Bennett Slams Appointment of State Comptroller as 'Record-Breaking Lawlessness and Chaos'

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett launched a fierce attack on the coalition on Wednesday evening over the appointment of the new State Comptroller, attorney Michael Ravilo, who is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's personal lawyer. In a statement to the media, Bennett said that "what we saw today in the Knesset broke all records for criminality and chaos in Israel," adding that the government had proved it had no red lines. According to Bennett, appointing the prime minister's personal lawyer to the post of comptroller, who is supposed to oversee his work, is an improper move. He called the intended comptroller "Netanyahu's consigliere" and claimed the Knesset vote, which by law is supposed to be secret, was conducted publicly and under coercion. Bennett described the process as "thoroughly tainted" and "blatantly illegal," stressing that a pitch-black flag hangs over it. Bennett noted that Opposition Leader Yair Lapid had filed a petition on the matter to the High Court of Justice and expressed confidence that the appointment would be overturned. However, he stressed that the event would not be forgotten and that the citizens of Israel would remember the coalition's conduct forever. Opposition Leader MK Yair Lapid wrote: "The Likud Party contaminated the election for State Comptroller. I will petition the High Court of Justice on behalf of the Yesh Atid (Together) faction, in light of the breach of voting secrecy and after the Knesset Speaker, from the Likud faction, intervened against the position of the legal adviser, I intend to petition the High Court of Justice in order to clarify the legality of the process." Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Lieberman also responded to the comptroller selection: "It is interesting what the October 7 prime minister promised the draft evaders so that they would support his private lawyer for the post of State Comptroller." This morning Bennett spoke at a conference of the Israel Democracy Institute and said that "all the laws the coalition is rushing through now will be canceled when my term begins." In a reference to Yeshar chairman Gadi Eisenkot, Bennett said: "The Haredi politicians do not want compromise. They want to take advantage of naive politicians. You will start with compromise, and in the end you will finish where we are today." He referred to the days of the Change Government he led and said: "Our government was good, but not foundational. This time it will be different. We will carry out 'Ben-Gurionist' changes." Bennett presented the "From Tribes to a Nation" plan, which aims at "establishing one education system in the State of Israel," under which state budget funding for partisan and independent educational institutions would be stopped immediately. "An independent, anti-Zionist Haredi state has sprung up under our noses inside Israel, and we are financing it out of our own pockets," he said. "In the next government, we are going to correct a historic mistake of creating separate education systems, which created separate states." "By the way, I am not only talking about the Haredim," he added. "This is also true of schools in the Negev where Hebrew is not taught, and where Palestinian teachers teach. The rule is this, if it is not state-run, not on my dime."