Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s attempt to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar has been thwarted by the Supreme Court.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire Ronen Bar as head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, was temporarily halted by the Supreme Court of Israel on Friday until his appeal could be considered.
The Supreme Court’s decision was attacked by a number of senior Israeli government officials, some of whom demanded that the government disregard it.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi of Netanyahu’s Likud party stated that “Ronen Bar’s term will end on April 10 or once a replacement is found.” He also added that the court’s decision “has no validity” and that the judiciary “doesn’t have the jurisdiction to intervene.”
“Should the Israeli government not respect the decision and lead Israel to a constitutional crisis, we will call for the Israeli public to stop respecting the government’s decisions, with everything this means,” the forum stated in a statement, adding that it would “stop the Israeli economy.”
In the event that the Supreme Court’s ruling is not upheld, the Israeli High-Tech Headquarters, which is home to dozens of the largest businesses in the industry for which Israel has emerged as a global leader, joined the threat to strike.
They claimed that disobeying the Supreme Court would make Israel a “third world country from which all foreign investors would run away” and that it is a “red line from which there is no return.”
In Israel, forty mayors of municipalities, including those of Tel Aviv and Haifa, declared that they would support the judiciary if the administration refused to abide by the Supreme Court’s decision.
The chiefs of the municipalities issued a statement saying, “We call on the Prime Minister to immediately announce that the government would comply with the Supreme Court.”
Israel is “a state ruled by law, and the law says the government decides who heads the Shin Bet,” Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the criticism on his X account. Netanyahu declared, “There will not be a civil war,”
Source: DW News, Al Jazeera, BBC
