Legal Charges Aside, Hypocritical Katsav Must Go!

Who is Moshe Katsav?, by Elyakim Haetzni (Ynet)

Commentary:

This author has kept the blog pretty much out of the Katsav episode. But one can’t help noticing that those complicit in the Expulsion from Gush Katif are falling, one-by-one; Sharon by way of debilitating stroke, Major-General Udi Adam, Chief-of-Staff Halutz and now the slow, painful fall of a hypocritical President who didn’t stand against the expulsion, didn’t stand against the police and Yassam attrocities in Amona, has been totally silent regarding the former Gush Katif residents who have NOT been compensated and are largely jobless and much more. He only bothered to raise a stur in his own defense. Divine retribution? MB

“Moshe Katsav can be told ‘good riddance,’ if not because of sex offenses than because he is a selfish, hypocritical and self-righteous president.”

Full Text;

Who could have known that inside the stately babushka doll of Moshe Katsav, who conveyed institutional respectability, a very different kind of babushka was actually hiding: A non-conformist doll, bearing a grudge toward the government and the elites, a babushka that opposes and is critical of official Israeli institutions and the social milieu from which he sprouted?

Who could have known that Katsav had always believed the regime was off course but knowingly presented a false image?

Now he is saying, “there is only one truth:” If so what is this truth? Is it that cunning and saccharine truth that he displayed at all times, or is it the one that burst forth in his fiery speech, according to which the democratic institutions and the justice system are rotten to the core?

Domesticated kitten or raging tiger?

Who are you Moshe Katsav, a domesticated kitten who purred at the feet of the regime, or a raging embittered tiger?

It wasn’t concern for the public that let loose the raging tiger from within, but rather, Katsav’s personal matters. A sea of wrongdoings and distortions were not enough to make him lose his equilibrium, yet the personal threat to his career produced such intense aggressiveness.

We had no idea it could be contained in the nature of such a dull personality. It lashed out against the “state” media, whose editors, interviewers, recorders, artists and presenters take advantage of the microphone in order to serve the leftist agenda.

Katsav, however, leveled no complaints against political infiltration into panels and symposiums. He didn’t find fault in the Supreme Court’s dictates of “enlightened” norms on behalf of a narrow elite circle.

He had no criticism for a judge who held a 14-year-old in custody for months; when 350 (!) youngsters were hospitalized after being hurt by police batons during the evacuation of Amona; when the attorney general closed the Sharon family’s Greek Island case; and when the media shamelessly granted protective status to suspects of corruption just as long as they supported the disengagement plan. In these cases, we didn’t see a trace of the outcry he displayed so well in his speech on his personal behalf.

Then all of a sudden, after almost seven years of public-moral slumber, Katsav revealed the hidden power of the presidential role.

No need for conviction

Just imagine if the tiger’s roar was sounded during the affair of the Yemenite children – still shrouded in mystery today and poisoning our public discourse. And imagine this courageous voice, which we have just been exposed to, resounding from the presidential residence against the government’s policy of restraint that forfeits human life in Sderot and throughout the Gaza region?

Along with the shame, Katsav may bring another abomination upon us, because his accusations against the elites are not unfounded. If it becomes apparent during his trial that his accusations against the regime pertaining to his personal matters were entirely unfounded, the establishment may be cleansed of any wrongdoing, but who will notice that their justice is only good for this isolated case?

Either way, after his great speech of denunciation, there is no longer a need for a conviction. Moshe Katsav can be told “good riddance,” if not because of sex offenses than because he is a selfish, hypocritical and self-righteous president.