After the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government suspended its controversial plan to overhaul the judiciary, while the country united to meet an unprecedented security challenge.
This week Israel reignited the Gaza war with surprise air strikes against Hamas targets, followed by the return of tank and infantry forces fighting in various locations and, once again, dividing the coastal enclave in two in what appeared to be the start of a protracted ground operation.
But this time there was no effort by the government to postpone divisive domestic measures for the sake of national unity. The opposite was true.
On Thursday night a cabinet meeting to discuss the fate of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza was cancelled and instead ministers convened to dismiss the director of the internal security agency Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, determining that his tenure would end next month.
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On Friday, however, the supreme court issued an injunction temporarily freezing Bar’s dismissal. It said it would hear petitions on the matter and give a decision no later than April 6th.
On Sunday, ministers are expected to vote no confidence in attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara. Also expected in the coming weeks is a law to change the make-up of the judicial selection committee, which appoints judges to Israeli courts, to give politicians greater influence.
The country may be still at war, but it appears that Netanyahu is more determined than ever to push through a radical political agenda, removing the gatekeepers of Israeli democracy and replacing them with people he considers more loyal.
Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated this week for two days in Jerusalem against the government, but torrential rain subdued the protests. Some protesters said this was the last chance to prevent Israel “turning into Turkey or Iran”. Others said the prime focus of the government should be to save the lives of the hostages, who have now been in Hamas tunnels in Gaza for more than 530 days.
There is no doubt the election of Donald Trump for a second term as US president provided a tailwind for Netanyahu.
When a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponises the justice system to thwart the people’s will
— Binyamin Netanyahu
The Israeli prime minister was the first foreign leader invited by Trump to visit the White House after the US president’s second inauguration in January – and this while Netanyahu remains persona non grata in many countries following the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court in November.
In a telling social media post this week, Netanyahu compared himself with Trump.
“In America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponises the justice system to thwart the people’s will,” he wrote. “They won’t win in either place! We stand strong together.”
Justifying the decision to remove Bar, he said he had lost confidence in the Shin Bet director since the events of October 7th, 2023.
Bar wrote that his dismissal was an attempt to interfere with the security agency’s ability to perform its job in a non-partisan way for the benefit of the citizens of Israel and not for anyone’s personal benefit.
He also accused the cabinet of attempting to prevent the “pursuit of truth” regarding the events that led to the October 7th massacre and the Shin Bet investigation into the affair known as Qatargate, involving allegations that a senior adviser to Netanyahu received payments from Qatar, a hostile state with close ties to Hamas.
Bar has accepted personal responsibility for the failures related to the Hamas-led attack, but the Shin Bet report on the events of October 7th reportedly included a recommendation for a state commission of inquiry to examine the role played by the political echelon, a move fiercely resisted by Netanyahu who has refused to accept any personal culpability.
