How Far Along The Road To Fascism Is "The One Middle Eastern Democracy," Israel Today?

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For as much as most of us are following any news out of Israel, this week it is probably about the incursions into the West Bank, headlines like this: Israel’s raid left Jenin in rubble. Netanyahu says it won’t be the last time by Steve Hendrix and a team of Washington Post reporters. “Israel,” they wrote, “ended early Wednesday a two-day operation in the Jenin refugee camp that killed 12 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, forced thousands from their homes, and created a new precedent in the West Bank conflict for longer, deadlier reprisals to militant attacks. The operation, the largest in two decades and the first since then to use airstrikes, cleared Jenin camp of hundreds of weapons and confiscated hundreds of thousands of dollars in “terror funds,” according to Israel. But the scars on the camp were everywhere with churned asphalt and pulverized cars, windows and doors smashed in by military bulldozers. Cartridge shells and burned tires littered the streets, while water and power supplies were cut. ‘Israel’s broad operation in Jenin is not a one-time event,’ said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the troops began the withdrawal Tuesday night.”

But Israel— and the face of Israeli fascism— is more than just the brutal attack on the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin. Creeping fascism has been making daily inroads domestically as well, as Netanyahu’s extremist and barely legitimate government seeks to stamp out all sources of opposition. The latest is the Israel Bar Association. His party had put up a convicted felon to head it and that candidate lost the election, so now Likud has introduced a bill, basically, to wipe out its relevance in Israeli society It won’t be able to license lawyers, discipline them, or be involved in the selection of judges. This is basically aggressive what-about-ism by Netanyahu. If the head of the Bar Association can be a convicted felon, then why not the Prime Minister— him, in two years.

Writing for the Times of Israel, Michael Bachner reported on just how Netanyahu is going about this, even while Israeli troops were tearing up Jenin (with Biden’s approval). On Wednesday, the Knesset began the process of stripping the Israel Bar Association of most of its powers and transferring them to a new government-appointed body. “It did so,” he wrote, “in a 50-43 vote, just weeks after the country’s lawyers elected Amit Becher— who has been bitterly critical of the coalition’s judicial overhaul push— as head of the bar association, defeating the coalition’s preferred candidate to head the organization. The bill… would remove the bar’s licensing authority, its ability to sanction lawyers for misconduct, and its representation on the committee that selects judges, effectively voiding its powers. These would instead go to a yet-to-be-created Lawyers Council, which would be led by a district court judge appointed by the justice minister.”

The central part of the bill is a clause that would strip the IBA of its seats on the Judicial Selection Committee— the body that appoints the country’s judges, and is at the heart of the government’s plans to remake the judiciary.

On Saturday, Becher called the legislation “thuggish, anti-democratic and absurd,” and warned that lawyers could “shut down” the judicial system if it ends up being passed into law. The bill still faces three more plenum votes before that can happen.

Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, the bill’s sponsor, has said his goal is to transform the bar association from “an archaic guild” into a “voluntary” professional organization.

Milwidsky has said that he plans in the future to remove the section of the bill touching on the IBA’s seats on the panel, once the government moves ahead with its own separate proposal to revamp the committee.

The bill’s explanatory notes argue that while the bar association is a professional union dedicated to advancing lawyers’ interests, the judging profession is aimed at serving the entire public, “and there is no point to the involvement of a professional union in the judge-selection process.”

Milwidsky denied during Wednesday’s plenum discussion that the bill was advancing as a reaction to the bar association leadership vote, even though multiple coalition members have made that link and touted the bill as a fitting response to the result.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin said Wednesday that the bar association “has unfortunately become a completely political body recently, with membership fees being used for political goals unrelated to the benefit of lawyers.”

Former justice minister Gideon Sa’ar of the opposition, who previously championed major judicial reform but staunchly opposes the current government’s overhaul legislation, told Levin: “Now the association has become political? When you were there of course it had to exist, but when your political interest has changed it now has to be eliminated?”

“Does anyone believe that if the association [leadership] results were different you would come to dismantle it? You lost and you should learn to lose with grace,” Sa’ar added, accusing the coalition of “operating like a mafia.”

Several months ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze legislation that would have granted the government broad control over the body that chooses Supreme Court justices and other judges. But as the government is now moving ahead with the overhaul following the collapse of talks, Netanyahu is said to be planning a fresh bill on that in the Knesset’s winter session later this year.

The bar association’s two seats on the panel have drawn ire from the coalition, with many in its hard-right base accusing the bar of pushing liberal candidates for bench positions. Under the tenure of former bar association head Efi Nave, bar representatives collaborated with then-justice minister Ayelet Shaked to tap right-wing judges.

The nine-member committee comprises two members of the bar, three of the judiciary, and three politicians, plus the justice minister.

Ironically, this isn’t the first time in history something like this has happened. It’s common that when authoritarian parties are undermining democracies and their institutions in order to consolidate power and control their societies, associations of lawyers are targeted.

Under Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy, which came to power in the early 1920s, independent organizations that challenged the fascist ideology or threatened the regime's control were suppressed. Trade unions, political parties, and opposition groups were dissolved, and civic organizations were co-opted or brought under state control, like the National Fascist Confederation of Labor (Confederazione Nazionale delle Corporazioni), which stripped workers of their autonomy and subordinated them to state control. The Fascist government aimed to create a single-party state and suppress pluralism and dissenting voices. In pre-fascist Italy, various independent lawyers' organizations existed, such as the Italian National Bar Council (Consiglio Nazionale Forense), which represented the legal profession and supported legal principles, ethics, and professional standards. These organizations worked to defend lawyers' interests and uphold the rule of law. The fascist government quickly sought to control and co-opt the legal profession, subordinating it to state authority. Independent lawyers' organizations were marginalized, and the regime established the National Fascist Lawyers' Union (Unione Nazionale Fascista dei Giuristi) as the state-controlled entity representing lawyers. This is exactly what Netanyahu and the Likud are doing in Israel this week.

Hitler did the same thing as he increased his power in post-Weimar Germany, when the Nazis swiftly moved to suppress and dismantle independent civic organizations that could challenge their ideology or authority. They targeted trade unions, political parties, and various civic associations, including those associated with religious, cultural, and intellectual groups, part of their broader efforts to control all aspects of society and establish a totalitarian regime. During the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), there were independent lawyers' organizations, such as the German Lawyers' Association (Deutscher Anwaltverein), which represented the interests of the legal profession and supported the rule of law. These organizations aimed to uphold professional standards, protect lawyers' rights, and promote access to justice. As part of the Nazi Party's ascent to power in the early ‘30s, these independent lawyers' organizations were systematically dismantled. The Nazi regime established the National Socialist Association of Legal Professionals (Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund) as the only authorized legal organization, replacing the independent associations. The regime sought to align the legal profession with Nazi ideology and suppress any independent or critical voices within the legal community.

It’s as though Netanyahu and his Likud cronies were reading from the Fascist and Nazi scripts of the 1920s and '30s today, with the Israel Bar Association targeted for ideological control, forced to align with the regime's objectives, and then suppressed for resisting and diverging from the prescribed Likud ideology. Just as these aggressive measures were meant to do in Germany and Italy, what the Likud is doing in the Knesset today is very much meant to undermine the independence of the Israeli legal profession and compromise the principles of an impartial judiciary and the rule of law. Our allies!