At a hearing Tuesday on a petition against the appointment of Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman, as the new Mossad chief, the High Court of Justice demanded to receive all documentation reviewed on the matter by the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee.

And it further ordered that an affidavit be filed no later than May 17 by a former brigadier general in the IDF’s Military Intelligence, detailing what Gofman told him regarding a controversial 2022 incident at the heart of challenges to Gofman’s appointment.

The orders came following a six-hour hearing on calls for the court to cancel Gofman’s appointment on the grounds that his ethical conduct in the incident makes him unfit to serve as head of the spy agency.

Although the justices were skeptical of their own authority to intervene in the appointment, the orders they issued after the hearing appeared to be designed to help the court determine whether the appointment’s committee failed to properly review the incident in question, and whether, by extension, Gofman had engaged in unethical conduct, which would invalidate his candidacy.

During the course of the hearing, the three High Court justices reviewing Gofman’s appointment repeatedly expressed concerns about the court’s ability to intervene in what has become a controversial appointment.

Gofman’s pick by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been beset by allegations of wrongdoing over an incident during his time as commander of the IDF’s 210th “Bashan” Regional Division in the Golan Heights.

He is scheduled to take up his post on June 2, leaving the court little time to deal with the case.

Although the justices seemed reticent to intervene, one possible avenue may be for the court to ask the advisory committee to review its decision and obtain answers to key questions over Gofman’s conduct.

In 2022, Gofman approved the use of a then-17-year-old boy, Ori Elmakayes, for an Arabic-language influence campaign against Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.........

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