Rape and the boring president

January 23, 2007
1. "One of the main reasons Katsav was elected President by the Knesset over his rival, Shimon Peres, was his grayish nature." Thus, I wrote in my "Notes from Tel Aviv: Sex and the boring President" in early July. "After the colorful Ezer Weizman (and the scandal which forced him out) it was argued that Israel needed a more modest president. A unifying, quiet, uncontroversial man like Katsav. A much more convenient choice for the government and the prime minister (they don't want the president expressing political views). So Katsav won (well, you can't really imagine Peres winning, can you?) - and was exactly the unassuming office holder people expected him to be. That is - until now. A possible lesson: If you want boring - don't go for the politician. Even the most boring of them have skeletons hidden in their closets."

2. But it is not sex and the boring President, but rather rape and the boring President. The Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided Tuesday that President Moshe Katsav would face charges for alleged rape, sexual harassment, obstruction of justice, fraud and breach of trust. Members of Knesset from across the political spectrum called on the President to resign.

3. Katsav compared the charges against him, and the campaign calling for his resignation, to the campaign against Emile Zola, a French novelist who was brought to trial, following his staunch defense of captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French military officer arrested for treason in the year 1894. The Dreyfus affair is considered to this day one of the anti-Semitic events shaping modern Jewish nationalism. The Jewish-Austrian journalist Theodor Herzl covered the trial and was influenced by its outcome. Soon afterwards, he wrote his groundbreaking book The Jewish State.

When Katsav mentioned Zola, he probably meant Dreyfus. What he was trying to say is this: I am the victim of a well targeted campaign, hinting it is somehow even racist. Katsav is the most visible success story of an Israeli descending from modest background. Emigrating from Iran at the age of five, he was the youngest mayor of an Israeli town, and a political meteor. At the age of 36 he was already a minister. He is, or was, the proof that the so-called "second Israel" is no longer a second-rate political class.

4. 63 Knesset members chose Katsav over Peres to be the President. It was considered a surprise, similar to the surprise of Peres losing the prime minister's job to Benjamin Netanyahu back in 1996. And now, again, Peres is a leading candidate for the presidency. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert supports his nomination, but the danger of losing again is still a possibility. Peres' main rival is former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin. Meaning: Yet another politician, yet another hope for an empty closet.

5. What does it say about the president's office in general? Why does a country with a parliamentary system need a president at all? The argument so far was that a country as divided and troubled by conflicts as Israel needs a unifying, non-partisan, figure. A symbol. But if scandals will keep coming from the President's Residence, the number of people calling for the dismantling of this office will grow. Katsav, I wrote in the past, "is not the one to be blamed for it - presidents before him were the center of more controversies - but rather the man who was supposed to stop it from happening." Apart from the criminal acts he is accused of - but not yet convicted - in this mission he has already failed miserably.

6. This affair doesn't carry any inherent significance internationally, but people in Israel are still asking themselves the inevitable "what does the world think" question. Two themes can be detected so far as one ponders this question - the positive and the negative - and both were mentioned yesterday around Israel and the world.

The negative is quite obvious: This will hurt Israel's image - as people expect more from its leaders. It will be added to the many criminal affairs tainting Israel's political class and to the erosion in Israel's claim on liberal values.

But there's also a possible positive outcome, that was mentioned yesterday repeatedly by commentators and pundits: This will prove to the world, yet again, that Israel is a real democracy. So much so, that it does not shy away from bringing its most senior office holder to justice. Surprisingly - or maybe not - such undertones were even detectable in the Arab world yesterday. In many countries, one commentator said in an Arab TV show, such crimes would be ignored and buried. He was careful enough, though, not to name names.