal adviser as a partner.
To grasp the significance of this move, one need only compare how it was interpreted in two ideologically opposed elite media outlets.
In Makor Rishon, the intellectual home of Israel’s right-wing establishment, journalist Shlomo Pyutrekovsky laid out a systematic case for why Baharav-Miara can no longer function as the government’s legal adviser.
His article, titled “All the clashes between Gali Baharav-Miara and the Israeli government,” begins with the assertion that “Baharav Miara has adopted a clearly oppositional approach that does not allow the current government to implement its policies.”
According to Makor Rishon, from the moment the Netanyahu-led coalition took power, Baharav-Miara began refusing to defend key government initiatives. In some cases, like the appointment of Shas leader Arye Deri, she even authorized the government to obtain private legal representation – while her own office argued against the ministers in court.
Perhaps most pointedly, the paper noted that in the case of the “reasonableness law,” which removed the court’s ability to strike down government decisions on the basis of reasonableness, “five justices of the High Court of Justice rejected outright the attorney-general’s claim that the law could not be defended – undermining her legal judgment in the clearest possible terms.”
Makor Rishon concluded that the legal dysfunction is not mutual. “The adversarial stance of the attorney-general did not develop over time,” Pyutrekovsky wrote. “It was there from day one.”
Across the divide, in Haaretz, Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer – one of Israel’s leading constitutional scholars and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute – painted a diametrically opposite picture.
In his op-ed, titled “More than a document of no-confidence in the AG, it is a confession of the government’s disgrace,” Kremnitzer wrote: “The justice minister, Yariv Levin, is not delivering a legal indictment. He is acting as Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s long arm in a months-long campaign to delegitimize and humiliate Baharav-Miara.”
The document accusing her of misconduct, Kremnitzer argued, “reads more like a tribute than a dismissal notice.” And while the government claims “fundamental and ongoing disagreements,” Haaretz contends the problem lies in the government itself. “This is a government that aims to transform Israel into an illiberal, undemocratic regime,” he wrote. “Of course, an attorney-general who is not a rag will stand in its way.”
Political divide
So, where does the truth lie?
Haaretz is correct to warn of the dangerous precedent being set: the dismissal of a sitting attorney-general, especially one overseeing an ongoing criminal trial against the prime minister, would deeply undermine the independence of law enforcement in Israel. As Kremnitzer noted: “A defendant cannot fire his prosecutor and appoint a more convenient one.”
But Makor Rishon is also right to raise concern about an attorney-general who, in multiple high-profile cases, seems to block or oppose nearly every major initiative of the elected government – even when the Supreme Court later rules those initiatives legal. A government cannot function if its legal adviser consistently refuses to speak in its name.
Both sides reflect legitimate anxieties: the Right about unelected legal elites who seem to override the will of voters, the Left about elected officials eroding the rule of law when it stands in their way.
The Jerusalem Post believes that the real issue lies not in the personalities but in the system.
Yes, the relationship between the attorney-general and the government is broken. However, the solution is not a politically driven firing. Nor is it preserving a legal adviser in a role that has become adversarial beyond repair.
What Israel needs is reform: a clear, transparent mechanism for resolving these disputes – one that balances legal oversight with democratic accountability.
What Israel does not need is another showdown between branches of government in the middle of a war, with the nation still reeling from the trauma of October 7.
This is not a time for political purges. It is a time for responsibility.
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