If approved, the appointment would be made despite objections from Likud.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara hinted to a conference of public sector legal advisers on Tuesday that she may approve Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s request to appoint a new IDF Chief of Staff during election season on the basis of national security considerations despite Likud party objections.
Although Baharav-Miara made no formal commitment in either direction, her strong advocacy of the idea that “restraint does not mean silence” for a transitional government seemed to be laying out the possibility of approving the appointment.
In past speeches by other attorney-generals who were going to freeze appointments, they placed greater emphasis on the idea that transitional governments appointing people to senior positions during election season is problematic.
Though Baharav-Miara mentioned this issue as well, she then went out of her way to explain that there was no blanket prohibition on election season appointments, especially if there was a national security need.
Further, she said she would not be pressured by “alien [problematic] considerations” in the decision, a veiled push back against threats by Likud members to fire her if they regain control of the government after the November 1 election.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Monday told Baharav-Miara that he fully backed her following the latest threats to fire her from various Likud members on Sunday night.
The threats came in light of the possibility that Baharav-Miara was entertaining the possibility of approving Gantz’s request.
Likud MKs Yoav Kisch and Shlomo Yarhi both attacked Baharav-Miara for not rejecting Gantz’s request outright.
Kisch said that Baharav-Miara would be fired by a new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu if she dares to approve Gantz’s request – which he said would show she was taking a clear political side.
Yarhi said Likud would fire her no matter what she decided as they would seek to fire all of the current government’s appointees, viewing the current government as illegitimate since it was not led by Netanyahu, whose Likud won a plurality of the most seats.
Lapid said, “he was sure that the legal establishment would continue to act professionally, objectively and putting the interests of the state first, as it has done until now.”
He said he would “protect the legal system from those who want to harm it.”
Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Sunday had already called Kisch’s threat “gangsterism.”
Yamina MK Simcha Rothman said that any government has the right to fire an unelected official, though he did not address concerns that the firing might be done to help save Netanyahu from his corruption trial.
Netanyahu himself remained silent, though some of his messengers disassociated him from Kisch’s statement.
Kisch then said he had not heard Netanyahu himself criticize him, leaving the picture unclear.
On Monday, Kisch did not completely back off, but withdrew somewhat, stating that he was not threatening to fire Baharav-Miarav in any formal sense as much as expressing how problematic he thought it would be for her to approve Gantz’s request.
Defense Ministry Legal Adviser Itai Ofir on Sunday sent Baharav-Miara his legal opinion stating that Gantz can appoint a new IDF chief of staff even with elections on the horizon.
Ofir’s opinion gave a classified survey of the security challenges confronting the country, which he said will be exacerbated if selecting a new chief is delayed.
Various national security figures have also written in support of making the selection the basis that the upcoming elections may not lead to a new government, may not lead to a new government before the January 1 end date to current IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi’s term, to allow a normal transition period between the chiefs or that a new chief is needed soon to pick a new deputy chief to take over various day-to-day operations.
In late June, the attorney-general said she would need more details from the Defense Ministry’s legal adviser before deciding the issue.
On one hand, appointments during election season were discouraged, she said.
On the other hand, appointments were not banned across the board and there could be exceptions that met a standard of the state having a necessity.
The three lead candidates are current IDF deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. Hersti Halevi, former IDF deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and former IDF Northern Commander Maj.-Gen. Yoel Strick.
Halevi is reportedly the lead candidate, but some on the Right prefer Zamir, who was helped to move up the chain of command by Netanyahu when he was still prime minister and who had worked for him as his personal military secretary.