In the last episode of government battles with its senior officials, the High Court of Justice will hear petitions on Tuesday against one of the most controversial decisions in the current administration in recent months, its unanimous vote to dismiss the head of the national security agency Bet Ronen Bar.
In the dismissal bar on March 21, Netanyahu said that he had “lost confidence” in the capacity of Shin Bet to do the work, but the opposition parties and the government surveillance groups deposited a series of requests from the High Court a few hours after being dismissed, demanding the decision, a post that the Attorney General supported.
The petitioners argued that the Prime Minister had a clear conflict of interest in the abolition of the function bar since BET Shin has been involved in the Qatargate investigation, in which aid close to Netanyahu would have carried out work to promote the image of Qatar in Israel while working for the Prime Minister.
But beyond the immediate arguments on the substance of the case, the dispute on the dismissal of Bar again opened the schism in the country between those who support the coalition which believe that the legal establishment tries to replace the government elected with a “judicial dictatorship”, and those who believe the government, and Netanyahu in particular, simply tries any check or restriction on its use.
The depth of this animosity was reflected in the hardness of the language used by the two parties on the dismissal of bar, Yair Lapid accusing Netanyahu of having “sold” the government in Qatar and dismissed the chief of Shin Bet because he was investigating the allegations.
At the same time, the Minister of Justice Yariv Levin insisted that the government should essentially ignore the High Court, if it took place against the decision to dismiss and simply refuse to work with him.
From left to right: the president of the Supreme Court, Isaac Amit, arrives for a court at the court at the Supreme Court of Jerusalem on March 3, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg / Flash90); The first assistant president of the Supreme Court, Noam Sohlberg, attended a state ceremony for Israeli soldiers who fell in the Mount Hente Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem on March 6, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg / Flash90); The judge of the Supreme Court, Daphne Barak-Erez, attended the swearing ceremony of judge Isaac Amit as president of the Supreme Court, at the residence of the Israeli president in Jerusalem, on February 13, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)
In short, the country is again potentially on the path of a constitutional crisis, a branch of the government refusing to listen to the other.
The hearing is expected to start on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. and will be broadcast live on the Supreme Court website and the Youtube channel of the judicial authority.
What are the probable results of the hearing and what options must the court intervene on the case, if it should do.
Petitions against the withdrawal of bar bar
The petitions against the dismissal of bar is largely focused on what they say is the Prime Minister’s conflict of interest in the dismissal of Bet’s head and the agency’s participation in the Qatargate scandal.
Although Netanyahu is not himself a suspect, the petitioners allege that Netanyahu sought to block the investigation, which is also carried out by the police and to install a more flexible Bet Shin leader.
Netanyahu’s decision to dismiss the bar was therefore marred by ulterior motives and a conflict of interest, two legal principles which could invalidate an administrative decision.
Document files photographed during a hearing in front of the Rishon Lezion Magistrates short for having extended the detention of the suspects Jonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein who were arrested in relation to the co-Ca-Calé de Qatargate scandal, April 1, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni / Flash90), April 1, 2025. Flash90)
Spy-Fall: the “loss of faith” of the government by bar
In his response to these complaints before the High Court, Netanyahu and the Government first argued that the court cannot take place on such a decision because the appointment and dismissal of the head of the Tibia is a question of security in which, by tradition and preceding, the Court almost always refuses to involve itself, on the grounds that it lacks expertise on this subject.
The main argument is however that Netanyahu underwent “extensive loss of professional and personal confidence” in Bar, resulting from the failure of the Shin Bari to alert the holders of political functions on a position of Hamas pending before a State Research State Commission, such as Hamas, Hamas, made it possible to stage its intelligence attacks and controduce.
As such, they say, the government and the Prime Minister cannot continue to work effectively with Bar, and force them to do so would harm the functioning of the bari of Tibia and national security.
The answers to the petitions relate to the allegations of a very brief conflict of interest, arguing that the Qatargate investigation is, for the most part, to be carried out by the police and continues to be added, and adding that the change of the head of the bet shin “will not even influence this investigation a little.”
Hamas terrorists enter the Nova Music Festival area near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023. (South First Responsors)
How could the court act?
Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur, professor of the Faculty of Law of the University of Tel Aviv, said that the court may well be wary of the intervention of the dismissal of bar, given the policy involved, as well as the repeated threats against the Government Tribunal and its supporters on many questions since the creation of the current government.
“The sword is suspended on the ground,” said Levine-Schnur. “He doesn’t really want to get involved due to the political nature of this issue and the ongoing attacks against the court.”
The three judges who president of the case are the president of the Supreme Court Isaac Amit, a liberal whose appointment The government fought teeth and nails; The incoming vice-president Noam Sohlberg, a curator; And judge Daphne Barak Erez, another liberal.
Levine-Schnur stressed that Bar himself had taken responsibility for failures leading to and immediately before the attacks of October 7 and said that he would resign accordingly.
Without the question of Qatargate’s investigation, there would be few arguments on the shooting bar, said Levine-Schnur, given the nature of the intelligence failures he presided over.
But the investigation makes things more complicated for the court due to the appearance at the very least, a conflict of interest inherent in the dismissal of an agency for the application of the law which investigates, if not Netanyahu, then his very close partners.
The debacle on Netanyahu’s announcement that he appointed the vice-admiral (res.) Eli Sharvit to be the next brilliant leader on March 31, followed a few hours later by a decision to overthrow this announcement, apparently due to the opposition to Sharvit on the part of the Prime Minister, will only cause greater concern of the High Court for the entire connection, said Levine-Schnur.
It is something she said that the petitioners will probably tell the court as proof that Netanyahu’s motivations are indeed political and non -professional.
The security cabinet met in Jerusalem on January 17, 2025 to discuss the Liberation Agreement of Covers-Le-Feu. (Kobi Gideon / GPO)
Nevertheless, the court can try to go to a solution that it simply governs that the government must respect the laws and standards of administrative law when hiring a new head of Bari, and that it bases its considerations solely on professional considerations.
In this way, this would avoid a decision which, as the petitioners argue, would run in the appointments of government staff and all the policies that imply, while ensuring that the successor of Bar is not, as the petitioners fear it, appointed because of loyalty to Netanyahu, but because of professional qualifications.
The court could also go further and oblige the government to make a form of declaration to the effect that it will only have an appointment based on a professional basis, devoid of any political consideration or engagement of loyalty to the Prime Minister or the Government.
Dr. Shaul Sharf, professor in constitutional law at the Peres Academic Center, argued that the Court had no possibility of intervention since the law of 2002 BET gave the government the explicit authority to hire and dismiss the head of the agency.
“It is not a bureaucratic state, it is a democratic state. You cannot say that the government is subject to the head of the Tibia, that it is a distinct branch of the government,” said Sharf.
“It is subject to the executive branch. There cannot be officials of the executive who have a power that is stronger than the government itself. “
Sharf rejected the idea that the Prime Minister has a conflict of interest on Qatargate because he is not himself a suspect himself, and also rejected the idea that even if Netanyahu had a conflict of interest, this could extend to the government, which is the organization that has really made the decision to shoot.
But he described Amit and Barak-Erez as judicial and alleged “activists” that “the letter of the law and the precedent do not restrict them”, affirming that they could “invent new precedents or legal tools” to adapt to their political vision of the world.
“If the judges stick to the law and the previous one and do not invent things from nothing in accordance with their ideology, then petitions must be rejected,” he said.
Despite his criticism with regard to the court, Sharf said that it was possible that the judges could find a solution where he does not intervene openly, but that he orders rather than an office holder existing in the bet of Tibia, like an assistant or another senior official, is in charge of the role of Shin Bet in the investigation of Qatargate to bypass the conflict of interest to breastfeed by the petitioners.
“On the practical level, a government that has no appropriate relations with the shin bat leader is a disaster,” said Sharf, explaining why he did not think that the court could ultimately force the current administration to work with Bar.
“You cannot have a quarrel between these two, especially at a time of war.”
