High Court orders freeze to proactive monitoring by Ben Gvir’s new ‘anti-incitement’ body

Ruling comes amid reports that new police department established under minister illicitly tracks ordinary citizens’ social media activity without concrete suspicions

The High Court of Justice issued a temporary order Sunday to freeze the “proactive monitoring” of individuals on social media by the police’s new Incitement Department, following reports the body established by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was illicitly tracking the online activity of ordinary citizens.

The injunction will forbid police from “carrying out ‘proactive monitoring’ of specific people in order to discover incitement and speech offenses,” Judge Yechiel Kasher wrote in the brief decision.

He said the practice is forbidden “for any reason without indication a criminal offense has been committed, and in the absence of approval from the state attorney’s office.”

The decision was handed down in response to a petition against the body filed by The Democrats party MK Efrat Rayten, alongside the left-wing Zulat Institute.

It came amid accusations by civil rights lawyers that police, under Ben Gvir, have conducted investigations into individuals — particularly Arab citizens — in a bid to suppress dissent.

Ben Gvir hit out against Kasher in a Channel 14 interview following the decision. “If the incitement returns, it will be the fault of Judge Kasher and his friends,” he charged. “Will he take responsibility? If there is, God forbid, a terror attack, will he take responsibility?”

Earlier this month, Kan news reported that the officer in charge of the department had urged officers to send him names of people who “interest or concern” them, with the goal of monitoring their social media and potentially launching investigations into them.

“Let’s see what, if anything, can be done against them online and through other means. Any name that comes up — just pass it along. What have you got to lose?” Kan quoted Ch. Supt. Udi Ronen as writing. “Maybe we’ll find an interesting way to take them down and help. Even if you think they’re ‘just’ involved in property crimes, weapons, violence, and not terrorism—you never know.”

He added: “Just send me, as part of your routine, anything you know—anything that comes up. New or old. Even a single name, a few, dozens, hundreds, or thousands. We need to reach all of them using every tool; we’ll try from multiple angles. Every dog will get his reckoning.”

Ben Gvir, who oversees police, founded the department earlier this year in a bid to transfer responsibility for terror-linked incitement cases from the Investigations and Intelligence Division, headed by Deputy Commissioner Boaz Blatt, who he reportedly dislikes.

The department’s official status remained undefined, but it appeared to be handling at least some incitement-related cases after Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara called on police to immediately halt the fledgling body’s operations.

In her letter to police chief Danny Levy, she claimed that the surveillance activities were conducted without a “sufficient evidentiary basis” and raised real concern for “unjustified harm to human rights and free expression.”

Police divulged in November last year that of the 710 incitement cases opened since December 2022 — when Ben Gvir took office — 96 percent were against Arabs, while only 4% were against Jews. The data, published by the Haaretz newspaper, was provided in response to a freedom of information request filed by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.

The ruling coalition in which Ben Gvir serves is currently trying to pass a law that would allow police to probe terror-linked incitement suspicions without the approval of the State Attorney’s Office, chipping away at its oversight of police investigations.

The push to loosen prosecutors’ oversight of police investigations stemmed from an accusation leveled by many right-wing politicians at Israel’s legal officials that they neglect to enforce anti-incitement laws.

Critics, meanwhile, argue the legislation would harm free speech rights and lead to an uptick in false investigations.

At a legal conference in 2024, State Attorney Amit Aisman divulged that his office encountered incidents in which police opened investigations into alleged incitement without the necessary authorization, and, in several cases, deliberately circumvented the office’s directives.