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Police : Indict Katsav for rape
All the dailies : Attorney General Menachem Mazuz is expected to decide within two to three weeks to indict President Moshe Katsav for sexual offenses and other crimes, including personal corruption. The expected charges include an allegation that has not yet been publicized : using state funds to buy personal gifts.
Although the actual indictment is not expected for a few more months, police and prosecution officials said yesterday that they consider an indictment to be a fait accompli.
Katsav lawyer Zion Amir said the president would not take any decisions before Attorney General Menachem Mazuz states his opinion on the affair and decides whether there is sufficient evidence to indict the president. Justice Ministry sources said the criminal investigation against the president has created a very difficult situation. However, Mazuz does not intend to come to a decision or issue a statement concerning the matter until after he grants Katsav a hearing.
A source close to the investigation said the suspicions were very serious and cast a heavy shadow on the presidency, since the number of women volunteering complaints against Katsav is now very significant.
If Mazuz decides to indict Katsav, he will not be able to bring charges against him formally as long as Katsav is president. Nor can Mazuz terminate Katsav’s term as president or suspend him from his post on the grounds of temporary incapacity to carry out his duties. The Justice Ministry expects that the Knesset will act to oust Katsav - should it come to that decision - before the end of his term, in July 2007, or for Katsav to step down should Mazuz decide to indict him.
All the dailies (last update) : Following the police’s recommendation that he be put on trial for the rape of two women and other sexual offenses, as well as protests from several Knesset members from the entire political spectrum, President Moshe Katsav informed the Knesset’s director that he will not attend the opening of the plenum’s winter session, scheduled for Monday.
The President’s Bureau released a report Monday saying that the president was surprised and amazed by the police’s recommendations. He was convinced the attorney’s office and the Attorney General would find there was no evidence to back the suspicions, and the truth would come out.
Comments
Haaretz (Ze’ev Segal) : If President Moshe Katsav wished to save his presidency’s honor, his own health and the public’s faith in the institution of the presidency, he would leave the President’s Residence this very morning. He would not proceed from there to the Knesset, but rather to his own home, and there announce his resignation from his post, without hiding behind the "presumption of innocence" to which he is entitled. The joint statement issued last night by the Justice Ministry and the Israel Police upon completion of the investigation into the president’s case is exceptional. This is not only because of the investigating team’s conclusions, according to which the president committed serious crimes, headed by rape (which carries a maximum sentence of 16 years in prison) and other sex offenses that involved forced and nonconsensual indecent acts.
Rather, what is special about the statement is the fact that it was issued jointly by the investigative agency and the agency that decides whether or not to bring the accused to trial. Such a joint announcement is not without precedent, but it is extremely rare. Ordinarily, even in sensitive matters, the police and the Justice Ministry issue separate statements. This cooperation between the authorities is explained by the fact that a senior team of prosecutors has been following the investigation from the start, and "is already engaged in examining and assessing the evidence."
Reading between the lines, one can conclude that the police summary was not unwelcome to the senior prosecutors who have been following the investigation. These include both the state prosecutor and the attorney general himself, and everything has been reviewed meticulously. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz is the one who will ultimately make the decision on whether there is "a reasonable chance of conviction," which is the test for bringing an indictment. Mazuz has yet to decide on this paramount question, but it is hard to imagine that his opinion will differ radically from that of the police - even if he disagrees with their recommendation to indict on one particular charge among the many that were cited in the police summary of the investigation.
A delay of several weeks in the attorney general’s decision, such as was hinted at in the announcement, seems strange on the face of it, considering the close cooperation between the State Prosecutor’s Office and the police in steering the investigation and assessing the evidence that has been collected. In any event, as is now customary, the attorney general will not announce a decision to indict, if that is what he decides, but merely that he is "weighing" an indictment, pending the president’s right to a hearing. If the president utilizes that right, and his lawyers only then receive the case material, it seems clear that a final decision would be made only after many months, once the material has been studied and the hearing itself held.
If the president does not resign today, he will not resign until the entire process has been completed. He will remain in his post, but will find himself at the head of an institution whose foundations he has destroyed. MK Avigdor Lieberman’s bill to change the system of government, which was approved last night by the Ministerial Committee for Legislative Affairs, proposes, among other things, abolishing the presidency in its present format. The president’s conduct proves that the presidency really does need to go.
Maariv : Moshe Gouraly writes that the accusations against Katsav are unprecedented in Israel history against a high ranking official, even more so against the president : "...Even if only one-tenth of these accusations were true, it would be serious enough. If the accusation of rape is proven to be true, Moshe Katsav risks being condemned to a long prison sentence".
Lieberman
Haaretz-Yedioth Ahronoth : The Labor Party’s parliamentary faction decided yesterday to oppose the bill to institute a presidential regime sponsored by Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman.
A large share of the meeting, however, was devoted to the faction’s problematic conduct as a coalition member and to scolding ministers and Knesset members who violated coalition discipline during the summer term. Several speakers blamed such violations for the prime minister’s decision to try to expand the coalition by bringing in Yisrael Beiteinu, a move most faction members oppose.
Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who favors including Lieberman, warned Labor head Amir Peretz that quitting the coalition over Lieberman’s entry would doom him to political ruin. "Amir, understand this : The moment you leave, you recite Kaddish over yourself. There’s nothing for us to do in the opposition. If we leave, finance and defense will be in the hands of [Lieberman] and [Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu]," he said.
"We are all to blame for the prime minister’s seeking an anchor in the form of Lieberman," Ben-Eliezer continued. "You call this a coalition ? There was no significant vote in which we stood as one. What do we want from the prime minister ? We did this with our own hands."
MK Shelly Yachimovich replied : "We have not made good on our promises. We are violating the public’s trust. I will not preserve coalition discipline at all costs ; coalition discipline is a tool, not a goal."
Peretz, who opened the session by calling for unity in the ranks, later added : "Game time is over. Ministers are getting millions for their ministries. MKs boast of altering a budgetary line item, and whoever fails to get something jumps on the chairman. From now on, we will take decisions all the way."
Peretz reiterated his objection to Lieberman joining the coalition, but did not present this as a categorical opposition. "There is no question here of a personal rejection ; there is an essential ideological question. There is a gaping chasm between us and Yisrael Beiteinu," he said.
Education Minister Yuli Tamir said that Labor should counter Lieberman’s government reform bill with a bill of its own, and that quitting the coalition would make the social and political situation worse.
Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog said that bringing Lieberman in "will make it possible to split the right and smash the Likud, and also to unite with the Russian public."
First findings of an investigation about the Lebanon war
All the dailies : Major General (res.) Yoram Yair harshly criticized Division 91 yesterday for failures during combat in the recent Lebanon war and accused the entire Israel Defense Forces - from the General Staff on down - of seeing the fighting as a security exercise instead of as a war.
Yesterday, when revealing the findings of an investigation that he headed into Division 91’s activities to the General Staff, Yair claimed that the war did not have defined goals. He criticized the cuts that had been made in army training and preparation, and said the IDF had become accustomed to carrying out security exercises in the territories and did not change its approach in time for the war.
Yair presented only some of the findings related to Division 91, headed by Brigadier General Gal Hirsch ; later in the week he is to present the General Staff with conclusions regarding the combat in Bint Jbail, where eight IDF soldiers were killed.
The abduction of IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev is being investigated by Major General (res.) Doron Almog. Over the coming week, the General Staff will receive the findings of several additional inquests, including one concerning the rocket that hit the navy’s missile ship Hanit.
The findings presented by Yair point to a systemic problem in the IDF that is not limited to any single military division. To a large extent, he reiterated opinions that have been expressed in the news media starting from the third week of the war. However, here - for the first time - they were being expressed by an official IDF source.
Other headlines
Yediot Ahronot : Days before the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of navigator Ron Arad, his comrades held a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office to condemn the lack of information on the fate of the missing airman. Friends who attended Arad’s Israel Air Force pilot course wore shirts reading ’20 years, 10 governments, one Ron Arad.’ "Our commitment to return Ron Arad home, to his family and friends, is unlimited," Ronen Mirav, Arad’s colleague said.
"We will continue to wait for Ron and it is forbidden for us to give up. We passed a message to the government asking that they don’t ignore Ron in any future arrangement regarding our missing and kidnapped. We saw how Ron was ignored in the agreement to release (Hanan) Tenenbaum."
Maariv-Haaretz : Hamas wants to create a "balance of terror" with Israel in the Gaza Strip, in order to deter the Israel Defense Forces from making a major ground forces incursion into the territory, IDF officers have concluded on the basis of the organization’s greatly accelerated munitions acquisitions over the past few months
Since the beginning of the year, more than 20 tons of explosives, anti-aircraft missiles and antitank missiles have been smuggled into Gaza.
Senior IDF officers told Haaretz recently that Hamas is working to improve its offensive capabilities, with an emphasis on Qassam and Katyusha rockets, while at the same time establishing a solid defensive position in order to prevent the IDF from entering built-up areas within the Strip. By increasing the range of its missiles, the deadly force of their warheads and above all, by using high-quality blast explosives, Hamas hopes to heighten the threat to the northern and western Negev from the direction of Gaza.
If Hamas succeeds in improving the rockets in its possession, it will be able to store them for months, as opposed to just days, as it does now. That would enable the organization to fire massive salvos at the Negev for days at a time during periods of escalation, as Hezbollah did in northern Israel during the second Lebanon war.
The defensive preparations are aimed mainly at Gaza’s cities, and are being carried out mainly by Hamas’s popular army, the Murabitan. These militants have been organized by specialty in preparation for possible Israeli attacks.
Arms smuggling is also continuing. Recently, Hamas took possession of a shipment of dozens of Russian Concourse antitank missiles. These relatively precise missiles have a range of 4.5 kilometers, similar to those used by Hezbollah during the war. IDF officers believe that Hamas will try to smuggle in hundreds more.
Arms smuggling is also continuing. Recently, Hamas took possession of a shipment of dozens of Russian Concourse antitank missiles. These relatively precise missiles have a range of 4.5 kilometers, similar to those used by Hezbollah during the war. IDF officers believe that Hamas will try to smuggle in hundreds more.
Hamas is searching for ways to combat Israel’s military superiority in this confrontation, which it sees as the result of Israel’s use of tanks and relatively well-protected armored personnel carriers combined with the Israel Air Force’s effective deployment in hunting down Hamas operatives and Qassam launchers.
Officers in the IDF Southern Command see a guiding hand behind Hamas’s efforts to expand its power : They believe that the organization’s leadership abroad is bending the armed forces in Gaza to its own needs. The IDF is still working on ways to combat Hamas’s plans. The next stage of IDF operations in the Strip is expected to include an expanded offensive focused on impeding weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza via Rafah.