Those celebrating the beginning of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trial, who headline reports and newscasts with captions reading "The Prime Defendant," or "The State of Israel vs. Netanyahu," fail to understand the full meaning of their actions or the tremendous damage they inflict.
While they are sure they have achieved another victory en route to framing the prime minister, they do not understand that it is a Pyrrhic victory. In the greater scheme of things this is a lose-lose situation, as the majority of the public has lost confidence in the Judiciary.
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This, mind you, was not caused by the "incitement" by Netanyahu's people against the legal system. On the contrary – it is the result of a symbiosis created between them and parts of the media and the political system.
Many have called into question the integrity of the proceedings in Netanyahu's case, but all have been gradually dismissed, slowly gnawing away at the public's faith in the courts.
This erosion is the result of the fact that leaks to the media from the investigations – a violation of the law – were never investigated.
It is the result of the ill-timing chosen to make the investigation and indictment public as part of a media circus that was clearly politically motivated. It is also the result of countless other incidents that undermined the public's faith in the judicial process in this case, as a whole.
But mostly, this erosion is the result of the fact that some in the media and the Left took so much judicial power into their hands and eliminated any criticism brought against them.
They turned the judicial power into a political instrument and subjected the other branches of government to an unelected system. And not one word about the double standard exercised against elected officials against the backdrop of a wide system of nepotism and conflicts of interest.
All these have brought about one thing: the public, as well as well-known jurists and politicians already doubt the fairness of the trial.
With the trail opening on Sunday, many in the public not only want to see Netanyahu's acquitted, but also to see that the justice systems is free of personal bias, political hatred, conflict of interest, violation of due process, disruption of investigative procedures, selective enforcement and goal-setting.
The burden of proof rests with the prosecution and the media. But when the change depends on so many factors involved in the very failures that eroded the public's confident in the Judiciary, there is growing concern that change will be slow in coming.
