Justices cast doubt on Levin's pick to lead probe

Chaos at Sde Teiman hearing as ex-facility guard calls High Court chief ‘trash, kapo’

Judges eject protesters from hall, resume session without audience after repeat disturbances, including by Likud MK; opposition MKs rail against ‘organized intimidation’ of court

The High Court of Justice abruptly halted a Thursday hearing to determine who would oversee the highly polarizing investigation into the Sde Teiman leak affair, with security guards called to eject audience members from the courtroom amid incessant shouting.

The proceedings were heavily disrupted, with audience members supportive of the government shouting comments against the judges and the Israel Bar Association. Multiple people were thrown out of the court for their disruptions, including a disgruntled audience member who shouted at High Court President Isaac Amit that he was “a criminal.”

Firebrand Likud MK Tally Gotliv was among those heckling and holding up proceedings, shouting about the need to “investigate the attorney general” in the case.

As the court adjourned, one of the attendees, reportedly a reservist soldier charged with severely abusing a Gazan detainee at the Sde Teiman facility last year, shouted at the judges: “You trash, you kapo.”

Kapos were prisoners in Nazi camps who, either voluntarily or coerced, were appointed to oversee their fellow prisoners and carry out tasks for the Nazis. The epithet was apparently meant to imply that the judges were working for Israel’s enemies.

The hearing resumed after audience members were removed.

Chaos then ensued in the lobby, with some people shouting “rapists” at soldiers from the unit in which the alleged abusers served, Channel 12 news reported. Guards then had to break up a physical scuffle.

As the hearing resumed, Amit said, “These incidents happen again and again, and their severity cannot be understated,” adding, “I don’t know of another democratic country in the world where people riot like this in the Supreme Court.”

He also called the chaos an “infringement on the separation of powers as well as on Israeli democracy.”

Amit also said at one point that he was “glad the public and the cameras can see how they try to intimidate the court.”

Ongoing legal battle

The Sde Teiman affair revolves around accusations that guards at the detention facility severely abused a Gazan detainee held there in 2024, in an incident caught on camera. The case, already divisive, erupted into a full-blown national scandal after it was revealed that then-military advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was behind leaking the video showing the alleged abuse, and then lied about it while ostensibly carrying out an investigation into the leak.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin has since been locked in a battle with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and the High Court itself over who should oversee the investigation into the scandal.

Last week, the court accepted Levin’s assertion that the attorney general cannot oversee the probe at this time due to a conflict of interest stemming from her involvement in the earlier investigation into the leak.

However, it also blocked Levin’s initial pick of State Ombudsman for Judges Asher Kula. The court said the justice minister had to nominate a senior public official who is an expert in legal affairs and who has a job closely connected to criminal investigations or prosecutions.

The minister then tapped retired district judge Yosef Ben Hamo for the position, but the court issued an interim order freezing the nomination following petitions against the appointment.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel argued that Ben Hamo does not meet the court’s qualifications, since he is retired. The group also argued that he lacks sufficient experience in criminal investigations, another standard set by the judges.

“It is clear that this is another attempt by Levin to find someone who will serve his agenda,” the group alleged, pledging to work “with all available legal tools to thwart this appointment.”

Speaking in court on Thursday, Justice Yael Willner said that although Ben Hamo is an “ad hoc civil servant,” he is not senior. “In the ruling, we wrote ‘senior,’ and that word was not written for nothing,” she told the courtroom, according to the Ynet news site.

Addressing the question of his experience in criminal law, Judge Khaled Kabub said that “most of Judge Ben-Hamo’s career was in civil, family and insolvency,” casting doubt on his ability to oversee a criminal case. “Throughout his entire term in the district court, he has issued one [criminal] ruling,” he said.

Attorney David Peter, representing Levin, said that the justice minister had previously offered four judges the position, but all of them declined.

“The minister is also trying to locate senior civil servants with criminal-law experience, but the attorney general needs to provide her position — you can’t just appoint anyone,” he said.

Opposition demands coalition respect rule of law

Members of the anti-Netanyahu bloc slammed Gotliv and the others who disrupted the hearing, arguing that their behavior was part of an effort incited by senior coalition officials to undermine the rule of law.

“The outburst by MK Gotliv” and other attendees is “unbearable and unforgivable” and would not have happened in the United States or “any democratic country that respects itself,” Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said Thursday. “Under normal circumstances, the justice minister and the Knesset speaker would have been the first to take steps to uphold the dignity of the court, but both are leading the toxic incitement against the court that has brought us to this low point.”

This outburst was “a deliberate and planned move aimed at intimidating the judges and the prosecution, while simultaneously further eroding public trust in the judicial process” on the part of Levin, the Democrats MK Gilad Kariv tweeted.

Those who disrupted the court were “not expressing protest” but rather “trying to intimidate [law enforcement bodies],” declared Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz. “They need to be arrested and sit behind bars. Turning the court into a stage for political debate is extremely dangerous for Israeli democracy.”

In response, Likud MK Osher Shekalim accused Gantz of hypocrisy, stating that he didn’t call to arrest a demonstrator at an anti-government protest earlier this year who called him a traitor.

“It’s easy for you to go against ‘ordinary people,’ but you’re afraid of those who protested against you,” wrote Shekalim.

Other members of the coalition criticized the court, with Likud MK Galit Distel Atbaryan tweeting that opposition to the court is not driven by “the incitement of ‘Bibi supporters'” but rather that “millions of citizens in Israel” who are outraged “at vile corruption wrapped in the robes of justice.”

Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, the chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, tweeted a clip of Amit reprimanding those present in the courtroom for applauding a government representative.

“The public applauded the representative of the justice minister. In response, just a few minutes later, Isaac Amit removed the public from the room. There is nothing more symbolic than this. The court, isolated in its ivory tower, is incapable of dealing with the public but demands unlimited authority to decide on every issue concerning the public,” he wrote.