Katzav in perspective
As miserable as the Katzav trial has been for this country, Marty Peretz does a good job of putting it in perspective. Two observations:But as my mother, may she rest in peace, used to say, and as I always say to my kids, do you really want to be compared with them?
1. The court that rendered the verdict of guilty consisted of three senior judges. Two are women and the other is an Arab who read out the long opinion. This, too, is representative of the Israeli system of justice.
2. In many Muslim countries, among them societies in the Arab Middle East, such a proceeding would be unthinkable. In fact, women who pressed such charges against any man, let alone one so powerful, would probably be stoned to death. This is one reason there are few accusations of rape in the world of Islam.
Labels: Moshe Katzav, rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:42 AM
2 Comments:
Israel does not want to be compared to the regimes in its neighborhood.
The other side of the picture as Steven Plaut pointed out is the highly politicized and corrupt nature of Israel's justice system. Would Katzav have gone to prison if he was not a leftist?
Maybe the court rendered a just verdict - but maybe not. It had a duty to show it wasn't tainted by the political preferences of the prosecution and judges - most of whom in Israel are leftists.
The Katzav verdict notwithstanding, the public concerns about the dual nature of Israel's justice system in which leftists get treated with kid gloves while every one else gets the book thrown at them, aren't going to go away anytime soon.
Here's some more perspective.
What's that stench?
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