Israeli President Beset by Sex Scandal

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

JERUSALEM — Israel’s president is being dogged by allegations of sexual harassment.

The swirl of accusations against President Katsav has not led to charges or even a police investigation. But it is threatening to tarnish the image of a Mr. Clean politician and has invited comparisons to another presidential sex scandal.

“Who does he think he is? Clinton?” a pair of comedians wrote in a newspaper column this week.

Mr. 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 woman has not been identified.

In a meeting with Mr. Katsav last week, she also threatened to disclose the number of an overseas bank account allegedly set up to collect money the president received in exchange for presidential pardons, the television report said. The employee demanded hush money, it added.

The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that a second woman has since come forward with similar accusations. “Katsav sexually harassed me,” the headline blared. The newspaper did not disclose her identity.

With the Katsav story dominating the press, Israel’s two-week military operation in Gaza sparked by the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hamas-linked militants was relegated to the back pages.

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. And 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.

Though no sexual harassment charges have been filed, the president discussed the case with Attorney General Meni Mazuz last week. Mr. Mazuz asked Mr. Katsav to hand over any pertinent documents to him.

Late Tuesday, Mr. Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged blackmail attempt, Israeli press outlets reported.

Quoting Justice Ministry officials, the Ha’aretz daily’s Web site said the probe is a preliminary investigation opened on the basis of a meeting between Messrs. Katsav and Mazuz and two letters the president provided the attorney general.

Mr. 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, a Justice Ministry spokesman, Jacob Galanti, said. They are not immune from investigation, Mr. Galanti said.

The president’s office is no stranger to scandal. Ezer Weizman’s last year as president in 2000 was tainted by allegations he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a French tycoon.


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