The continuing story of Moshe Katsav is both troubling and revealing. (For key details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Katsav).
No one wants a national president or other public figure with multiple accusations of rape and other sexual crimes. In terms of personal morality, the story is about as bad as it can get, but that will not concern us here.
From the events we learn some things not so attractive about Israeli politics, as well as about the judicial process and the specific charges.
Katsav was the Likud candidate for the presidency in the election by Knesset members that occurred in July, 2000. Shimon Peres thought that he had the commitment of enough Knesset members to win, but Katsav got more of their secret votes. The best guess is that "anybody but Peres" was one reason for some Knesset members to vote for Katsav after committing themselves to Peres. It was not unreasonable to fear that Peres would use the ceremonial functions of the presidency to promote controversial items on his political agenda. (When Peres did win the presidency after Katsav's resignation, he was seven years older and had committed himself to avoid involvement in political issues. For the most part, he has kept to that commitment.)
Katsav had a long career in public life before being chosen as president: mayor of his home town, member of Knesset, and several periods as minister in charge of various portfolios. At the time of his election as president, secretaries in government officers and Knesset members knew of his behavior. Reports are that the police knew his reputation for several years, but did not begin an investigation in the absence of formal complaints.
Among the Knesset members who recognized the dangers, some hoped that the prestige of the president's office would cure Katsav of his faults.
His career began to unravel in July, 2006, when he complained to the attorney general that one of his employees was trying to blackmail him.
It would have been wiser to pay.
The police investigation that began with Katsav's initiative quickly focused on the president, and produced headlines about multiple charges of sexual harassment two claims of rape.
A year later, shortly before the end of his term, the prosecution and Katsav agreed to a plea bargain that would involve his immediate resignation, charges for minor offenses, and a recommendation of no jail term.
The event did not pass quietly. Organized feminists, good government reformers, and plain citizens demonstrated, and initiated a suit demanding that the attorney general issue a more severe indictment. Katsav defended himself at a contentious press conference that saw him shouting at questioners, and produced a photo of a contorted scowl shown time and again on television. He asserted that he had agreed to the plea bargain as a pragmatic tactic. He claimed to be an innocent victim of a media fiasco, and occasionally said something like Bill Clinton's classic remark, "I never had sex with those women."
Against him there appeared in public, with identities masked, accusers who detailed the president's crude sexual techniques: exposing and waving his penis, and saying that I think of you when I am with my wife. Complicating the picture, and helping to explain the prosecutor's decision for a mild plea bargain, were indications that women who claimed rape had maintained cordial relations with Katsav after the rapes were said to happen.
In April, 2008, the high court rejected Katsav's efforts to delay a final decision on the plea bargain. Then Katsav canceled his agreement to the plea bargain, and asserted his innocence. The attorney general began a process still on-going of reconsidering the charges he would bring.
In the midst of this reconsideration, the attorney general moved the file from one group of attorneys on his staff to another group. Deliberations that had taken more than a year among the first committee of attorneys would start again. Involved in disputes were questions of which charges would survive the counter arguments of Katsav's attorneys. Should the most severe charges be brought, and perhaps sacrificed in a trial that would find the former president guilty of severe crimes, but not the most serious? Would the emphasis on the most serious crimes, but with problematic evidence, risk losing the whole case? Or should the prosecutors limit their charge to the claims that would persuade the court, which might produce an outcome not substantially different from the earlier plea bargain?
So far this argument has proceeded in house without a resolution. Some people fear that endless discussions among the staff of the attorney general will produce a decision to close the file without a trial, or to keep the file open indefinitely and unresolved. Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has denied Katsav's requests for benefits usually given a former president, including an expensive new car and an office in a prestige location.
Arguments about the meaning of law, and rules of evidence, have roots in Jewish law going back to ancient times. The Talmud offers countless examples of disputes about how to fix responsibility for injury or damages. Against demands to punish Katsav for the most serious of the crimes alleged, are arguments not only about judicial tactics, but also about the merits of the evidence.
Safeguards for the accused also have ancient roots. Christians are inclined to quote "eye for an eye" and numerous death penalties in the Hebrew Bible in order to assert that it was only Jesus and his disciples who brought a humane concern to the world. The reality is much different. The Torah itself, perhaps 600 years older than the New Testament, includes provisions for financial instead of corporal penalties (e.g., Exodus 21). By the time of the Sanhedrin, at least 200 years before Christ, the rabbis worked assiduously to avoidphysical punishment. One ancient sage is widely quoted to the effect that if the Sanhedrin decided on more than one death penalty in 70 years it would be considered a murderous court.
Activists remain dissatisfied with the lack of declared justice. Katsav's victims may bring civil suits for damages whether or not the attorney general includes their allegations among the crimes to be charged. They may be thinking of the $33.5 million judgment awarded the families who claimed that O.J. Simpson was liable for the deaths of their loved ones, after he had been found not guilty in a criminal trial. Donors may tire of paying Katsav's legal fees. He can lose a great deal of money as well as a desirable car and office. He has already suffered the shame of extensive media coverage.
The public generally may have passed beyond the scandal of Moshe Katsav. There are multiple charges of corruption against the prime minister. Five other politicians who served recently as government ministers have been tried, indicted, or subjected to prolonged police investigation. Virtually all of the recent prime ministers have been rebuked or fined by the State Comptroller for violating campaign finance laws. There is also the fall out in Israel from the international economic crisis, dire threats from Hizbollah in the north, Hamas in the south, individual Palestinians who seek to kill Israelis with bulldozers or cars, and the looming problem of an Iranian nuclear weapon.
It is the season when Jews worry about the sentence of the Almighty for the coming year. May yours be a good one.
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