Katz said to sign certificate of confidentiality, paving way to indict firebrand MK Gotliv

Defense minister had allegedly refused to sign off on document for nine months, holding up the case against her, until Shin Bet warned doing so any longer could harm state security

Defense Minister Israel Katz signed off on a confidentiality agreement last week that will allow Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to file an indictment against MK Tally Gotliv for allegedly violating the Shin Bet law by disclosing the identity of an agent of the security service, Hebrew media reported Friday.

Gotliv was summoned for police questioning over the affair twice, but she refused to show up, claiming her actions were covered by parliamentary immunity.

The indictment was therefore prepared without her ever giving testimony, and has been ready for the past nine months, Ynet and the Kan public broadcaster reported.

It has not been filed, however, because Katz refused to sign the certificate of confidentiality required for any case with classified, sensitive evidence. Without the certificate, the indictment cannot be filed, and the case cannot advance.

According to reports, however, the defense minister, who, like Gotliv, is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, was forced to sign the certificate on Thursday after the Shin Bet warned him that failure to do so could harm national security.

In a letter dated April 20, the Shin Bet informed Katz that the agency’s director, David Zini, had conducted “an additional review regarding the need for confidentiality of certain investigative materials in the case in question.”

“The examination revealed that national security reasons require the confidentiality of the investigative material,” read the letter, a partially redacted copy of which was obtained by several Hebrew media outlets.

According to Ynet, Katz was also warned by Baharav-Miara that intentionally delaying the filing of an indictment against Gotliv would be an illegal act.

In January 2024, Gotliv posted on social media that the partner of Shikma Bressler, a key leader of the protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul agenda, was a Shin Bet agent, ostensibly violating the 2002 Law for the Shin Bet which prohibits disclosing the identity of an agent.

The controversial lawmaker has claimed that her actions are protected by her parliamentary immunity as an MK, although critics have said that disclosing the identity of a Shin Bet agent does not qualify under the parliamentary immunity criteria of a lawmaker fulfilling their duty as a member of Knesset.

There are two types of parliamentary immunity for MKs: substantive immunity, which applies to actions that are directly related to an MK’s official duties and mostly applies to their freedom of speech, and procedural immunity protecting MKs from being put on trial while in office but which must be actively granted by the Knesset.

Gotliv, responding to Katz’s decision to finally pave the way for the indictment against her, accused him of proving himself “incapable” of governing.

“Katz made a fatal mistake yesterday and surrendered to the senior bureaucracy that is weakening the government and persecuting the right,” she fumed. “This is bitterly disappointing — and has proven that another minister is incapable of governing.”

Since entering the Knesset in November 2022, Gotliv has established a reputation for making incendiary claims against protest groups and accusing the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet of “working for terrorists.”

Bressler, a physicist, shot to national prominence as one of the most visible leaders of the nationwide protest movement that sprung up in early 2023 against the government’s judicial overhaul plans that critics said would undermine democracy in Israel.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.