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Katzav, giving blood after 9/11: complainants say he is prone to lying and inclined to escalating and punitive sexual harassment
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 18, 2006 |
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Israel's president is being dogged by allegations of sexual harassment in a spiraling scandal that has pushed the country's war with Hezbollah off the front pages -- well, almost. But it has given the war-weary nation something more titillating to consider, after weeks of discussing casualties from the fighting and mismanagement of the military campaign.
Five more women came forward this week to accuse the religiously traditional Moshe Katzav of acting in a highly non-presidential manner -- or, rather, perhaps, acting in the traditions of certain American Presidents. The newspaper accounts, relying on anonymous complainants, went into considerable detail about Katzav's sexual tastes and seduction techniques.
The swirl of accusations against President Moshe Katsav has not led to charges or even a police investigation. But it is threatening to tarnish the image of a once-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 last month. Israeli parody television shows portray him as a Don Juan parading around in his bathrobe.
Katsav, who has held the largely ceremonial office since 2000, denies wrongdoing. But where there's smoke, well, there seems to be fire.
The first allegation surfaced in July 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 Katsav, 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 in July that a second woman has since come forward with similar accusations.
"Katsav sexually harassed me," the headline blared. 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. 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, who asked Katsav to hand over any pertinent documents to him.
Mazuz ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged blackmail attempt, Israeli media reported. But the scandal wouldn't go away.
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 Knesset has the power to remove the President if his behavior is deemed "unsuitable."
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.
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 the charges.
This week, however, the floodgates opened on accusations against Katzav. Haaretz reported Friday that no fewer than five more women had lodged sexual harassment complaints.
"The testimonies of the five women, both firsthand and indirect, indicate a pattern in which Katsav took advantage of his position to sexually harass them, turning from a boss with a pleasant manner into one who makes comments with sexual overtones, and then moves on to attempt sexual contact. The women said that when they refused his overtures, they encountered a cold and patronizing attitude to the point where they felt compelled to quit," Haaretz reported.
Haaretz provided lurid testimony from a young woman identified only as B.:
"When I came to the minister's office, they told me: 'We'll see if you get through the first 100 days'," recalled B., who said Katsav sexually harassed her while she was working at his office during the time he served as a minister. "I didn't understand. I was innocent. I didn't know that they were hinting about what was going to happen. I didn't know that the minister's behavior is the best-kept secret in the system. The pattern was to take advantage and toss aside. Everyone knew and kept silent."
B. said Katsav used to make inappropriate comments to her, and would call her up at home.
"When I came to the office, he heaped compliments on me," she said. "I'm a pretty and well-dressed girl, and he started complimenting my appearance: 'That hairstyle suits you,' 'You're very pretty.' There were also comments about my chest. It got progressively worse."
Some comments were loaded with "sexual implications that could not be interpreted otherwise," B. said. "He would tell me how at night he was having a good time with Gila, his wife, in bed, and was thinking about me. He would call me at home, and the conversations were not about security matters or politics. In the morning he would come in, pass by my desk, say, 'Good morning, come in, come into my room. I couldn't wait to see you.' I would go into the room with work papers. I was still innocent. Everyone knew -- it was the secret of the whole office."
Later on, B. said, the harassment moved up a notch, and she quit in anger.
"At a certain stage he tried to touch me. It happened several times," she said. "The moment I refused, he started excluding me at work. He would humiliate me, go to other secretaries who worked under me instead of turning to me. When he wanted to get me mad, he would ask me to send another girl into the room. Another time, when the whole office went on a trip, he would leave me in the office. The dirt started to get out, people gossiped. It was intolerable."
A former senior Transportation Ministry official quoted by Haaretz said that when Katsav was transportation minister between 1988 and 1992, the office was rife with stories of harassment.
"He liked them skinny and young," she said. "I remember an incident in which someone was wearing a thin shirt, and he sprayed water on her chest. The time has come to publicize it."
The AP contributed to this report.
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