AG says High Court should strike down Gofman’s appointment as next Mossad director |
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara on Sunday told the High Court of Justice that she opposed the appointment of Maj. Gen. Roman Gofman as the next director of the Mossad intelligence agency, and urged it to be canceled as it “suffers from extreme and glaring unreasonableness.”
Gofman, who has been serving as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary, was approved last month after the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee gave the green light for his appointment.
However, in a lengthy filing to the court, which is hearing petitions on the matter, Baharav-Miara pointed to three flaws in the committee’s ruling: she said the three members who supported Gofman’s appointment did so before reviewing the dissenting opinion of committee head Asher Grunis; the two members were kept from seeing classified documents; and that Ori Elmakayes, a man who was used by Gofman when he was a minor for a so-called influence operation, was not allowed to appear before the committee.
Elmakayes and Telem–the Movement for Integrity in Government filed the petitions, focused on Gofman’s authorization in 2022, while commanding the IDF’s 210th “Bashan” Regional Division in the Golan Heights, to use Elmakayes, then aged 17, in an Arabic-language influence campaign.
As a result of Gofman’s actions, Elmakayes was detained and interrogated by the Shin Bet domestic security agency, held in isolation for two months, charged with espionage offenses, and jailed for 18 months before the charges were dropped.
Gofman has claimed he did not know how old Elmakayes was, and that he had ordered that only non-classified information be given to him for publication on social media.
But Baharav-Miara asserted that according to the evidence, “Gofman was aware of the operation involving Elmakayes” and of his detention.
“The committee did not conduct a sufficient or exhaustive factual inquiry,” wrote Baharav-Miara, “and its decision appears to be deficient in a manner that undermines the integrity-related aspects of the matter, including the prime minister’s ability to rely upon it in deciding to appoint Gofman as head of the Mossad.”
This alone, she said, “is enough to justify canceling the prime minister’s decision that is the subject of the........