admin @ Thu, 2006-09-14 11:00
JERUSALEM - In another country, it would undoubtedly be front-page news: a president under investigation for sexual assault. The salacious details of such matters have been known to grip larger nations for years on end.
But in Israel, which is racked with too many scandals to keep track of, many of them stemming from the failures of the recent war against Hezbollah, the continuing investigation into whether President Moshe Katsav had a sexual relationship with an employee at the presidential residence often gets scant attention. The fact that police suspect him of a number of other sex-related offences over his political career still can't seem to get the case a regular place on the front page.
The post of president is largely a ceremonial one, but the affair has major implications. Mr. Katsav, a member of the right-wing Likud party, has resisted calls for his resignation, but he will officially absent himself from his job for 16 hours today -- from 8 a.m. until midnight -- so he will not have to attend the swearing-in ceremony for Israel's new chief justice.
Although Mr. Katsav says he is a victim of libel, the country's female chief justice and other Supreme Court judges asked that the swearing-in not be presided over by a man suspected of such serious charges. Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik will assume his duties instead.
Police officers questioned Mr. Katsav yesterday for a fifth time about allegations that he sexually assaulted an employee known only as "A," and added breach of trust and involvement in illegal wiretapping to the charges for which the President is being investigated.
Mr. Katsav isn't the only senior Israeli politician in hot water. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been plagued by accusations that he sold his home at a price 30 per cent over its value to a donor who backed his successful 1993 campaign to be elected mayor of Jerusalem. Haim Ramon, the country's former justice minister, resigned late last month to face trial over charges of indecent assault stemming from an incident in which he is alleged to have forcibly kissed a female soldier in the waiting room to his office.
All this comes at a time when Israelis are preoccupied with the country's inability to defeat Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the fate of three kidnapped Israeli soldiers and the formation of a unity government in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Consider the English edition of yesterday's Haaretz newspaper: News that Mr. Katsav was abdicating his responsibilities for a day was at the bottom of page 2. The latest on Mr. Olmert's allegedly shady housing deal led page 3, and a court appearance on a sexual-assault charge by the husband of a prominent billionaire headed page 4.
The front page was dominated by news about Hamas's efforts to persuade the international community to lift its aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority, as well as a military court's order that 18 Hamas politicians who have been jailed by Israel should be released.
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