A benchmark case of sexual misconduct - opinion

When Israel Bar Association head Avi Himi was literally and figuratively caught this week with his pants down, he realized that his only recourse was to resign. He probably figured that had he not done so, footage of him masturbating on a video call with a female lawyer seeking his backing in her bid for a seat on the bench would have been made public.

It was clear from Himi’s reaction to the report on Monday by Channel 13’s Ayala Hasson that he had, indeed, removed his trousers and pleasured himself at his computer screen. Rather than deny the act itself, he rejected the attorney’s claim that she’d been shocked and upset by it.

He shunned, as well, the suggestion that it occurred as soon as he told her that he’d granted her request to write a letter of recommendation to the Judicial Selection Committee on her behalf. On the contrary, he asserted, the incident had been completely consensual and therefore couldn’t be categorized as sexual harassment.

If he was telling the truth, it was a legitimate rebuttal on his part. The going tenet that “all women should be believed, regardless of the evidence or lack thereof” – is utterly unfair.

Avi Himi's counter-accusation is deserving of ridicule

Himi, like anyone in his situation, deserves the assumption of innocence and the right to try to refute what he insists is a false charge. But his counter-accusation – that he was being targeted for his outspoken opposition to the new government’s judicial-reform plans – is worthy of even greater ridicule than his penchant for Zoom sex.

Nevertheless, it’s the line that he and his champions, including some feminists who typically view sexual harassment as tantamount to mass murder, have been promoting. And all he had to do to earn their sympathy was scream into a megaphone at anti-government rallies about the evils that will befall the country (and democracy) in the event that the Supreme Court has its wings clipped in favor of the legislature.

This is why critics are questioning his recent shift leftward. A previous supporter of Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, he suddenly emerged as a leading figure at demonstrations decrying the Likud-led coalition’s policies.

The cynical interpretation is that Himi was preparing for the possibility that his less-than-stellar behavior would eventually come to light, and he knew he’d be better protected on the politically correct side of the cultural divide. To bolster this assessment, cynics point to his surprise announcement last month that he wouldn’t be running for another term “in protest” over judicial overhaul.

IF THIS was his ploy, it didn’t work, at least not in keeping his respectability intact. It only succeeded in the sense that many judicial-reform naysayers, among them far-left Haaretz journalist and convicted spy Anat Kamm, have rushed to give him the benefit of the doubt.

They’ve also been denigrating Hasson, who broke the story, and revealing that Himi’s accuser is friends with the wife of Netanyahu’s chief-of-staff, Tzachi Braverman. The idea, in other words, is that a political conspiracy was at play. Himi said as much in an interview on Tuesday evening.

“The timing was intentional and clear,” he told Channel 12’s Guy Peleg. “They tried to take me out. They’ll never succeed.”

Still, Himi finds himself in a family bind of his own making. As he told Peleg, “I can’t look my wife and daughters in the eye.”

Given his version of the episode, his shame on the home front isn’t solely due to his unbecoming conduct. According to Himi, he neither did nor ever would, sexually harass anyone, let alone a woman with whom he’d been having what he called an “intimate relationship for three-four years.”

For him to profess to Peleg and the public that his online action took place in the framework of a longstanding extra-marital affair – and state that he’s willing to take a polygraph to prove it – is one thing. Persuading his spouse and girls to accept this particular argument is quite another. Nor is blaming Bibi and Braverman for his predicament likely to be of any comfort to them.

Still, he highlighted his victimhood, bemoaning how this could destroy his personal life and declaring that the only people to whom he owes accountability are his wife and daughters. This is nonsense, of course.

Repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, Effi Naveh

He not only occupied a powerful position with a strict code of ethics but was discovered to have used his perch to attract friends with benefits. It’s precisely what ultimately did in his predecessor, Effi Naveh. Ironically, when Himi took over the job from Naveh, he vowed to “clean up” the IBA from the stain of sexual and other types of bribery.

This is why Peleg had to ask Himi about his having recommended a lawyer whom he avers was his lover for a judgeship. The answer was that though his ties with her were personal, they were also professional.

“I knew that she was a good [lawyer],” he said. “Evidence of this is that I recently referred a client of mine to her, because I thought she’d do a good job.”

HE WENT on to stress that none of it mattered anyway, since she didn’t pass the first step of the process.

“If I’d wanted to help her, I would supposedly have spoken to [fellow] members of the [Judicial Selection] Committee,” he said. “[But] I didn’t talk to anybody. I didn’t push for her.”

Hilariously, this was his way of praising the committee for being so above board that it disregarded his letter. Peleg’s irritation at the twisted logic was palpable.

Due to his own fierce opposition to and overt loathing of Netanyahu, he was visibly angry with Himi for unwittingly vindicating Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s slated reforms. Among these is a change in the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee.

The nine-member body that approves the appointment of new judges currently includes two attorneys, one of them the head of the Bar Association. Levin aims to expand the number to 11, and replace the lawyers with elected politicians.

No wonder Himi last month called the move “a delusional, dangerous plan to turn Israel into a dictatorship.” Today, he’s got more pressing issues on his plate, such as an imminent police investigation into his indecent exposure.

Meanwhile, Himi’s accuser has dismissed his description of the connection between them as “disconnected from reality.”

“I didn’t have an affair with him,” she told Hasson on Wednesday. “Most of our meetings were in public, in the presence of other people. … He opted to lie, rather than apologize.”

Uh, yes. Expressing remorse would have entailed acknowledging something a lot worse than cheating on his wife.

Because the details of the story remain opaque at this stage, the “he said, she said” contentions are merely fodder for gossip. Whatever emerges, however, two facts are indisputable: Himi was unfit to fill his role; and the Bar Association, like the judicial system’s disproportionate power over the Knesset, needs some serious curbing.