National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir this week filed a complaint to Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara through his attorney, David Peter, requesting that the investigation currently being conducted against members of his ministry be transferred to an objective police officer.
An investigation was launched by Israel Police’s Lahav 433 crime unit into five employees of the National Security Ministry on alleged charges of issuing gun permits without the proper authority.
Following October 7, Ben-Gvir led an initiative to loosen the strict criteria required for civilians to receive gun licenses. In some cases, civilians who received guns under the new criteria used them to neutralize terrorists.
The request comes against the backdrop of concerns about a possible conflict of interest, as the officer leading the investigatoin, Chef Superintendent Keren Toledano, was passed over for a promotion when Ben-Gvir made a recent round of appointments.
“A fundamental principle of law is that every person should disqualify themselves from dealing with a matter in which there is a concern of a conflict of interest,” the complaint stated.
“I call on the Attorney-General to publish all materials relevant to the matter so that the public can judge the integrity of the process for itself. Every person, especially a public official, is entitled to a fair process. I am confident that the judicial system will know how to uphold this fundamental principle.”
Ben-Gvir previously said that Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara tried to fabricate a criminal case against him.
A recent report about State Attorney Amit Aisman, who also tried to fabricate a case against Ben-Gvir, indicates that he also picks and chooses cases based on the suspects’ political alignments.
Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal reported this week that Aisman was deeply involved in the “leaks case” at the Prime Minister’s Office, participating in lengthy meetings and several conference calls about the case. On the other hand, regarding the very severe case in which three left-wing rioters stole Navy flares and threw them at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, causing a fire, Aisman did not find it appropriate to clear his schedule to hold even one meeting on the case.
It should be noted that to date, neither Aisman nor Baharav-Miara have deemed it necessary to issue any statement on the flares case and certainly did not become involved in the investigation as they did regarding the investigation surrounding the Prime Minister’s Office.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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on alleged charges of issuing gun permits without the proper authority
See that’s the underlying problem right there. The entire “gun permit” system is wrong and violates the fundamental human right to keep and bear arms. That is not a right only in the USA; the US constitution didn’t create the right, it refers to an already-existing right, one of those with which every human being has been endowed by the Creator.
And yet Israel completely ignores it, just as it ignores the freedom of speech. You need a government permit, which may be denied for any reason or none at all, as if it were a privilege that the government may grant or deny.
Ben-Gvir managed to put through some loosening of the restrictions, but what’s really needed is to abolish them altogether and recognize that we are talking about a human right, and the state needs a reason to restrict someone from exercising it. It’s not up to a person to prove he deserves to own a gun, it’s up to the state to prove he doesn’t.
So the whole premise of the so-called investigation is invalid.