Israel's most honoured jurist, former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, said in multiple interviews Thursday that he fears the government’s latest actions, including moves to fire both the Shin Bet chief and attorney general, are pushing Israel towards a civil war.
Speaking to reporters, he said before the Netanyahu government convened a cabinet to vote on firing Bar that “the main problem in Israeli society is… the severe rift between Israelis.”
“This rift is getting worse, and in the end, I fear, it will be like a train that goes off the tracks and plunges into a chasm, causing a civil war,” he said.
Before this, in a separate interview, when he was asked if Israeli society was heading to a civil war, he said, “It is because the rift between Israelis is immense and there are no efforts made by the government to heal it. Everyone in power and on the streets is trying to make it worse.”
“Today there are demonstrations, then a car drives through them and runs over someone,” he said, referring to an incident at an anti-Netanyahu protest in Jerusalem on Wednesday when a driver rammed into a protester, injuring him.
“But tomorrow there will be shootings, and the day after that there will be bloodshed,” Barak continued.
On the firing of the Shin Bet chief, he said, the ruling of dismissing someone without valid grounds is illegitimate.
“There is authority to dismiss, but no grounds for dismissal,” he elaborated, saying he would also strike down the firing of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, another top official whom the government seeks to oust.
“We’re not the United States; we don’t have a deep state here. We have loyal public servants here, and they do things according to the law,” he added.
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Asked by the interviewer what he would say to Netanyahu if he could talk to him, Barak replied: “This is your policy; I am completely against it. I ask you, don’t implement it beyond what you have done today. Stop. Stop.”
Barak, a Holocaust survivor, is well-respected internationally and is seen as Israel’s preeminent jurist.
Within Israel, he long has been seen by Netanyahu and other right-wing leaders as a leftist “activist”, who is to blame for many of the issues with Israel’s judicial system that the government’s controversial judicial overhaul plans aim to rectify.
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