The "Union of Avengers": Moshe Drori Could Head the PID

Retired judge Moshe Drori, according to a report by Aviad Glickman on Channel 13, is one of the leading candidates of Justice Minister Yariv Levin for the position of head of the Police Investigation Department (PID). The new PID law will come into effect in 2027, but the appointment of the director and the supervisor, the two functions that will shape both the purpose of the new law and the intent of its legislators, is intended to precede the law's entry into force. Unless the Supreme Court issues an interim order freezing these appointments.

We learned about the legislator's intent, MK Moshe Saada, from interviews when he celebrated the new law:

"The new PID will investigate Gali Baharav-Miara as a criminal; she is the one who persecuted 'Force 100', Kobi Yaakobi and Avishai Moalem, Zini and Gofman," he told Channel 14.

In this regard, Drori joins Saada in a "union of avengers" within the judicial system. Saada was heavily criticized by the Jerusalem District Court for his part in the Ronel Fisher affair. Drori issued harsh criticism of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General, who he said thwarted the spyware committee he headed.

Even before the committee began operating, he said of Baharav-Miara: "The Attorney General thinks she knows better than the Justice Minister, and in general - that all legal truth is in her pocket. She does not fulfill her role as 'advisor' to the Prime Minister, and she states her opinion." And after he resigned, he attacked in an interview with the National Association of Police Officers, Prison Guards, and Pensioners: "For two and a half years, law enforcement agencies, which are the police, the State Attorney's Office, and the Attorney General, thwarted our desire to investigate. They clung to the words 'pending cases'."

Already then, in the spyware committee, Drori planned to investigate the heads of the law enforcement system. This is what he said: "After all, the next time I invite the Police Commissioner, Mr. Alsheich, who said there was never any spyware, and we know there was spyware, then they don't allow him to be investigated. Can I invite Mr. Mandelblit? After all, I invited the Attorney General, which was not during her term, to help us, she doesn't want to testify. So I will invite Mr. Mandelblit, she will also say that we are forbidden to investigate law enforcement agencies. So what do you expect us to do, close our eyes and submit a report with closed eyes?"

And now, all these people who thwarted the investigations will be exposed to Drori as the head of the PID — a function whose authority, according to the new law, includes deciding on questions of investigative authority between the PID and other bodies. From the government's perspective, the path is being paved here to send the Attorney General to the interrogation room and the defendants' bench. The main charge has already been drafted by Saada — the "100 case". The investigator is already being signaled by Levin — Moshe Drori. All three have an open account with Baharav-Miara.

It is important to emphasize: the current position of the PID as a prosecutorial body subordinate to the Attorney General has created quite a few problems due to the problematic synergy between prosecutors and police officers who cooperate in investigations and cover for each other. The spyware story is also still an open wound, as the dramatic violation of the privacy of Israeli citizens has not been resolved. Especially after the Merari report, which spoke of four cases and was contradicted by the State Comptroller's report, which pointed to thousands of cases.

And yet, despite these failures, it is important not to break the hierarchy of criminal enforcement led by a neutral professional body like the Attorney General. Certainly not to replace it with a model controlled by politicians. One does not solve one problem with a problem twice as large. The Supreme Court laid the foundation for this danger when it allowed the Justice Minister to appoint a special investigator on his behalf in the Military Advocate General affair. Levin was blocked when he tried to appoint retired judges Asher Kola and Yosef Ben-Hamo to the position. Now, under the auspices of the new PID law, he gets another opportunity to appoint the long-awaited investigator on his behalf to undermine the enforcement system in its current format.