Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government argued in a legal submission to the High Court of Justice on Monday that the court cannot force it to work with a Shin Bet chief it does not trust, following the cabinet’s unanimous decision last week to fire the head of the domestic intelligence agency, Ronen Bar.

The submission also argued that the court does not have scope for judicial intervention over the decision since the question of who heads the agency is a matter of state security, an area of policy over which the court has traditionally refused to intervene.

The prime minister and the government also contended that there was no conflict of interest in firing Bar despite the Shin Bet’s investigation into the so-called Qatargate scandal, and that the mutual and public animosity between Bar and the government made it impossible for the two to work together any longer.

The legal submission was a response to petitions to the court by several political parties and government watchdog groups demanding an interim injunction freezing Bar’s dismissal.

The court issued a temporary injunction on Friday freezing the government’s firing of the Shin Bet chief, but an interim injunction would remain in place until the court makes a final decision on the petitions themselves.

The government fired Bar on Thursday night at the recommendation of Netanyahu, who said he had lost faith in the Shin Bet chief’s ability to do his job.

The Yesh Atid, National Unity, Yisrael Beytenu, and Democrats opposition parties, along with Movement for Quality Government in Israel, the Israel Democracy Guard, and Telem – The Movement for Integrity in Government, all petitioned the High Court against the move, arguing that Netanyahu and the government had a severe conflict of interest in firing Bar due to the Shin Bet’s ongoing investigation into allegedly unlawful ties between Netanyahu’s aides and Qatar.

The High Court issued a temporary injunction against Bar’s........

© The Times of Israel