State Attorney Amit Aisman warned Thursday against attempts to pressure and delegitimize law enforcement agencies, saying such efforts threaten to erode the rule of law in Israel.

Speaking at a legal conference at Haifa University, the top prosecutor lamented that “interested parties” have been involved in the “deliberate erosion of public trust in the law enforcement system and repeated attempts to drag legal rulings into political quarrels.”

“The challenge is no longer just to solve cases and file indictments, the challenge is to ensure that the law is enforced equitably even when inconvenient, even when it rouses opposition,” he said.

He referenced government corruption in particular and called the burgeoning phenomenon “not just a criminal offense but a strike at the foundations of the regime.”

The State Attorney’s Office is currently dealing with a litany of criminal investigations concerning public officials at the local and national levels, including several cases linked to coalition lawmakers and a years-long probe into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself.

Amid these cases, some politicians under investigation for corruption and other criminal offenses have leveled verbal attacks against the State Attorney’s Office and police detectives, decrying probes as politically-motivated witch hunts.

In the most recent blow to the prosecutor’s office, the Knesset voted earlier this month to grant Likud MK Tally Gotliv immunity from prosecution for exposing the identity of a Shin Bet officer, shielding her from an indictment over social media posts in which she identified the partner of........

© The Times of Israel