After the war scandals rock Israel
ISRAEL: The president is locked in a sex scandal, the justice
minister has quit over a purported stolen kiss, the prime minister is
haunted by a property deal and the country's top general is under fire
for stock trading.
Welcome to Israel, after the war.
With a ceasefire in Israel's bitter battles with Lebanese Hizbollah
guerrillas in effect for nearly a week, Israeli media have turned the
spotlight on a series of scandals.
No criminal charges have been filed in any of the cases. But
suspicions of sleaze at the top have darkened the public mood in Israel,
where many have begun to question their leaders' conduct of a costly
month-long conflict in Lebanon.
Some of the allegations:
A former employee at the official residence of President Moshe Katsav
says he coerced her into having sex with him. Katsav has denied the
woman's allegations, which police are investigating. The scandal is
unlikely to have any significant political impact as Katsav's post is
largely ceremonial.
Justice Minister Haim Ramon resigned late on Sunday after the
attorney general said he would indict the veteran politician over
allegations by a former government employee that he forcibly kissed her.
A Justice Ministry statement said the woman accused Ramon of "kissing
her on the lips while inserting his tongue without her consent". Ramon
denied the charges and said he would prove his innocence in court.
Israel's top government watchdog has confirmed it is examining the
terms of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's purchase of a Jerusalem apartment
for $1.2 million in 2004.
The state comptroller's office said it has not finished looking into
the case. The prime minister's office has reserved comment, pending an
official approach on the matter by the comptroller.
Olmert's popularity has already taken a beating in the polls, part of
a public backlash over his handling of a war in Lebanon that failed to
deal a fatal blow to Hizbollah or stop nearly 4,000 rockets from hitting
northern Israel.
"The significance is clear: politically, Olmert is a dead man
walking," political commentator Ari Shavit wrote of the property row in
the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper last week.
But other political analysts noted Israel's next scheduled election
is four years away and it was unlikely any of Olmert's coalition
partners were interested in bringing down the government after only
three months in power.
Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz, chief of staff of Israel's armed
forces, acknowledged selling off his stock portfolio just hours after
Hizbollah gunmen kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid
on July 12 that triggered the Lebanon war.
While regulatory authorities have said he did nothing illegal, many
Israelis are questioning why cutting his own losses was on Halutz's mind
at a time when consultations were under way on readying Israel's
military response.
"I am also a citizen. I also have finances ... the facts are correct
but (the media interpretation) is false, tendentious," Halutz said in
response.
Several legislators and columnists have called for Halutz's
resignation, accusing him of arrogance and adding their voices to a
chorus of public criticism over the former fighter pilot's reliance on
air power, rather than a ground thrust, in the early stages of the war
in Lebanon.
Jerusalem, Monday, Reuters
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