In a major drama and in a display of the latest evidence of the pervasive rot in the judicial system, the members of the government’s investigative committee for examining Israel Police’s use of spyware, including NSO Group’s Pegasus software, announced their resignation from their positions due to the judicial system’s efforts to thwart the investigation and prevent the truth from being exposed to the public.

As YWN readers may recall, in 2022, Calcalist published a major exposé about Israel Police’s use of the NSO’s Pegasus spyware on Israeli citizens, saying that the police illegally used Pegasus spy software to hack into the phones of Israeli citizens, stealing their personal information even in cases where no wrongdoing was suspected and no investigation had been opened—all without court warrants. The report provided a long list of public figures who were targeted and also revealed that the police installed Pegasus spyware on the phones of numerous individuals involved in Netanyahu’s criminal trials, as well as on the phones of Netanyahu’s close advisors Topaz Luk and Yonatan Urich and his son, Avner Netanyahu.

It should be noted that Attorney General Gali Barhav-Miara has fiercely opposed the activities of the committee from the time of its formation, especially objecting to allowing them any access to information related to the investigation against Netanyahu. She has not changed her stance despite the fact that the illegal use of spyware—without warrants or warrants obtained via false information—in the cases against the prime minister has been confirmed several times in recent court hearings.

The committee members wrote that from the moment of their appointment, “several bodies—primarily the enforcement authorities that were meant to be investigated—acted to obstruct our activities.”

“The enforcement authorities refused to provide the committee with the information required for its investigation or to allow the investigation of key witnesses and even avoided dialogue aimed at reaching a compromise, while making explicit or implicit accusations against the committee accompanied by ‘mountains of conspiracy theories’ about its purpose that had no connection to reality.”

However, the most worrying part of the letter concerned the little that the committee did manage to discover. The committee members wrote, “As part of our activity so far, we have been presented with information, unusual findings, and disturbing signs that raise concerns that this affair is much more serious, in its depth and scope, than it has appeared so far.”

The letter concluded that the straw that broke the camel’s back was the Supreme Court’s compromise proposal issued last week in response to petitions by left-wing organizations against the committee—restricting the committee members’ access to information and witnesses to the point that a true investigation cannot be carried out.

In response to the letter, Levin published harsh statements blaming the three liberal Supreme Court justices who held the hearing on the petitions against the committee.

“Those who truly need to resign today are you—the three Supreme Court justices Yitzchak Amit, Ofer Grosskopf, and Khaled Kabub,” Levin stated. “You knowingly joined forces with law enforcement bodies to cover up one of the gravest affairs in the history of the state involving violations of human and civil rights. Read carefully the committee’s sharp resignation letter, which states: ‘In the course of our activity we were presented with information, unusual findings and troubling signs raising concern that this affair (the Pegasus affair) is far more severe—in depth and scope—than previously portrayed.’ This joins the serious conclusions published recently by the State Comptroller regarding unlawful use of spyware. I will not give up until justice is done…until those who are engaged in cover ups, who betrayed the public’s trust, lose their grip on the Supreme Court.”

It should be noted that just last week, the Supreme Court ordered National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to allow the promotion of a police investigator who ordered searches of suspects’ phones without proper warrants during her involvement in the investigation against Netanyahu.

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)