Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Sunday that he decided to bar Chief Military Advocate Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi from participating in a Bar Association conference scheduled for this week. In his statement, Katz said, “At a time of intense political debate and division, IDF officers should not appear on platforms that involve polemical or political content. During this sensitive and complex period, it is essential for the IDF to remain as removed as possible from public controversy.”
In response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the right-leaning Beztalmo group, the Bar Association revealed that it had spent hundreds of thousands of shekels on political publications. These expenditures were part of various political campaigns launched in major Israeli media outlets, including efforts opposing the judicial reform, Minister Yariv Levin, and the cancellation of the reasonableness clause.
According to the Bar, nearly 27,000 shekels ($7,500) were allocated to advertising a strike demonstration against the reform in 2023. Additionally, the Bar Association spent approximately 370,000 shekels ($103,000) on a campaign targeting Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and another 172,000 shekels ($48,000) on a campaign related to electing the Judicial Selection Committee.
Altogether, when accounting for spending on publications, campaigns, conferences, and other politically oriented activities, the total approaches one million shekels ($280,000). Many lawyers view these expenditures—funded with their membership dues—as politically motivated and inappropriate for a professional organization.
In August 2024, Chief Military Prosecutor Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was attacked in a closed-door session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee over her investigation of IDF soldiers accused of abusing a terrorist detainee at the Sde Yemen incarceration base. The session became heated, with several right-wing MKs sharply criticizing Tomer-Yerushalmi, particularly over the inclusion of a charge of sodomy under circumstances of rape – apparently without a shred of concrete evidence.
MK Tali Gotliv (Likud) was removed from the meeting by Committee Chair Yuli Edelstein after accusing the military prosecutor of leaking a fabricated video of the incident. The video, which Gotliv noted was heavily edited using two different CCTV sources in two different locations, has since been circulated widely online and exploited by anti-Israel and antisemitic groups, including Hamas.
During the discussion, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi revealed that 74 cases involving harm to detained terrorists are currently under review, with indictments already filed in five of them. “These investigations are essential to achieving the goals of the war,” she stated, “as failure to address such incidents could undermine the IDF’s operational effectiveness and legitimacy in the field.”
EVERY SOLDIER ASSIGNED A LEGAL SUPERVISOR
On the morning of October 7, the IDF’s Chief Military Advocate General Tomer-Yerushalmi rushed to the Kirya, Israel’s central military headquarters, and within hours, around 100 of her subordinates—military lawyers from both regular and reserve service—were deployed to key combat centers across the military. Their presence spanned every critical front: operational commands and divisions, the Air Force and Navy, as well as intelligence and operations units.
While the IDF was still reeling and struggling to respond effectively to the onslaught of marauding terrorists on October 7, military prosecutors were already deployed alongside combat units—ensuring legal oversight of every soldier’s actions in real-time. Critics have pointed out that while soldiers were risking their lives to rescue civilians under brutal attack, the system was more concerned with legal constraints than operational necessity. Since that horrific day, the Military Advocate General’s office has filed indictments against several soldiers for the alleged “murder” of Nukhba terrorists—men who, only hours earlier, had committed atrocities including rape, beheadings, and the burning of victims at the Nova music festival.
During the August 2024 session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) accused Tomer-Yerushalmi of being “obsessed with harming our soldiers,” and dismissed her claims that the investigations demonstrated might, saying, “We don’t buy this brainwashing.”
MK Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism) shouted, “Fascism is saluting anyone who wears a uniform,” in pointed criticism of what he viewed as blind institutional loyalty.
Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein repeatedly called for order and eventually threatened to terminate the session due to the escalating rhetoric. He ultimately expelled MK Tali Gotliv from the meeting after warning her three times. Gotliv had lashed out at Tomer-Yerushalmi, saying, among other things, “You bought the undermining of your status honestly.”
In an interview with Globes, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi reflected, “From the very beginning, we understood that the legal aspects were deeply connected to the international legitimacy granted to the IDF’s operations and the ability to achieve our combat objectives.”
But how has that approach impacted Israel’s reputation on the global stage?
