Channel 12 revealed that Ben Gvir prevented Shabtai from attending a cabinet session dealing with the formation of that armed body, to which the latter responded with a harsh speech against the initiative.
The official warned that the utility of this enterprise is not clear, and may even lead to serious operational failures.
Shabtai questioned the reason for the formation of the National Guard, “whose responsibilities and authority overlap with the areas of the police.”
On Sunday, the right-wing coalition will discuss cutting the budget of 83 government agencies by 1.5 percent to fund the new military corps.
Faced with a wave of protests in the country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced last week to postpone the parliamentary debate on judicial reform, a decision criticized by Ben Gvir, a coalition partner, who has threatened to relinquish executive power.
In return for the minister’s support, the head of government promised to form a National Guard and put it under his command.
Since the conservative executive came to power at the end of last year, the minister and the chief of police have clashed on several occasions, due to the former’s attempts to influence that institution.
The tension came to a head in early April, when Ben Gvir sacked that agency’s Jerusalem chief, Ami Eshid, a decision frozen by Israel’s attorney general, Gali Bahrav.
Around the same time, some 40 former police chiefs called on Netanyahu to remove Ben Gvir, warning that his actions would spark a new intifada (Palestinian uprising).
Five former commissioners and 33 former supervisors warned in a letter he sent to the prime minister, excerpts of which were published via the Arutz Sheva news portal, that Ben Gvir is “acting against the powers conferred on him by law.”
The minister interferes in the decision-making process for operational activities and uses the commission for his own political purposes, denouncing the signatories, including former commissioners Roni Alsheich, Shlomo Ahronishki, Assaf Hefetz, Rafi Peled and Moshe Karadi.
They said it was a keg of gunpowder that could at best bring us the Third Intifada and at worst start an unnecessary conflagration with the Muslim world.
Ben Gvir is known for his rhetoric against the Palestinians and the Arabs, and he is a strong supporter of the annexation of the West Bank.
Before becoming an MP, he kept a picture of Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinians at the Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994, in his living room for years.
The minister had in the past been charged more than 50 times and convicted eight times of rioting, vandalism and incitement to racism.
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