The High Court of Justice said on Tuesday that the work of the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee in approving IDF Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman, as the next Mossad chief, was “lacking,” as he had not been exposed to relevant real-time documents and direct testimony from people involved in the affair at the heart of the petitions.
In an interim decision, Justices Dafna Barak-Erez, Ofer Grosskopf, and Alex Stein stopped short of canceling the appointment, but directed the committee to update the court by Thursday at noon on whether it will complete its examination. If it does, a further notice on the completion of its work must be filed by May 26.
The decision is the latest development in an explosive case over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appointment of Gofman, currently his military secretary, to head the Mossad.
Gofman is scheduled to replace outgoing Mossad chief David Barnea on June 2, after the advisory committee approved the appointment last month.
Gofman denies involving minor in IDF operation
The court said that, “at the current stage,” it had become clear that the committee’s work was incomplete. To preserve a proper process, and without taking a position on the final result, the justices said there was room for the committee to complete its examination and submit an updated, reasoned opinion.
The committee was told to hear directly from Ori Elmakayes, one of the petitioners, and from Brig.-Gen. “G,” in relation to the affidavit he submitted to the court, including its appendix.
Gofman will then be given an opportunity to supplement his own response, and the committee may summon any other person it considers necessary.
The justices also clarified that the people summoned are to appear before the committee and answer its questions themselves, without their attorneys.
At the center of the petitions is the Elmakayes affair, involving allegations that Elmakayes, then a minor, was used in an IDF-linked influence operation connected to the 210th Division while Gofman commanded it.
Elmakayes was later detained and indicted on serious security offenses, but the case against him was eventually dropped.
The petitions were filed by Elmakayes and the Movement for Integrity in Government, as well as by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel and Homat Magen LeIsrael.
The respondents are Netanyahu, the government, the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, and Gofman.
The case has focused on what Gofman knew about the operation, when he knew it, and whether his handling of the affair raises a defect in public integrity serious enough to prevent him from leading Israel’s foreign intelligence agency.
That question matters because the advisory committee’s role is not to choose the Mossad chief itself, but to examine whether there is a problem in appointing candidates to some of the state’s most sensitive posts.
A Mossad chief candidate is not reviewed only through the narrow lens of criminal liability, but also through the broader question of whether his conduct, judgment, reliability, or candor creates a public-integrity flaw incompatible with the position.
The committee, chaired by former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis, approved Gofman’s appointment by majority vote. Its other members are acting Civil Service Commissioner Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz, Prof. Talia Einhorn, and Moshe Terry.
Grunis was the only committee member to oppose the appointment.
The committee had argued that its conclusion that there was no flaw in Gofman’s integrity was well-founded, even though Grunis dissented. KAN reported that Grunis’s minority view found that flaws in Gofman’s integrity made the appointment inappropriate.
The attorney-general also argued ahead of the hearing that the committee’s approval was insufficient for Netanyahu to rely on, and asked the court to intervene in the appointment. Gofman rejected that position, accusing the Attorney-General’s Office of trying to cast doubt on his integrity.
The latest decision came after a since-declassified affidavit by Brig.-Gen. G became a key part of the proceedings. In the affidavit, G said Gofman had denied in 2022 that he approved the transfer of division intelligence to Telegram channels, and that Gofman said he did not know at the time who stood behind the Telegram pages.
Those details could affect the core dispute: whether Gofman misled officials about his knowledge of the affair, or whether the claims against him rest on assumptions not fully supported by the record.
Tuesday’s decision does not decide that question. Instead, it sends the factual work back to the body that was supposed to examine the appointment before the court determines how to proceed.
The committee must now decide whether to complete the examination in accordance with the court’s instructions, and, if it does so, whether the missing documents and testimony change its original recommendation.