Three words rang out in Judge David Rozen's packed courtroom: Betrayal, corruption, bribery. He described former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's and his co-defendants' betrayal of public trust, their deep corruption and their bribes of enormous sums. With a hoarse voice, the judge spoke in a voice that will echo for many years yet: We do not fight corruption with one hand tied behind our backs for the benefit of the country's leaders. The six-year jail sentence Olmert received evoked three tiers of grief: Over his imminent incarceration, which causes sorrow to his close friends, his family, and parts of the upper crust, who possibly don't view his crimes as serious; potential sorrow over the possibility that despite his criminality, Olmert could have been acquitted, and then those whose faith in the legal system was restored, would still have viewed the system as flawed; and the deep sorrow over the fact that Olmert took huge sums as bribes. Immediately after the shock hit Olmert in court, his well-oiled public relations machine kicked into high gear. The same machine that lashed out against former State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss or former corruption investigator Yaakov Borovsky, calling the findings in their investigation of him a "circus "; the same machine that disapproved of former Attorney-General Menachem (Meni) Mazuz, who forced the police to investigate the Holyland affair and ordered then-State Attorney Moshe Lador to handle the deal with the problematic state witness Shmuel Dechner; and the same machine that vilified Lador, who brought about Morris Talansky's early testimony. This list is long. Yaron Zelicha, who exposed concerns of corruption in the sale of Bank Leumi, and Eliad Shraga, who was dragged to court four times because he said that Olmert would need a big cell at Maasiyahu Prison. And now Shula Zaken, and before her Uri Messer, and at all times the journalists who refuse to take orders from Olmert's headquarters. Rozen is next to join the list. When it comes to rallying for support in the media, Olmert's people succeeded. In one article, the combined voices of Olmert's closest colleagues Roni Bar-On, Michael Zellermayer and Raanan Dinur, were heard. On a Channel 2 program, the whole range from Olmert supporters to those neutral on the topic were interviewed, with former Opposition Leader MK Shelly Yachimovich as the sole consistent supporter of Rozen. These are just a few examples. Empty words were also uttered: It was made to sound like the judge had called Olmert a traitor when in fact, as he explained, it was the bribe that had betrayed the public. It was made to sound like there was no proof supporting the verdict, only the judge's whims. It was made to sound like the sentence was unprecedented -- and even that is not true. After all, in the past Rozen sentenced former Tax Authority Investigation and Intelligence Department Director David Vanunu to six years in prison -- just like Olmert -- for bribery at a lower sum. In the long term, all this will be secondary. Even Olmert's fate. The judge's comments on Tuesday were a legal-social revolution. He did not dress up his words -- he called a spade a spade. There is no "breach of trust" without deceit; There is no definition that would make the conclusion any more comfortable. Bribery is bribery, a sore is a sore and corruption is corruption. With that, the bar of moral responsibility of elected officials was raised to the place from whence it fell over the last 20 years. The descent in moral responsibility is can be seen in the aggravating words of Olmert's attorneys, one of whom said on the radio that "You have to remember 40 years of public service." The opposite is true: Whoever stands at the top of the political pyramid must be even more innocent than the rest , and must suffer worse punishment if they deviate, rather than less. Rozen's judgment represents a much needed revolution. It will reverberate for years to come from the height of the torches of the Sons of Light, regardless of Olmert, without anyone remembering there was ever a bribery case involving a man of that name.
