Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused for weeks to submit a response to the petitions against Itamar Ben-Gvir's appointment as National Defense Minister, Kan News reported Tuesday evening.
As a result of Netanyahu's refusal to give the State's position on Ben-Gvir's appointment, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has submitted a fifth request for a delay for the State to submit its response to the petitions.
The petitions seek to disqualify Ben-Gvir from serving as a minister due to his prior conviction for incitement to racism in 2007, as well as the many times he has been indicted but not convicted. According to Ben-Gvir, he has been indicted 53 times, though the vast majority of cases against him were thrown out of court.
So far, Netanyahu has not rushed to defend the appointment and react to it, unlike his clear response to the petitions against Shas chairman Aryeh Deri's appointment as Interior and Finance Minister. Baharav-Miara met several times with Netanyahu on the issue and did not receive a clear position from him.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that Shas chairman Aryeh Deri was disqualified from serving as a minister given his own past convictions. Unlike Ben-Gvir, Deri's most recent conviction for tax offenses occurred in February 2022 and not more than a decade ago. In addition, the Supreme Court found that Deri's plea deal in this case required him to retire from politics.
Netanyahu fired Deri from his ministerial positions several days later, though he said it was with a "heavy heart" and condemned the court's ruling as "ignoring the will of the people" as expressed in the November 2022 Knesset elections.
Netanyahu has not defended Ben-Gvir's appointment the same way he defended Deri's.
In December 2022, Attorney General Baharav-Miara called on the Supreme Court to dismiss the first petitions against Ben-Gvir's appointment on the grounds that the petitions were "premature" because the government's ministers had not yet been appointed.