Denial Ain't A River in Egypt

All of the citizens of Israel were witness this week to a shameful and pathetic performance by the now outgoing president, Moshe Katzav. Katzav called a press conference to respond to the news that after many months of investigation, the attorney general has decided to indict him for rape. Before he goes before the AG for a final hearing, the president chose to address the nation in regard to all the accusations against him.

Katzav was not born great, nor was greatness thrust upon him. He was a bright, ambitious kid from a poor neighborhood whose rising star brought him into the innermost circles of Israeli politics. It's hard to point to any serious imprint left by Katzav on Israeli government, yet somehow this colorless, mediocre politician managed to reach the respectable offices of the president. In his hour-long tirade before the cameras and microphones he painted a picture of himself as a hunted, persecuted member of Israel's trodden mizrahi minority. He attacked the police, the attorney general and the press, blaming the very institutions that form the backbone of democracy, law and order in the state he represents for convicting him of heinous crimes without a trial.

Katzav's performance was extremely emotional but ridden with inaccuracies. Although he read from prepared notes he frequently trailed off without finishing sentences and appeared to be on the verge of breaking down numerous times. He spoke about his deep personal pain but the accusations of sexual harrassment and rape by ten different women who worked for him through the years cannot be ignored. Although he is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the evidence against him is extremely damning. Despite his crass attempt to manipulate public sympathy in his favor, my impression of his speech was of a criminal offender who has utterly convinced himself that the acts in question never happened. His appeal was not the call of a jaded operator following the advice of his lawyers, but of a man who truly believes that he did nothing wrong by fondling and forcing himself sexually on the women whose livelihood depended on him. Since he cannot admit to the rest of us that he simply took that to which he was entitled, he has erased those squallid deeds from his own personal reality.

Almost as sad as watching Katzav lash out at the world was watching his family watch him. His wife and five children all sat, stiff-backed, in a row to his right, a pillar of support. But who knows what they were really thinking? Can a serial sex offender be a model husband and father? Gila no doubt has sufffered his philandering for the thirty-seven years of their marriage but Katzav made a point of mentioning their loving and idyllic relationship. Although stories and rumors abound about Gila's dealings with her husband's paramours, we will never be privy to the truth about this man's shortcomings as a parent. As much as he has embarrassed himself by his conduct, the forced complicity of the silence of his wife and children is an even greater humiliation.

Many people who worked with Katzav over the years remarked that everyone in his immediate surroundings knew he harrassed women but no one ever spoke up. Perhaps the silver lining of this lecherous cloud is the end of the conspiracy of silence. Hopefully, the trial of the president will broadcast a very clear message of zero tolerance for sexual harrassment in our society.