A right-wing lawmaker widely viewed as a driving force behind the government’s attempt to overhaul the judiciary came under fire at a legal conference this week, as he attempted to paint the judiciary as a tool manipulated by Adolf Hitler.
Even before his mention of the Nazi leader, Rothman’s appearance at the annual Israel Bar Association Conference in Tel Aviv Tuesday was infused with controversy, with several attendees walking out to protest the Religious Zionism MK amid a steady stream of heckling.
Appearing on a panel alongside Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon, former deputy attorney general and government critic Dina Zilber, Labor MK Efrat Rayten and others, Rothman sought to push back on critics who have portrayed the overhaul as a right-wing power grab that will cast doubt over Israel’s character as a democracy.
“When Hitler rose to power in Germany he didn’t burn the courthouses, he burned the parliament because parliaments are always the enemy of dictators. The courts helped him,” Rothman said to a smattering of applause from a small group of supporters, as others jeered him.
Throughout the appearance, Rothman, who heads the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, was forced to contend with a constant thrum of heckling, acerbic commentary, and a coordinated coughing campaign from the crowd as he attempted to defend his stance that Israel’s court system is undermining the democratic will of Israel’s voters by placing curbs on the Knesset and government.
Part of the audience noisily left the hall when Rothman began speaking, sparking angry arguments with others who remained seated. The walkout underlined the potency of anger still running through Israeli society over the bid to remake the judiciary, which sparked some of the largest demonstrations in the country’s history last year.
The government’s plan had sought to shift power away from the courts and attorney general, diluting the judiciary’s role as a check on government power.
The effort was largely put on hold following the October 7 attack, but many believe the government could revive the campaign, bringing the ideological rift that rocked Israel through much of 2023 back to the fore even as war still rages in Gaza and tens of thousands remain displaced in the north and south.
“Don’t you dare,” President Isaac Herzog said at the conference earlier Tuesday. “Let us recover and heal after the terrible break. We must not make fateful decisions regarding the country’s core values without a broad consensus, and an in-depth and shared dialogue.”
Critics also assailed Rothman over the government’s refusal to bend on a key sticking point in talks for a hostage release and ceasefire in Gaza, echoing accusations that the government is prioritizing war gains over the lives of hostages or that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keen to prolong the war for his own narrow political interests.
“You’ve destroyed the country,” one woman yelled at Rothman as he left the hall under heavy guard. Others chanted “shame” at the lawmaker.
Rothman’s attempt to conflate Israel’s judiciary with Hitler’s moves to align the German court system with Nazi ideology and goals flew in the face of norms that generally treat such comparisons as antisemitic and a form of minimizing the true horrors of the Holocaust.
According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, whose definition of antisemitism has been championed by Israel and adopted by much of the West, “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is a form of antisemitism.
Israel regularly accuses critics who wield such comparisons of hatred toward Jews, such as in July, when the Foreign Ministry slammed a UN appointee as “beyond redemption” and accused her of “Holocaust distortion” after she wrote on social media that she agreed with a post juxtaposing pictures of Netanyahu and Hitler.