High Court questions Netanyahu's power to dismiss Ben-Gvir in heated hearing

Sitting on the expanded bench were Supreme Court President Isaac Amit and Deputy Noam Sohlberg, as well as Justices Dafna Barak-Erez, David Mintz, Yael Willner, Alex Stein, Khaled Kabub, Ofer Grosskopf, and Yechiel Kasher.

Two hours into the hearing, much of the bench’s questioning of attorney Michael Rabello, representing Netanyahu, centered on that threshold issue of authority: whether the court is in fact barred from ordering a prime minister to dismiss a minister even where repeated unlawful conduct is alleged. Supreme Court President Isaac Amit pressed Rabello on his insistence that the matter lay beyond judicial reach, telling him the court had already discussed its authority in numerous past cases involving ministerial appointments and asking what made this case different.

At one point, Rabello advanced what appeared to be a central limiting principle in Netanyahu’s position, arguing that there is no indictment in this case against this particular minister. Justice Noam Sohlberg immediately pushed back, noting that the petitions and the attorney-general rely not on an indictment but on a series of concrete incidents, and asked how the prime minister proposes the court should deal with such a cumulative record.

That exchange fed into broader questioning from several justices, who repeatedly steered Rabello away from abstract claims about institutional power and back to the specific episodes cited by the petitioners and the attorney-general. Kabub said there were literal instances in which the minister said things that harmed the police, while Grosskopf said even one improper intervention could raise a principle the court could not ignore. Rabello answered that the minister is allowed to disagree and warned of a slippery slope in which ministers would be hauled into court over every dispute.

Ben-Gvir’s own representative, attorney David Peter, opened even more sharply, declaring to the bench: “You have no authority,” and insisting the petitions sought an “obviously unlawful” remedy. He attacked the factual foundation of the case as a collection of “complete lies” and later as a “smokescreen” of accumulated incidents that ultimately amount to nothing. Like Rabello, Peter argued that the court has no power to order a minister’s ouster and rejected the broader framing of the case as one of police “politicization,” contending that the relevant question is narrower: either there was a criminal act, or there was not.

The government and Netanyahu pressed a parallel argument: that whatever one thinks of Ben-Gvir’s conduct, the remedy sought by the petitioners would amount to an unprecedented judicial incursion into core executive power. Their joint response says the petitions unlawfully invade the prime minister’s authority and effectively ask the court, aided by the attorney-general, to decide who may serve in government. The filing argues that many of the episodes cited against Ben-Gvir were public statements, demands for tougher enforcement or disputes over general policy, rather than direct orders in concrete operational matters, and that some cannot be tied to any actual police decision at all.

That position was tested directly in one exchange over promotions. On the claim that Ben-Gvir blocked the advancement of two officers, Rabello argued that even if that were so, it could not be divorced from the many other promotions he approved. Grosskopf rejected the framing, saying the issue was one of principle rather than arithmetic. Rabello responded that the minister has the right to disagree.

Grosskopf pressed Peter with a version of the same theoretical question he had put earlier to other counsel: if a minister were in fact acting to politicize the police, what could the court do? Peter refused the premise, arguing that “politicization” was too broad and amorphous a label and that the legal system must instead ask whether an actual offense had occurred. The exchange underscored the widening gap between the justices’ concern over institutional independence and Ben-Gvir’s camp’s effort to reduce the inquiry to concrete illegality, if any.

The hearing also turned visibly tense around Justice Khaled Kabub, after the bench raised Ben-Gvir’s earlier public attack on the judge over a separate ruling. Amit asked whether a situation had effectively been normalized in which a minister says of judges that they are “on the side of the enemy.” Kabub himself pushed back forcefully, saying the minister’s statement was not legitimate criticism of a judicial ruling but an “insulting” remark on the verge of contemptible, because it purported to infer from the decision itself which side he is on in this war. Peter countered by asking whether, after such remarks in court, Kabub should not recuse himself. Amit rejected that notion, warning that otherwise parties could actively force the disqualification of any judge by hurling accusations at them.

Baharav-Miara, by contrast, argued through attorney Shosh Shmueli that the case ultimately concerns the institutional independence of the police. Her position is that Netanyahu should be ordered to explain why he has not removed Ben-Gvir and, absent a dramatic change in circumstances, that an absolute order should issue. Shmueli argued that the attorney-general had originally defended Ben-Gvir’s appointment and tried to regulate his conduct through legal guardrails, but that the pattern that followed made narrower tools increasingly untenable.

She argued that the case is not about one stray outburst or isolated episode, but about a cumulative pattern spanning investigations, promotions, protest policing, and operational matters that were meant to remain insulated from political command. The justices pushed back on that theory as well: Stein questioned the link between the argument and so drastic a remedy, Willner raised the problem of resolving sweeping factual disputes, Sohlberg said the approach resembled the kind of broad petition the court usually declines to entertain, and Mintz stressed that any such intervention would have to remain highly exceptional on a disputed factual record.

Among the anchors of that argument is the Rinat Saban affair, which has become one of the strongest factual pillars for those seeking Ben-Gvir’s dismissal because it has already generated a direct judicial finding. In February, the Jerusalem District Court ordered Ben-Gvir to promote Superintendent Rinat Saban, ruling that his refusal was unlawful, tainted by extraneous considerations, and harmful to police independence. The attorney-general and petitioners have treated that episode as a rare instance in which the line they say Ben-Gvir repeatedly approached was judicially found to have been crossed.

Shmueli also argued that elections approaching sharpen the need for judicial clarification, given the police’s role in securing polling stations and safeguarding the electoral process.

The petitioners pressed the broadest version of the case, arguing that Ben-Gvir’s tenure reflects not merely improper involvement in police independence, but a systematic effort to delegitimize investigations and shield police officers, soldiers, and civilians who use force in operational settings from scrutiny. They point to what they describe as a recurring pattern of attacks on ongoing investigations, prosecutors, military investigators and courts, and lean heavily on the 2024 Sde Teiman and Beit Lid events as examples of the pressure they say can follow when a minister publicly campaigns against investigative action.

The petitioners also focused on Ben-Gvir’s relationship with the police command structure during 2024, while the legality and limits of the amended Police Ordinance were still under judicial review. They cite then-police chief Kobi Shabtai’s allegation that Ben-Gvir sought to impose a “policy” of not securing humanitarian aid convoys despite cabinet decisions and Netanyahu’s directives. Peter sought to narrow that episode, arguing that the cabinet decision assigned responsibility to the military and that Ben-Gvir’s involvement began only after he saw a police unit at the scene and questioned why it was there.

Another notable thread in Wednesday’s hearing was the apparent search by some justices for an off-ramp short of a definitive merits ruling. Amit suggested that the earlier principles framework between Ben-Gvir and the attorney-general, along with related documentation, be put before the court, while Sohlberg again floated the possibility of returning the sides to negotiations and formalizing agreed limits on ministerial intervention in police work. Several justices appeared uneasy with jumping straight to the most severe enforcement tool available and signaled interest in whether narrower prospective guardrails could still be crafted. Peter objected to turning over internal memoranda, even after Amit noted that the attorney-general had no objection, and insisted that Ben-Gvir had never violated the understandings already reached. The issue also echoed later efforts to reduce the dispute to binding guardrails: in April 2025, Baharav-Miara and Ben-Gvir reached a written compromise barring his involvement in anti-government protests, police-conduct probes, and certain appointment processes. By the close of Peter’s argument, Rabello said that on behalf of both Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir, they were prepared to resume discussions on an agreed framework and, failing agreement, even make use of the court in that process.

For now, the hearing has underscored two central fault lines in the case. Rabello and Peter insisted that even proven impropriety would not give the court power to force Netanyahu’s hand, while Shmueli argued that the cumulative pattern of Ben-Gvir’s conduct has already made ordinary judicial tools inadequate and placed police independence at risk. Several justices appeared unwilling simply to ignore such a pattern if proven, but also pressed hard on the factual sprawl of the case and the extraordinary nature of the remedy sought.

The audience, though severely limited, included several lawmakers, among them Likud MKs Tally Gotliv, Idit Silman, Avichai Boaron, May Golan, and Ariel Kallner, as well as Otzma Yehudit MKs Yitzhak Kreuzer, Limor Son Har-Melech, Zvika Fogel, Amichai Eliyahu, and Almog Cohen, who was removed from the courtroom after shouting at Amit. Gotliv, Son Har-Melech, and Silman were later removed as well. Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs was also present.