ISRAEL’S attorney general warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday that he has violated the country’s law on conflict of interest.

The law bars Mr Netanyahu from direct involvement in his government’s divisive plans for a judicial overhaul while standing trial for corruption.

Mr Netanyahu’s far-right government has pressed ahead with plans to weaken the Supreme Court and grant politicians less judicial oversight in their policy-making despite massive protests from across Israeli society.

Mr Netanyahu pledged to press ahead with the overhaul just hours after his coalition narrowly passed a law that would protect the Israeli leader from being deemed unfit to rule because of his corruption trial and claims of a conflict of interest.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara rebuked him yesterday in a letter for breaking a conflict-of-interest agreement that had allowed him to continue leading the country while charged with corruption, bribery and breach of trust. 

Mr Netanyahu signed an agreement in 2020 preventing him from being involved in legislative issues or key judicial appointments that could affect his ongoing trial.

“Your statement last night and any further actions by you that violate that agreement are completely illegal and in conflict of interest,” Ms Baharav-Miara wrote in yesterday’s letter. 

“The legal situation is clear: you must avoid any involvement in measures to change the judicial system.”

The contentious law that makes it harder to remove Mr Netanyahu from office does not undo the court’s earlier conflict-of-interest ruling, Ms Baharav-Miara said.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a good-governance organisation, pledged to file a petition urging that Mr Netanyahu be held in contempt of court. 

“A prime minister who does not obey the court and its orders is an anarchist,” the group said.