Israel top court rejects petition against Ben-Gvir’s appointment as minister

Israel’s High Court of Justice has unanimously rejected a petition requesting that it order National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir be removed from office due to his previous criminal convictions.

Justice Isaac Amit wrote in the ruling that although Ben-Gvir’s appointment was problematic, it was not “unreasonable in the extreme.”

However, Amit said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave great weight to political considerations by appointing Ben-Gvir as minister, including his desire to maintain political stability after five election rounds within a short period.

“The Prime Minister studied these considerations along with the ethical ones, including Minister Ben-Gvir’s criminal past, and found that in the final balance the minister should not be transferred from his position. I did not find that there was room for our intervention due to extreme unreasonableness.”

READ: Ben-Gvir calls on Israel army to shoot Gaza’s children, women