Yehuda Weinstein

Yehuda Weinstein was born in 1944 in Tel Aviv, then part of Mandatory Palestine.[1] His parents had immigrated to Palestine from Poland during the 1930s, and he grew up in the Florentin neighborhood in the south of the city.[1]

As a teenager, Weinstein was drawn to sports, particularly boxing, and won the Israeli youth boxing championship.[1] During his military service in the Israel Defense Forces, he served in the Paratroopers Brigade.[1] During the Yom Kippur War he commanded a platoon in a reserve Paratroopers brigade that took part in the capture of the Syrian Hermon.[2]

Weinstein went on to earn a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Tel Aviv University and a master's degree from Bar-Ilan University.[1][2] He then worked as a prosecutor in the Central District Attorney's Office, part of the State Attorney's Office, where he rose to the position of senior deputy before leaving for private practice.[1]

After leaving the State Attorney's Office, Weinstein founded his own law firm and built a reputation as one of Israel's leading criminal-defense attorneys, with a specialization in white-collar crime.[1][2] His clients included former president Ezer Weizman and senior political and public figures such as Aryeh Deri, Ehud Olmert, Benjamin Netanyahu, Yossi Beilin, Yanush Ben-Gal, and Ezra Binyamini.[1][2] He also represented Oleg Deripaska in a civil claim and was involved in an attempt to reach a plea bargain in the case of retired judge Dan Cohen.[3]

Weinstein stated in a conflict-of-interests document filed before his appointment as attorney general that he had worked as a private solicitor since 1979 and that his practice centered on criminal law.[3] To address potential conflicts arising from his extensive private-sector record, he provided the justice minister with a comprehensive list of cases handled by his former firm, pledged to close the firm, transfer its cases to other lawyers, and observe a two-year cooling-off period from handling matters involving lawyers from that firm.[3][4]

On December 6, 2009, the Israeli Cabinet voted unanimously to approve Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman's nomination of Weinstein as attorney general, succeeding Menachem (Meni) Mazuz.[2][4] Weinstein took office on February 1, 2010, and held the position until 2016, when he was succeeded by Avichai Mandelblit.[5][6]

His appointment was historically significant: Weinstein was the first attorney general to come to the role directly from private practice rather than from within the public legal system.[4] Before assuming office, he met with Mazuz and the state attorney to prepare for the transition.[2] The conflict-of-interests arrangements he put in place covered matters connected to several former clients, including former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel Railways, and a senior Bank Hapoalim employee implicated in proceedings involving businessman Arcadi Gaydamak.[3]

As attorney general, Weinstein reviewed the legality of senior government appointments subject to his confirmation, including the IDF Chief of Staff, the Police Commissioner, and the Governor of the Bank of Israel.[6]

Weinstein defined his agenda around several priorities: enhancing public trust in law-enforcement authorities, combating corruption and protecting the integrity of public officials, and fighting crime through a combination of criminal, civil, and administrative measures.[6] He participated in civil cases even when the state was not a party, provided the matter affected the public interest.[6]

A distinctive element of his approach was the promotion of civil and administrative sanctions alongside traditional criminal penalties, particularly in cases where crimes were committed systematically for financial gain.[6] His stated rationale was that ordinary criminal penalties could be insufficient against sophisticated financial wrongdoing, and that effective enforcement should target an offender's illegitimate gains and financial impact using the full range of tools available to law enforcement and public administration.[6]

On the institutional side, Weinstein spearheaded a reform aimed at making court proceedings more continuous by scheduling hearings on successive days and reducing delays in Israeli courts.[6][7] He also drove the establishment of a dedicated professional unit to investigate allegations of prosecutorial misconduct within the State Attorney's Office.[6] Before the Supreme Court, he argued that local government bodies could retain discretionary authority to remove a public official even when that official's conduct did not formally meet the statutory threshold for removal, placing the protection of public trust above the individual's right to hold elected office — a position that Tel Aviv University's Goldman Fellows program later characterized as a landmark legal stance.[6]

In February 2015, Weinstein asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to intervene in the composition of Israel Prize judging panels during the election period; Netanyahu agreed to comply.[8] The dispute had arisen after proposed judges were rejected and members resigned from the Literature Prize panel, with Netanyahu's office arguing that the proposed panel did not adequately represent all parts of Israeli society.[8]

Weinstein's tenure was defined by a series of high-profile prosecutorial decisions affecting politicians, military officers, religious figures, and security officials.

The Avigdor Lieberman Affair

The most prominent and protracted matter Weinstein handled was the investigation of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Police had recommended charges including bribery, money laundering, and obstruction of justice as early as August 2009, and a further recommendation for indictment on breach-of-trust grounds was made in May 2010, based on evidence that Lieberman had received classified information about an ongoing corruption investigation against him.[9] The main investigation file reached Weinstein in early 2010; in April 2011 he announced an intention to indict Lieberman subject to a hearing.[10]

After hearings and written submissions, Weinstein announced on December 13, 2012, that he would close the main companies investigation, citing evidentiary gaps that prevented proof to the criminal standard.[10][11] The closed file concerned allegations that Lieberman had illicitly received millions of dollars from foreign businesspeople.[12] At the same time, Weinstein announced that he would proceed with an indictment in the separate "ambassador affair." On December 30, 2012, he formally indicted Lieberman for fraud and breach of trust, alleging that while serving as foreign minister in 2010 he had supported the appointment of Ze'ev Ben Aryeh as ambassador to Latvia after Ben Aryeh had passed him confidential information about an investigation into his past dealings in Belarus.[13] Weinstein also called for a "moral turpitude" finding.[13]

Lieberman was acquitted of those charges by a Jerusalem court on November 6, 2013, having denied all counts.[14] The decision to close the main companies case was publicly disputed within the prosecution: State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, Avia Alef, and several other senior officials favored proceeding with an indictment.[11] Weinstein emphasized that closing the file did not amount to public vindication and that suspicions remained, but that the evidence could not meet the criminal standard.[10][11]

The Yoav Galant Appointment

During the 2011 controversy over the appointment of Yoav Galant as IDF Chief of Staff, Weinstein decided not to defend the appointment before the High Court of Justice.[15] He cited serious legal difficulties, particularly Galant's failure to tell the truth in proceedings concerning land near his home. Galant disputed the characterization, saying he had acted in good faith and that discrepancies in his sworn account resulted from mistakes and problematic wording.[15]

The Harpaz Affair

Weinstein ordered an initial investigation after a document relating to the selection of a successor for IDF Chief Gabi Ashkenazi was made public in 2010.[16] Police determined that the document had been forged by Boaz Harpaz and was intended to undermine Yoav Galant's candidacy.[16] The affair widened into investigations of Ashkenazi himself and other officials. In May 2015, Weinstein closed the case against then-Cabinet Secretary Avichai Mandelblit — whom police had recommended charging in 2014 over allegations that he and others had delayed or obstructed the investigation — though Weinstein had urged Netanyahu to reconsider Mandelblit's role in light of those questions.[17] Netanyahu declined, and later nominated Mandelblit to succeed Weinstein as attorney general.[17] In January 2016, after more than five years of investigation, Weinstein also closed the corruption case against Ashkenazi, citing insufficient evidence; investigators and the state comptroller had raised questions about conduct in the affair, though those concerns were distinguished from evidence sufficient for criminal indictment.[16]

The Eli Zeira Decision

In 2012, Weinstein decided not to prosecute former Military Intelligence chief Eli Zeira, who had been found guilty of revealing the identity of an intelligence agent.[18] The reasons cited for declining prosecution were Zeira's contribution to national security, his advanced age, and the time that had passed since the events.[18] The decision drew criticism from former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, who called it "strange" and observed that Israelis had served stiff prison sentences for lesser security offenses.[18]

The Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement

In 2015, the attorney general's office moved to ban the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel.[19] Weinstein described the branch as secretly cooperating with Hamas and rejecting Israel's existence and institutions, characterizing it as "a separatist, racist organization" that advocated forming an Islamic caliphate.[19] The banning action drew on security assessments by the Shin Bet as well as the attorney general's legal determinations.[19]

The Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto Case

In February 2014, Weinstein accepted the State Attorney's Office recommendation to bring corruption charges against Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto over an alleged $200,000 bribe offered to police deputy inspector general Ephraim Bracha.[20] A separate inquiry was also developing at the time into allegations that senior police officer Menashe Arviv had received benefits from businessmen associated with Pinto, though no indictment decision had been made in that matter.[20]

The Roni Rittman Investigation

In 2015, Weinstein closed an investigation into Major General Roni Rittman over accusations that he had sexually harassed a subordinate in 2010. In August 2017, the Supreme Court ordered Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich to explain why Rittman had been allowed to continue working despite the complaint.[21]

The Safed Rabbis Investigation

In late 2011, Weinstein ordered an investigation into statements attributed to Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a government employee, who reportedly called on citizens not to rent apartments to Arabs in Safed and to expel the city's Arab residents.[22][23] The investigation was connected to a broader controversy in which approximately fifty prominent rabbis, led by Eliyahu, had published a religious ruling in December 2010 prohibiting the sale or rental of real estate to non-Jews and calling for Jews who violated the ruling to be excluded from religious gatherings.[24] In July 2012, Weinstein closed the investigation into Eliyahu specifically, explaining that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he had made the statements attributed to him.[25]

The Binyamin Ben-Eliezer Case

Toward the end of his term, Weinstein decided to put former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer on trial on corruption-related charges.[7]

Beyond the headline cases, Weinstein undertook several institutional initiatives during his tenure. He worked to address chronic delays in the courts and within the State Attorney's Office, leading a reform aimed at completing trial proceedings within a matter of days by scheduling hearings consecutively rather than at extended intervals.[6][7]

He approved an investigation in the Israel Beiteinu party affair and opposed class-action settlements he considered contrary to the public interest.[7] When former deputy attorney general Yehudit Karp sent him a February 7, 2010, memo listing eleven contempt-of-court ordinances and Supreme Court rulings that had not been implemented, Weinstein responded by issuing guidelines on August 1 of that year emphasizing the need to implement court orders.[9]

In a 2022 published excerpt from his memoir, Weinstein described frequent and often lengthy work meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu during his tenure and recalled instances where he opposed proposals Netanyahu supported. One such example concerned a legislative proposal to restrict the recording of conversations with the consent of only one participant: Weinstein said that while he personally considered such recording a breach of trust, he opposed the proposed change because covert recording was an important tool in the fight against crime.[26] He also described disagreements over senior appointments and over matters involving Netanyahu's wife.[26]

After leaving the attorney general's office in 2016, Weinstein returned to private practice and was appointed a senior fellow at Tel Aviv University's Goldman Fellows program for the 2016–2017 academic year.[6]

His post-office legal work attracted scrutiny when it became known that he had joined the defense team of businessman Beny Steinmetz. A senior prosecutor told Globes that Weinstein had participated as attorney general in a meeting concerning whether to examine tax aspects of Steinmetz's businesses.[27] Weinstein denied any involvement, stating: "I did not deal, and I do not deal" with Steinmetz's affairs.[27] The Justice Ministry had approved the representation. Legal commentators were divided: some argued that taking on the case harmed public confidence in the attorney general's office, while others maintained the representation was permissible given that Weinstein had not been involved in the relevant matters.[27]

On February 7, 2024, Weinstein testified for the prosecution in Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal trial in the gifts case, known as Case 1000.[28] He testified that Netanyahu had never told him he had received gifts, had never asked him about the rules on accepting gifts, and had not received any legal opinion from him on the subject, either orally or in writing.[28] During the same testimony, Weinstein stated that Netanyahu had twice sought to close Channel 10 and that he had opposed closure, telling Netanyahu he would not support shutting the channel, particularly during an election period.[28] Weinstein also noted that he had objected to being called as a witness, arguing that having an attorney general testify about actions taken in office set a bad precedent.[28]

Assessments of Weinstein's tenure emphasize both institutional reform and caution in high-profile prosecutions. Tel Aviv University credits him with promoting consecutive-day court hearings, establishing a unit to investigate prosecutorial misconduct, and broadening enforcement through civil and administrative sanctions.[6] His appointment also marked the first time an Israeli attorney general came directly from private practice, making conflict-of-interest safeguards a prominent part of his transition into office.[3][4]

His record remained contested because several major investigations drew criticism for delay or cautious handling, particularly the Lieberman and Harpaz affairs.[10][29] After he left office, his return to defense work revived debate over how former attorneys general should balance professional practice against public confidence in the institution.[7][27]

Several of Weinstein's decisions as attorney general generated sustained public and professional criticism.

The handling of the Lieberman investigation attracted the most prolonged scrutiny. Critics pointed to a three-year span between police recommendations and a final prosecutorial decision, and Weinstein faced a petition to the High Court challenging the delay before he announced his conclusions in December 2012.[10] The decision to close the main companies file was disputed within the prosecution itself, with State Prosecutor Moshe Lador and others having favored proceeding to trial.[11] Allegations later circulated that Weinstein had been appointed through an understanding between Netanyahu and Lieberman intended to produce a favorable outcome for Lieberman; these were reported as unconfirmed suspicions, and Weinstein rejected them, stating he had not known or had contact with Lieberman before becoming attorney general and that he closed the case on its merits.[30]

In the Safed rabbis matter, Weinstein faced criticism — including from Knesset members, primarily from Meretz, and public intellectuals — over what they characterized as undue delay in pursuing the investigation.[1] He ordered an investigation in November 2011 but closed it in July 2012, citing insufficient evidence that Eliyahu had made the statements attributed to him.[25]

A 2013 Ynet account cited additional criticisms: a reported three-year delay before ordering an investigation under caution of a judge suspected of beating his children, limited early engagement with the Harpaz affair, and a decision to refer the Nathan Eshel matter to the Civil Service Commission rather than open a criminal inquiry — a process that ultimately concluded in a plea agreement permanently removing Eshel from the civil service.[29]

Weinstein's decision not to prosecute former Military Intelligence chief Eli Zeira drew criticism from Zvi Zamir, who publicly called it "strange" and noted the contrast with prison sentences imposed on others for lesser security offenses.[18]

A separate, lower-confidence report noted that before taking office, an Indian national had been illegally employed as a cleaner in Weinstein's home, and that after taking office, Weinstein decided to prosecute the wife of then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak over alleged illegal employment of a foreign worker.[1] This account comes from a single source and has not been independently corroborated.