“The attorney general looks like a lioness when fighting for ‘Jewish democracy,’ but when it comes to [the state’s] relations with Arabs, she turns into [National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir.” This is how Dr. Hassan Jabareen, director of the Palestinian civil rights group Adalah, described Gali Baharav-Miara, the Israeli government’s legal advisor, in an interview with Local Call last year. With the government now pushing ahead with plans to dismiss her from office, Baharav-Miara is essentially making this argument herself as she tries to prove her loyalty.

The Israeli cabinet approved a motion of no-confidence against the attorney general in a unanimous vote last Sunday, marking both the first step in a lengthy legal process to remove her and perhaps the most daring move so far in the government’s two-year effort to crush judicial oversight. In an 84-page proposal, justice minister and judicial coup spearhead Yariv Levin accused Baharav-Miara of acting ”as an extension of the government’s opponents”; Prime Minister Netanyahu, meanwhile, railed against “the leftist Deep State weaponiz[ing] the justice system to thwart the will of the people.”

The attorney general is not the only senior official in the government’s crosshairs; Ronen Bar, head of the Shin Bet security service, has also come under heavy fire, with a Supreme Court injunction the only thing keeping him in the job after the government voted to oust him. 

Bar was singled out by Netanyahu early in the war as a key figure in a security establishment seeking to absolve itself of responsibility for the failures of October 7 — despite openly acknowledging the agency’s role. He later provoked further ire by, like Baharav-Miara, advocating for the creation of a state commission of inquiry into those failures, something Netanyahu vehemently opposes for fear that it could hold him accountable as well.

But the move that seemingly sealed Bar’s fate came earlier in March, when he approved the opening of an investigation into ties between two of the prime minister’s closest aides and the government of Qatar — officially an enemy of Israel — in a scandal that has come to be known as “Qatargate.” For years, Netanyahu had personally facilitated Qatari financial transfers to Hamas in Gaza, viewing it as a tool to weaken the Palestinian Authority and deepen internal Palestinian divisions. Now, with his inner circle under investigation for secret dealings with Doha, there is a growing risk that Netanyahu’s own relations with the Gulf state could come under greater scrutiny.

Coinciding with the resumption of the war in Gaza, where 59 Israeli hostages remain in captivity, these developments ignited a fresh wave of mass protests across Israel, with tens of thousands taking to the streets in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and other cities. Waving Israeli flags and chanting against dictatorship in scenes reminiscent of the demonstrations that shook the country throughout much of 2023, protesters blocked major highways and clashed with police who responded with stun grenades and water cannons.

The planned dismissals of Baharav-Miara and Bar along with the government’s broader consolidation of power — including passing a new law that tightens governmental control over the selection of judges — have been framed by the opposition in the Knesset and in the streets as an assault on the supposed “gatekeepers of the law.” But their response exposes a deeper contradiction that highlights the limits of Israel’s so-called democracy.

A green light for war crimes

In response to the government’s decision to fire her, Baharav-Miara published a letter in her defense listing the government decisions she has supported over the past year and a half. Some constitute a blatant distortion of the law, others are deeply rooted in racial discrimination, and some involve outright war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Behind almost every example she cites in her letter as proof of her loyalty to the government lie horrifying crimes that she approved. The so-called “operational approach to Gaza,” for instance, is a euphemism for Israel’s war of annihilation against Palestinians in the Strip that has led to charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. This “approach” includes, for example, the indiscriminate killing of civilians deemed “collateral damage” in a target selection process carried out by artificial intelligence.

The “war on terror and incitement to terror,” which the attorney general also boasted about in the letter, has meant mass arrests of Palestinian citizens of Israel after October 7 for even the most minor expressions of solidarity with their people being massacred in Gaza — all while Hebrew-language social media has been flooded with explicit incitement to genocide with zero repercussions for the offenders. In the months following October 7, Baharav-Miara backed Ben Gvir’s police force in its policy of preventing Palestinian citizens from protesting against the war as blood flowed in Gaza’s streets.

In her letter, Baharav-Miara also reminded ministers that she fully cooperated with the government on “the expansion of settlements and support for them,” a policy that was described just days ago in a new UN report as a war crime. What kind of legal expert boasts about supporting such a blatant violation of international law? What kind of attorney general takes pride in legitimizing war crimes?

And she didn’t stop there; she proudly went on to list a dizzying array of additional crimes she has endorsed: administrative detention, the draconian tool Israel uses to hold Palestinians without charge or trial; punitive demolitions of homes belonging to those Israel alleges to be “terrorists,” many of whom have not even been charged, let alone convicted, of any crime; the withholding of Palestinian bodies as bargaining chips, an act befitting the lowest of criminal organizations; and defending “government policy on humanitarian aid to Gaza,” a nauseating euphemism for the systematic starvation of over 2 million human beings. This, apparently, is the glorious legacy of Israel’s so-called guardian of democracy.

The truth is that Baharav-Miara has utterly failed in her fundamental duty to warn the government against blatant violations of the law, and to prosecute those responsible for these crimes. The letter she submitted to ministers in defense of her position is really an admission of how unfit she is for the role. While she laments that “the proposal [to dismiss her] is not about fostering trust, but about demanding political loyalty,” the first half of her letter is a testament to the criminal loyalty she demonstrated to the government’s illegal and murderous policies throughout the war. Were it not for the horrors embodied in these words, it would almost be laughable.

And yet, despite all of this, Israelis must still go out and protest against Baharav-Miara’s dismissal, because the forces seeking to replace her are even more morally corrupt and dangerous than she is. Every single day this bloodstained government remains in power, the lives of millions of Palestinians are in grave danger, and we must resist it in every possible way until it falls. 

This is also the rationale behind Hadash MK Ayman Odeh’s call for Palestinian citizens to join the protests. Odeh understands better than anyone the role Baharav-Miara and Bar play in this wretched system of oppression (the Shin Bet, it should be recalled, is known among other things for blackmailing LGBTQ+ Palestinians to force them into becoming informants); his call for Palestinian citizens to take to the streets is not an endorsement of them, but rather a reflection of how deeply warped and desperate the reality in Israel has become.

It is essential to resist this government and its relentless efforts to shield itself from oversight and accountability. But portraying the attorney general — who, by her own admission, has whitewashed nearly all of Israel’s crimes in its genocidal war on Gaza and persecution of Palestinian citizens — as a champion of democracy, is a tragic farce.

Baharav-Miara embodies the ethnocratic rationale of a democracy for Jews only. If these bitter days make anything clear, it’s that the notion of a selective democracy is not just immoral, it’s an absurd, detached, and ultimately dangerous illusion for both Palestinians and Jews alike.