With no-confidence vote, Israeli cabinet moves to fire attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara

Jerusalem: The Israeli Cabinet passed a no-confidence motion Sunday against the country's attorney general to begin the process of dismissing her. Critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move part of his effort to curb the independence of the judiciary and purge officials he considers disloyal.

Netanyahu and his allies have accused the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, of undermining them. The no-confidence vote against her, as well as the Cabinet's approval days before of the firing of Israel's domestic intelligence chief, has rekindled street protests reminiscent of the upheaval over government plans to overhaul the judiciary before the war with Hamas began in 2023.

In a letter addressed to the Cabinet on Sunday, Baharav-Miara said the no-confidence motion was not part of the formal process that would be legally required for her removal. She added that Netanyahu's government sought to put itself "above the law, to act without checks and balances, even at the most sensitive of times," referring among other things to the war in the Gaza Strip.

Legal experts say firing Baharav-Miara is likely to be a weekslong process because of long-standing checks meant to protect her role's independence. Her dismissal would first have to be considered by a special appointments committee that is currently lacking some members and cannot convene until the vacancies are filled.

Israel's minister of justice and deputy prime minister, Yariv Levin, who brought the no-confidence motion before the Cabinet, issued a statement after the decision saying that the full support of the ministers and their harsh words about Baharav-Miara "testify to the intensity of the rift that the attorney general has caused in her relations with the government."

Levin said he would follow due process for her dismissal but added that he expected her to tender her resignation immediately, "as any person with integrity would have done in this situation," to allow her successor to be chosen without delay. Baharav-Miara had been summoned to attend the Cabinet meeting but chose not to appear.

The intelligence official Netanyahu moved against, Ronen Bar, sent a stinging letter to the government calling the process to fire him illegal and saying that the prime minister's motives were "fundamentally flawed."

The country's Supreme Court has frozen Bar's dismissal pending a hearing.

Netanyahu says he is strengthening Israeli democracy by curbing what he describes as overreach by unelected officials and giving more power to the elected government. But his opponents see the moves as part of a concerted effort by the prime minister to remove checks on his power and to eject those he views as personally disloyal.

Baharav-Miara, 65, was appointed as attorney general in 2022, during a brief period when Netanyahu did not lead Israel's government. Since Netanyahu's return to power later that year, the two have repeatedly clashed over policy, including the judicial overhaul.

In Israel, the attorney general is empowered to issue decisions that are legally binding on the government, including informing officials that policies they want to enact are against the law. This makes Baharav-Miara's position one of the few checks on executive power in Israel, a country without a formal constitution.

Baharav-Miara also oversees the justice system, which is prosecuting Netanyahu over accusations of corruption in three separate cases. He has been giving testimony in his yearslong trial, in which he denies wrongdoing.

"This is the gravest conflict of interest imaginable," said Amir Fuchs, a legal expert at the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Jerusalem. "It cannot be the case that a government led by a defendant can fire his prosecutor."

Netanyahu's critics have noted that a new attorney general could suspend or even cancel his corruption trial.

Last week, the Israeli government under Netanyahu's direction fired Bar, head of the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency. Netanyahu said that Bar had lost his trust through unspecified disagreements; Bar then asserted that his loyalty was to the Israeli public.

Under Bar's direction, the Shin Bet has been investigating potential Qatari interference in Israeli decision-making, including inside Netanyahu's own office. In removing him, Netanyahu was motivated by a "severe conflict of interest," Bar wrote in the letter to the government, which was distributed by his office.

Despite the Israeli Cabinet's decision Sunday, Netanyahu and his allies cannot dismiss Baharav-Miara as quickly as they did Bar. Instead, they will most likely need to follow an elaborate process involving a separate committee and multiple hearings, and the matter is expected to ultimately wind up in the courts.