The Court of Public Opinion
The Court of Public Opinion

Activist Law Professor Alan Dershowitz asserts that there are always two courts  - the court of law and the court of public opinion.

Anyone who knows how the media works knows that it is easier to win a conviction in the court of public opinion than in any court of law.

Indeed, to paraphrase Goebels, a lie repeated often enough becomes believable.

That was the precise process of the Goldstone Commission, which gathered material from tendentious sources funded by the New Israel Fund, which publicly promoted the specious lie to every possible news outlet that Israel

Media outlets ...are hungry to devour any morsel of information that will disgrace the religious Zionist community.

had committed war crimes in Gaza.

In the  case of Rabbi Mordecai Alon, there was  a genuine dispute between the Takana Forum and Rabbi Alon.

The Takanah Forum, including well known Orthodox Rabbis, women's rights activists and public personalities, had to choose between a resolution of that dispute in a Din Torah or in the secular court of public opinion.

I was naive enough to think that the Orthodox Rabbis there would make sure that issues go through a Beit Din instead of leaking documents to media outlets that are hungry to devour any morsel of information that will disgrace the religious Zionist community.



Yet the Rabbis of Takana opted to reject the idea of option of a Beit Din, and instead chose the path of the worst secular court possible: the court of public opinion, where evidence, solid or flimsy, can be spun according to the arbitrary whim of whatever pundit grabs the proverbial pen or microphone, disgracing both sides of the dispute.

Why did Takana not take Rav Alon to a Beit Din instead of the media? 

That is the question to ask.