Knesset Committee Votes on Immunity Request for MK Tali Gottlieb

After three days of hearings, the Knesset Committee voted on Monday afternoon on Likud MK Tali Gottlieb’s request for immunity from the indictment filed against her for publishing the name of a Shin Bet officer, the partner of protest leader Shikma Bresler. The matter now moves to a vote in the full Knesset. The hearings continued for hours even while the Knesset was operating in a reduced format because of a day of fighting with Iran, and they were marked by shouting, accusations, and conspiracy theories.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and her deputies, Sharon Afek and Avital Sompolinsky, attended, as did State Attorney Amit Isman and his deputies, Alon Altman and Efrat Grinbaum. Gottlieb described the session as a “historic moment” and sought immunity on one substantive ground and two procedural grounds. Substantive immunity examines whether the act was carried out as part of a Knesset member’s duties, while procedural immunity considers whether an indictment was filed in bad faith, with discrimination, or in a way that harms the Knesset’s work or voter representation.

During the hearings, Gottlieb attacked Baharav-Miara and former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, saying they had “enabled terrible subversion” and thereby contributed to October 7. She also showed a video with a slide claiming there “was treason,” and insisted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not responsible for the October 7 massacre. Baharav-Miara sat through the attacks for two days without responding, but told the committee that the Shin Bet’s professional opinion was “highly classified.” She said the service had asked to open an investigation into Gottlieb because publishing the officer’s identity could endanger Shin Bet employees, their families, classified information, and national security.

Baharav-Miara argued that the disclosure was not accidental but deliberate. Gottlieb shouted back that she had “immunity from criminal liability.” The attorney general replied that immunity is not meant to let lawmakers commit criminal offenses for political reasons, but to allow them to perform their duties. The indictment alleges unlawful disclosure and publication of classified information, which could carry a prison term of up to three years. According to the charge sheet, in January 2024 Gottlieb posted a screenshot from the website Edna Karnaval under a headline claiming that the Mossad chief had received a U.S. warning about intercepted conversations between Bresler’s husband and Yahya Sinwar four days before October 7, 2023.