The High Court of Justice's Wednesday ruling and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara's response to the decision threw the process of appointing Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar's replacement into a haze of uncertainty.
On the one hand, Bar said he would resign on June 15.
Also, the High Court had previously said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could interview candidates to replace Bar.
This would make sense since the prime minister has the power to appoint and fire Shin Bet and Mossad directors.
Unlike some other top posts like the IDF chief, which is supposed to go through the defense minister first, and only then to the prime minister and the government, the Shin Bet chief is bound specifically to the premier.
On the other hand, the High Court's previous comments on the subject endorsing Netanyahu's power to interview candidates, if not his power to fire Bar, were before it had received all of Bar's negative narratives about Netanyahu's alleged actions which constituted a conflict of interest regarding the Qatargate scandal and other legal matters.
Scenarios for Netanyahu to appoint a new Shin Bet head
Now that the High Court ruled that Netanyahu has violated conflict of interest principles, possibly his normally unquestioned power to appoint a new Shin Bet chief may be uniquely and temporarily limited.
Many scenarios could take place next.
Netanyahu could appoint a new candidate and dare Baharav-Miara and the High Court to stop him.
He could wait for the attorney-general to give him a set of principles that he must fulfill in his process of appointing the next chief, given the Qatargate scandal.
Netanyahu could wait long enough for the Qatargate probe to be finished and then try to appoint a new chief without any limits, while having Shin Bet deputy chief "S" run the agency in an acting capacity in the interim.
The premier could also try to have the government appoint a new chief without him being present, arguing that the cabinet has no conflict of interest – only him personally – but direct the cabinet about who to pick.
All of this could be less dramatic if he just picks one of a short-list of candidates that he was actually considering in March.
Initial candidates for Shin Bet
In March, all hints from Netanyahu spokespeople had been that the four final candidates for the role were: recent deputy Shin Bet chief "M", an earlier deputy Shin Bet chief Yair "Rolly" Sagi, former Shin Bet high command official Shalom Ben Hanan, and former Mossad high command official who had also served extensively in the Shin Bet, Eyal Tzir Cohen.
Any of these four probably would have passed muster with flying colors, though possibly Tzir Cohen might have faced some questions, but then eventually would have been heartily approved.
Baharav-Miara is mainly concerned that Netanyahu would pick an unqualified loyalist who might politicize the Shin Bet as many say National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir politicized the police by picking allegedly unqualified Police Chief Daniel Levy.
But Netanyahu has already messed with the script.
On April 1, he stunned the country twice, first rolling out former naval chief V.-Adm. (ret.) Eli Sharvit as the new head of the Shin Bet, only to have anonymous aides of his suggest later in the day that the pick might be withdrawn.
In initial reactions from Shin Bet sources to The Jerusalem Post, Sharvit was so unknown that most of them had little to say, despite a clear sense of shock that Netanyahu had not only refrained from appointing a deputy Shin Bet chief to the role (which has been customary in recent decades), but that he had taken someone outside of the agency and even outside of IDF ground forces.
Sharvit was well-thought of in the defense establishment, but no one saw him as having the requisite experience to be Shin Bet chief.
Still, given the fears that Netanyahu would pick a completely unqualified and politicized candidate, even many critics of Netanyahu rallied around Sharvit before learning that the prime minister had decided to ditch him.
Netanyahu's choice of Sharvit seemed to be a sign not only that he did not trust Bar but that he also did not trust the top tiers of the agency and sought to bring in an outsider disrupter to wrestle greater control over it.
However, the same day his appointment was announced, many Likud and coalition officials, some anonymously and some publicly, were attacking Sharvit for his participation in protests against the judicial overhaul, while others related to some public criticism he had made of the Trump administration.
By later in the afternoon that day, leading Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham was publicly calling for Netanyahu to drop Sharvit.
It seems Netanyahu dropped him due to these political considerations, which also could raise a red flag for the High Court about whether to defer to him to make a "clean" and proper appointment.
And that probably is the key to how this three-month-old showdown will end. If Netanyahu picks someone whom the Shin Bet and the defense establishment will support, most of the legal issues will probably fall away. If he picks someone off the reservation with a cloud of political questions hanging over them, then this constitutional crisis could reignite for another round of drama before the High Court.
