Defense Minister Israel Katz surprised the legal community on Tuesday, announcing former Defense Ministry chief legal adviser Itai Ophir as the next IDF chief lawyer, following the resignation of former military advocate-general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi on Friday after her admission to allegedly illegally leaking a video relating to the Sde Teiman Palestinian prisoner abuse cases.
Katz said that it was critical to have an outsider run the IDF legal division, given that not only Tomer-Yerushalmi but also several other senior IDF legal officials have been implicated in alleged illegal handling of the video incident, including former IDF chief prosecutor Matan Solomush.
However, Ophir is a surprising choice because he has no experience in the area of criminal law and will be expected to handle aspects of the sensitive Sde Teiman abuse and leak cases.
The IDF chief lawyer is also the lead official dealing with potential war crimes allegations from the International Criminal Court, an area where he has little expertise.
In support of Ophir, significant aspects of the IDF chief lawyer’s role do involve legal advice relating to defense issues, which he has high familiarity with from his 2017-2024 tenure as chief legal adviser.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir did not initially issue a statement about recommending Ophir, which seemed strange given that Zamir is empowered with recommending a candidate to Katz, who the defense minister can then accept or deny.
However, IDF sources told The Jerusalem Post that Ophir was one of the names that Zamir had passed on to Katz as a possible candidate, and given that the chief of staff was the director-general of the Defense Ministry from 2023 to 2024, overlapping with Ophir, he had significant familiarity with him.
Hours later, the IDF finally issued a statement stating that Ophir was Zamir’s top choice, though it is unclear why Katz’s and Zamir’s statements were so far apart and why the defense minister departed from the protocol in which the IDF chief first announces his nominee and then the defense minister announces whether he approves or not.
Zamir avoids the 'messy saga'
It is possible that Zamir was silent to avoid his name being drawn too far into the messy saga and was waiting to see how others responded.
On the other hand, the three leading candidates mentioned until now all had spent time serving in the IDF legal division in the past but had not served there recently, which was viewed as a positive combination of being more familiar with the work than a candidate like Ophir but being separate from Tomer-Yerushalmi.
For example, the lead candidate had appeared to be Brig.-Gen. (res.) Doron Ben Barak, who had served in the IDF legal division in the past but then served outside as the IDF chief censor and has been out of the military in recent years.
Ophir served in the Givati Brigade as a combat fighter and later became a lawyer and worked in the private sector at one of New York’s top law firms –Weil, Gotshal, & Manges – as well as the top Tel Aviv law firm of Tadmor-Levy before later joining the Defense Ministry.
He was also approved as a potential candidate for attorney-general in the most recent race for the post, though Gali Baharav-Miara was ultimately selected.
On major policy issues, he reportedly has tried to work out policy compromises between the government and many parties, including haredim (ultra-Orthodox) over IDF draft issues, the settler movement over localized expansions of Jewish West Bank areas, former defense minister Benny Gantz’s right to appoint a new IDF chief despite impending elections (Gantz appointed former IDF chief Herzi Halevi), and he helped move certain complex authorities regarding the West Bank from then-defense minister Yoav Gallant over to Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich to fulfill various coalition agreements.
Most of the responses to Ophir’s appointment were positive, including from opposition party head Gantz.
However, following some criticism of some of Ophir’s decisions and associations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly rebuked Katz for selecting Ophir without consulting him.