Ehud Olmert This week was everything together. The actor, the director, the creator and the viewer. He played heroically between life and death, between law and justice. He continued to recite his innocence like a mantra, coherently, as if taking advantage of our blurred ability to distinguish between the scandalous affair and the character he represents as he speaks, gives interviews, hugs and looks at everyone with the whites of his eyes.
On the morning of May 13, we sat transfixed by the fragments of the verdicts that streamed from the courtroom of the Tel Aviv District Court. Journalists, lawyers, media advisors, the government elite, business people, and citizens all watched the scene of the condemned men marching to the gallows.
Olmert tried to stand up straight, to exude calm and confidence, and his face tried not to betray the storm that was brewing inside him. As the final sentence against him began to be read, and just before Judge Rosen imposed "six years in prison," it was expected that some Columbo would enter the courtroom and tell the court that the defendant was innocent. And, as in a hero's drama, cheers would rise, and before he knew it, he would rise from the defendant's chair, remove his handcuffs, and fly out of the courtroom.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
The thing is, even after the harsh sentence, Olmert seems more heroic, realistic and effective than ever. Quietly and resolutely, he turned to his lawyers to formulate an appeal to the Supreme Court. He is certain of his innocence and is waiting to sign a contract for a series that will rewrite his life and death in his own language, the one that will re-enact and save his own image and legacy. He is not afraid of how history will portray him, because he is the one who intends to write it.
Olmert, the victim and the culprit, will become a hunter. He will make sure to pursue the court, the media, and those who wish him harm. He will resort to delaying tactics, will not ask for pardon, will not arouse mercy, and will find a way to influence the intellectuals and the powerful who will come to his aid.
The journalists, or rather, society, needed the harsh sentence imposed on the former prime minister to satisfy their feelings of lust and revenge, and agreed to cling to the authority of the court and the rule of law as an indisputable cornerstone. But where have we seen a similar attitude in the case of Emmanuel Rosen When the court found no reason to convict him?
We agreed to accept the rule of law as an unquestionable cornerstone. Where were we when the court found no reason to convict Rosen? | From right to left: Olmert, Rosen and Adelson. With the allegations published in April 2013 against the journalist Emmanuel Rosen, everyone got involved, As a herd, to defame and discredit his name with great effort, he has not yet been investigated or convicted. His image has been destroyed. His good name has been taken from him, and he has been fired from the senior broadcasting positions he held. The headlines against him have been feeding the Israeli media for months; panels have been storming his image, forums and communes have carried his image, bills have been registered in his name.
After the police exhausted the investigation material, the prosecutor's office decided to close the case. But the media devoted a laconic article to it, covering an eighth of page 12. A week ago, it was announced that Rosen would be writing in a new media magazine that had just been published. Journalists' booth andWomen's organizations They rose again with a renewed desire to give the Count another kick and to remove him from his new position, even though he was already lying unconscious and helpless, bruised and bleeding, and without a job or livelihood.
The treatment of Rosen was out of all proportion. The journalist and media critic Rogel Alper Explains that sometimes when someone is lynched, even when they deserve it, it's hard to know when to stop. "Leave Emanuel Rosen alone now, his outcast soul. In a state of law, we let the law take care of him, as best it can. And then we move on.".
Also the editor of the main edition of Channel 10, Tali Ben-Ovadia, referred to her former colleague this week and said that the explosive headlines against him had struck her with astonishment. She testified about many years spent close to him, and about times when his behavior may have crossed the ethical line, but did not justify ending his life forever. "All the investigations have proven that these things did not exist and were not created. It is quite clear that there is an ethical and moral field and it is possible to have an argument in it, but in the legal field a decision has been made and that must be accepted." According to her, you cannot hang a person in the city square and say, 'What does it matter what the police and the prosecutor's office decided.'.
Each in turnAgainst any journalist or politician who seeks the death of ''Israel Today'', There will be another journalist or politician who will behave towards him in the same way. And after a while, he too will be banished from this life, and God forbid. On the day of the attack, each one in turn, as the history of journalism in Israel has taught us.
The proliferation and intensification of the media should lead those who see themselves as working within the history of professional and ethical journalism to see inIsrael Today As one of the tenacious upholders of fair and balanced culture and journalism in Israel.
When I see journalists joining the chorus and mowing down the Israel Today In the name of democracy, and revealing in them a weakness that stems from the perception that their future depends on the end of the newspaper, I suggest that perhaps it would be better for them, in the name of the democracy they wave, to establish their own newspaper. Controversial or not, the most important thing is that the sponsor be different, because just not Sheldon Adelson.
