The swirl of accusations against President Moshe Katsav has not led to charges
or even a police investigation, but is threatening to tarnish the image of a
Mr. Clean politician and has invited comparisons to that other presidential sex
scandal. "Who does he think he is? Clinton?" a pair of comedians wrote in a
newspaper column this week.
Katsav, who has held the largely ceremonial office since 2000, denies
wrongdoing.
The first allegation surfaced late last week, when Israel's Channel 2 TV
reported that a former senior employee in the president's office accused him of
sexually harassing her.
The station reported that in a meeting with Katsav last week, she also
threatened to disclose the number of an overseas bank account allegedly set up
to collect money he received in exchange for presidential pardons. The employee
demanded hush money, the report said.
The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that a second woman has since come
forward. "Katsav sexually harassed me," the headline blared, but the newspaper
did not reveal her identity.
The president, whose decades-long political career had been unmarred by any
whiff of scandal, insisted in a statement that all his dealings with female
employees have been professional.
His office has said he has filed no blackmail complaint. But it rejected the
graft accusation as absurd. "The president decides whether to grant clemency
after a recommendation by the justice minister, whose signature is required on
the writ of clemency," his office said.
No sexual harassment charges have been lodged against Katsav.
The president discussed the case with Attorney General Meni Mazuz last week.
Mazuz asked Katsav to hand over any pertinent documents to him.
Late Tuesday, Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged blackmail
attempt, Israeli media reported.
Quoting Justice Ministry officials, the Haaretz daily's Web site said the probe
is a preliminary investigation opened on the basis of a meeting between Katsav
and Mazuz and two letters the president provided the attorney general.
Katsav, Israel's eighth president, was elected by parliament in 2000.
Israeli presidents enjoy immunity from trial on charges related to their tenure
in office, Justice Ministry spokesman Jacob Galanti said. They are not immune
from investigation, Galanti said.
The Katsav case's only competition in newspapers and radio news shows Tuesday
were heated demands by religious leaders to cancel an international gay pride
parade next month scheduled to take place in Jerusalem.
Israel's two-week military operation in Gaza, in an attempt to win freedom for
a soldier kidnapped by Hamas-allied militants, was relegated to the back pages.
The president's office is no stranger to scandal. Ezer Weizman's last year as
president in 2000 was tainted by allegations that he accepted hundreds of
thousands of dollars from a French tycoon.
Police could not prove he evaded taxes or violated a law prohibiting government
officials from accepting gifts in the course of official business. But they
said Weizman's failure to report the gifts to authorities constituted fraud and
breach of public trust.
The case was closed - but only because the 5-year statute of limitations had
run out on those charges.
Associated Press
