Professor Moshe Cohen-Eliya, a legal scholar, characterized Amit's statement as "contempt of court" and accused the chief justice of making what he called a "mafia-style threat" against Zini. "He's telling him it won't be good for him if he insists on his legal right—a right anchored in an explicit Supreme Court ruling—to know who petitioned against him," Cohen-Eliya wrote. He noted that former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan had disregarded a Supreme Court ruling regarding the "neighbor procedure" without consequence, "because he's the right color politically."
He added that 67 former Shin Bet employees who are "disrespecting the Supreme Court's ruling are receiving immunity and mafia-style threats from the 'president' of the Supreme Court." He pointed out that the same chief justice had warned members of the Second Authority for Television and Radio that if they failed to comply with his rulings, they would face civil lawsuits without immunity and potential criminal contempt charges. "There's no bottom to this barrel," he concluded.
Attorney Ohad Shalem, representing Zini, told Galei Israel radio: "I admit I can't understand this phrasing. We've all seen movies, and we know when someone recommends to you, 'Listen, it's not advisable, it won't be good for you'—
,
we know who does that and who says that. This is phrasing that has no connection to judicial knowledge or to law, but rather to a type of recommendation without basis, not in real life and certainly not legally."
