“The path to physical violence first passes through verbal violence,” Amit told a special Israel Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv, convened following the killing of attorney Arbel Feldman.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Isaac Amit warned on Wednesday that verbal attacks by public officials and on social media can pave the way for physical violence against judges and lawyers, calling for restraint as Israel’s election campaign intensifies.
“The path to physical violence first passes through verbal violence,” Amit said at a special Israel Bar Association conference in Tel Aviv, convened following the killing of attorney Arbel Feldman at his Rishon LeZion office last month.
Violence against legal professionals does not occur in isolation, Amit noted, arguing that degrading public discourse about judges inevitably reaches courtrooms and the lawyers working in them.
The conference had originally been intended to mark the opening of the legal year, Amit said, but was repurposed after Feldman was shot dead on August 4.
Amit described the killing as part of what he characterized as a wider period of verbal and physical violence directed at lawyers and other legal professionals because of their work.
Such violence risks damaging more than the individuals targeted, he said. Lawyers serve as the link between citizens, the law, and the state; threats may deter them from taking controversial or difficult cases, meeting clients alone, or representing them effectively.
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Israel Bar Association head Amit Becher called Feldman’s killing the most severe expression of what he described as an expanding pattern of threats and violence against lawyers.
“Harming lawyers is harming the rule of law,” Becher said, calling for faster enforcement, deterrent penalties, and measures to protect lawyers facing credible threats.
The Bar Association will seek legislation equating an assault on a lawyer with an assault on a public servant, he said.
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