A High Court of Justice petition filed Sunday is seeking to block Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman from taking over as head of the Mossad, arguing that his conduct in the Ori Elmakayes affair should have ruled him out for Israel’s top foreign intelligence post. The petition was filed by Elmakayes and the Movement for Integrity in Government, even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved Gofman’s appointment for June 2.
The filing asks the court to explain why the appointment should not be canceled and why the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee’s approval should not be revisited. It names Netanyahu, the advisory committee, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and Gofman as respondents, putting the government’s vetting process itself under challenge.
The fight centers on a case that has shadowed Gofman’s rise for months. While he commanded the 210th Bashan Division, a minor was used in an unauthorized IDF-linked influence operation tied to the Elmakayes affair. Ori Elmakayes was later detained for a lengthy period before the case against him collapsed and the charges were dropped, after it emerged that the information he had published had been supplied to him by intelligence officers.
The petition says Gofman authorized or oversaw the use of a minor in the operation, failed to take responsibility once Elmakayes was arrested and the affair unraveled, and gave investigators an account that could not be squared with the underlying facts. It also says Elmakayes was drawn in as a teenager after building a large Telegram-based following around security-related developments, later operating fictitious Arabic-language accounts and entering closed online spaces to gather information. Multiple reports have said Elmakayes was used in an Arabic-language online influence effort tied to Gofman’s command.
On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Yael Willner said a hearing would be scheduled at the earliest possible date, but she did not see a reason at this point to issue an interim order freezing the proceedings. She gave the respondents until a week before the hearing to submit preliminary responses, keeping the appointment alive for now while the court moves quickly to hear the challenge.
The Elmakayes affair became the sharpest fault line in the battle over Gofman’s fitness for the Mossad job. The case split the advisory committee, though it ultimately approved his appointment, with former Supreme Court president Asher Grunis issuing the lone dissent. That leaves Gofman approved and awaiting his planned start date, but facing a legal challenge that now reaches the High Court before he can walk into the post.