Netanyahu’s Office Holds Meeting With Trump Administration Legal Advisers, Excluding Justice Ministry

First publication: Senior legal advisers in the Trump administration arrived in Israel and met today, Sunday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, their visit was intended to help the State of Israel in what it called the fight against “international legal terrorism.” However, no representative from Israel’s Justice Ministry was invited to this important meeting. The complete exclusion of the Justice Ministry is described as a total boycott by Netanyahu’s office of the state’s official professionals. The attorney general was not invited to the meeting, and, more importantly, neither were her deputies, the professional officials directly responsible for handling exactly these issues.

It should be noted that the Justice Ministry officials in question are the professionals whose routine work is to defend IDF soldiers and the State of Israel on the international stage. Those who did take part in the meeting with the American delegation were Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the director general of the Defense Ministry. Netanyahu’s office explained that legal figures were still present at the discussion, including the legal advisers of the National Security Council and the legal advisers of the Foreign Ministry, who came to the meeting with their American counterparts.