A tumultuous Knesset committee hearing on Monday showcased the coalition’s escalating confrontation with Israel’s legal institutions, as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich railed against the attorney general and judicial oversight, and dismissed concerns about weakening democratic safeguards.

Over hours of shouting matches and personal confrontations in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Smotrich accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of being a dictator, blamed both her office and the previous government for the surging homicide rate in Arab communities, dismissed concerns over weakening checks on executive power, and declared that “there is no such thing as illegal [settlement] outposts.”

The explosive meeting was one of several marathon sessions being held this week as the coalition pushes ahead with a blitz aimed at advancing contentious legislation before expected proceedings to dissolve the Knesset and trigger early elections.

At the center of Monday’s debate was a controversial bill co-sponsored by Constitution Committee chair MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionism) that would split the attorney general’s role into three separate positions, a move critics warn would significantly weaken one of the main checks on government power at a particularly acute moment, as Israel appears headed toward elections.

Rothman announced that the committee will vote Tuesday on advancing the legislation to the plenum for its first reading, after the committee merged 10 separate private bills into Rothman’s version of the legislation.

“Very soon we will restore Israel to being a democratic state and end the dictatorship of the attorney general,” Smotrich, who chairs the far-right Religious Zionism party, told the committee, vowing to “make Israel once again a country in which legal advisers advise, and the government can govern.”

“What checks and balances does the government have?” Yesh Atid MK Yasmin Fridman asked the minister. “If [the government] is not bound by the opinion of any legal adviser, what checks and balances exist? What will protect citizens from a government when there is nothing to stop it?”

Rather than answer directly, Smotrich asked Fridman instead whether she “know[s] of another country in the world where the government is bound to [the opinion of] the attorney general,” calling the current system akin to a “dictatorship” by the attorney general.

Opposition lawmakers shot back that other democracies have stronger institutional safeguards, including a constitution, clearer separations between branches of government, and independent parliamentary bodies, all of which Israel lacks.

When Fridman pressed Smotrich on what meaningful checks on........

© The Times of Israel