Gagmageddon

Never in all my 31 years as the host of "Erev Hadash," Channel 1's 5 p.m. news show, did I experience such a bizarre scenario.

Several minutes after Maariv's crime reporter Avi Ashkenazi finished detailing the events surrounding the Bar Noar gay youth center shooting, as they were made available by the Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court, he returned to the studio and sat back down.

I was under the impression that he had some new information to share, but no -- instead he informed us that an appeal had been filed by the suspects' attorneys over the information that had just been aired on television, and that the court had decided to keep the gag order in place, instead of referring the appeal to the District Court.

What had just been aired could not be repeated, and we were all advised to forget it altogether. It was a tragicomical reminder of the bad days of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, when readers were instructed to tear out pages and throw them out to suit the ever-changing whims of the Communist regime.

For the past 48 hours, the Israeli public has been privy to a farce of the worst kind, as several online media outlets published the suspects' names, described each of their parts in the heinous murder, and presented their readers with crime scene photos.

Why is it that the law enforcement authorities failed to respond to the pirate publications by some websites, while others adhered to the letter of the law? This is not the first time this has happened, and since such infringements, both mild and grave, have been overlooked in the past, the legal gap through which such offenders are able to get away with it has grown wider.

Judge Ido Druyan's decisions in this case were bizarre to begin with, and he most likely erred in his ruling, but the more disturbing issue here is that some still chose to flout his ruling and got away with it.

Theoretically, the culprit media outlets found themselves in an impossible position, confused by the partial lifting of the gag order and what Druyan meant to keep sealed. As a result of that confusion, several television and radio stations and even the Tel Aviv District Police commander failed to follow a court order. But how could they, if it keeps changing its colors like a chameleon-

The court's zigzagging on the matter has caused its status and the public's faith in it serious harm. It presented the rule of law as lacking in both forethought and action and made it look erratic.

Now, ahead of the next round set for Tuesday morning, one can only hope that every law-abiding citizen will choose to forget all that he knows about the case and everything he has heard or read about it, as well as everything that was hinted about it, directly or indirectly, with or without permission, until further notice.