Monday, August 28, 2006

Sex scandals

While reeling from the after-effects of the war, Israel has also been hit by a rash of political scandals, most of them related to sex. Within a very short time, both President Katsav and the Minister of Justice Haim Ramon have been the subject of criminal sex investigations and the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Tzahi Hanegbi, has been indicted for making illegal political appointments when he was the Environment Minister between 2001 and 2003.
In the case of Pres. Katsav, it is difficult to imagine such an apparently timid and proper person holding such a high office being improperly involved with a young woman on his staff. But, stranger things have happened. Katsav claims that the woamn has tried to blackmail him, and it was this development that lead him to report the situation to the Attorney General and that lead to the current situation. Katsav's office at the President's house in Jerusalem and his home have been raided by the police and computers and papers have been taken away. In the Knesset there have been calls, principally from several women legislators, for Katsav to resign. But, in a speech today Katsav rejected these calls and said that he will take no action pending the result of the police investigation. We all hope that the police will exonerate him, because it would be a scandal if he were found to have forced himself upon one or more female employees. Note that the previous President, Ezer Weizmann, resigned under a similar cloud. But, then again Presidential sex scandals have been known to occur in other countries (is he up there with Bill?)
Ramon resigned because he is being investigated by the police for an incident that occured recently when he is supposed to have forced himself upon an 18 year old female soldier at a party. According to Ramon she kissed him willingly on the lips at a party, and then cried foul.
Hanegbi's crime is not sexual but political. According to the indictment, Hanegbi lied about his connection to a campaign publication released in 2002, ahead of the April 2003 Likud primary, which boasted that Hanegbi had established "a national record for appointing Likud members." This appointment of Likud members without consideration for their professional capabilities to posts in his Ministry is considered by Attorney General Mazuz as an indictable offense. Never mind that Hanegbi subsequently joined Kadima in order to get an appointment.
The public's attitude towards these scandals is that the level of behavior of politicians in Israel is unacceptably low. None of them can be trusted, either to do their jobs effectively or to keep their pockets closed or their flies zipped. Unfortunately our best and brightest do not go into politics. Given the other challenges we face, who needs this?

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