Guilty?
Photo: Dudi Vaknin
Mr. President, resign
I beg you on behalf of your victims, end this now. Resign. I do not have a political agenda. I simply share the pain of your accusers
As a rape victim of a powerful man similar to you, I feel raped again every time that I see your attack dog lawyers are in the newspapers or on television smearing the characters of your accusers. When I see advocate Zion Amir, a wave of nausea comes over me. How can you do this to the country, to your victims and your wife and family?
If the freedom to wear a mini skirt does not come with the freedom not to be sexually harassed, then Israeli women might as well hide behind veils. Equality between the sexes appears to be only illusory right now.
Israel’s image at the only democracy in the Middle East and a place where there is equality between the sexes is being sullied by you. Israeli women may not wear the burka that has enslaved other Mid Eastern women for centuries. But with you, Mr. President, and Haim Ramon running around, maybe it would be better if women did at least wear caftans.
His Version
Ilan Marciano
Following meeting with Polish president, president refers to his formal request of Knesset House Committee asking to absent him from his role on Thursday, including inauguration ceremony of Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch
More guilty, less dignified
Attacking your victims only makes you look more guilty and less dignified. People are already questioning the need for the office of the President. Instead of feminists celebrating the selection of the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, they are trying to figure out how to keep an alleged rapist from the swearing in ceremony.
You say that you must fight to clear your name. It is too late for that. Even your friends think something happened. Sadly all over the world, it is the same story. The accusations are printed in bold type on the front page and the retraction is buried in section two. But you are a politician and you know that these were the rules of the game going in. It is time to live by the rules.
You have also shown that you do not give a damn about this country. All you seem to care about is saving your cushy job. If you want to fight this as a private citizen, be my guest. But the country is in crisis and needs a moral leader right now. You no longer qualify.
You are hurting this and future generations of women. You are making the world a less safe place for them. Is that the legacy that you want to leave your grandchildren? After seeing your attack dog lawyers destroy your accusers, the number of women who will come forward to report rapes will be less. The United States saw the same thing happen after the William Kennedy Smith trial in Palm Beach.
Think about us, victims
With more women suffering in silence, sexual predators will be emboldened. Is this the kind of world that you want to leave your grandchildren?
It is hard enough to survive a rape without having your character assassinated. I am still suffering post traumatic stress thirteen years later. I did not ask to be raped. No one is more surprised than me that I was raped. I thought I was meeting Mr. Wall Street about business. There was not a whiff of romance or sex in the air. Mr. Wall Street was in love with his former mistress not me. He was unhappily married to his first wife. I mistakenly thought he had more than enough women to juggle.
At night, I still replay the rape in my mind. If only I had done this instead of that, maybe I could have avoided the rape. I am still angry at myself for freezing like a deer caught in the headlights and not fighting back hard enough. It changed my image of myself permanently. I had always seen myself as a fighter. But when crunch time came, I had been a wimp.
“Why didn’t I see the signs?" This is the question that keeps running through my mind. It is only with a lot of help from my friends that I have finally accepted that there was nothing that I could have done to prevent the rape.
The night of the rape I was too shock and too afraid to even consider going to the police. I wanted to kill myself because the pain was so deep. I was raped by a man that I held in such regard that it never occurred to me that he would rape me. He had been my fairy godfather dispensing stocks instead of candy. I do not tell you this for sympathy. I tell you this so that you can have compassion for your victims.
Like your accuser A, I too tried to confront the man that raped me. It took me a long time to summon up the courage to discuss the rape with my rapist. The conversation was surreal. I did not do it to hurt my rapist. I did it to start the process of taking control of my life. Mr. Wall Street flexed his gold cufflinks just like you did. Instead of taking control of my life, my life spun out of control.
So I beg you on behalf of your victims, end this now. Resign. I do not have a political agenda. I simply share the pain of your accusers.
