The Ambivalent Language of Lawyers in Israel : Liberal Politics , Economic Liberalism , Silence and Dissent

Contrary to numerous other professionals, lawyers are political agents in their daily professional practices. They habitually act through legalistic struggles to alter allocation of public goods (Halliday and Karpik, 1997). Frequently, they either function in politics and/or have meaning in politics (Abel, 1989, 1995; Barzilai, 2005; Eulau and Sprague, 1964; Feeley and Krislov, 1990, Feeley and Rubin, 2000; Haltom and McCann, 2004; Kagan, 2000; Lev, 2000; Sarat and Scheingold, 1998, 2001; Scheingold, 2004; Scheingold and Sarat, 2004; Shamir and Ziv, 2001). By definition of their profession, lawyers incline to legitimate the nation-state. Their professional ideology presumes crucial public constitutive functions of the legal complex and it relies on perceived state’s abilities to respond rather effectively to public needs and expectations. When lawyers practise in the legal complex—even those who voice political dissent—they act through the formal legalistic rules as those

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