Katsav's impassioned outcry

Moshe Katsav exercised his right to make an impassioned outcry Wednesday evening, upon delivering an hour-long, emotional speech to the nation from the podium of the presidential residence. It wasn't a speech compiled by learned attorneys or public relations advisors. The president brought a written text with him to the podium, yet he deviated from the original version over and over again. His speech came from the heart and the gut, and that's where it penetrated.

He gained a few public opinion points - and no less important from his standpoint - some support among Knesset members, who within a few days will be deciding whether he should take a leave of absence or whether he will be impeached.

Besides the question of what really happened between the president and the women who worked under him, and besides the question of what really happened during the investigation, his words touched a vulnerable point. "Perhaps there is some truth in what he is saying," many said. It is therefore worthwhile examining his speech to see whether it matches reality.

His primary argument is that the media, who could not come to terms with his appointment to the presidency, conspired against him with the police and the prosecution in order to bring about his demise. These persons, according to Katsav, located every employee and former employee at the presidential residence who perhaps sought to get their revenge or to blackmail him, and they managed to obtain false testimony in connection to wrongdoings that had never occurred.

Pandora's box

This argument is unfounded. Although the media was wrong as to his chances of being elected, this occurred six or more years before the sexual harassment affair surfaced. It was not the media that opened this Pandora's box, it was Katsav himself.

Nonetheless, there is some substance to his argument that the media is judging him without trial. He is not the only one making this argument. The general sense emanating from the reports on the various investigations into wrongdoings among Israel's elite is that anyone who is interrogated is guilty. Apparently there is also some truth to his argument that cooperation between investigators and the media harms the rights of those being investigated.

He sinned in feigning innocence when he described the six months of investigation as a war in which one side – the women who testified against him, the police, the prosecution and the media – leaked out information against him unobstructed, while his side remained silent. His side worked just as hard as the party siding against him.

He was inaccurate in his description of the attorney general's conduct. It was not Menachem Mazuz who leaked the information pertaining to the affair. Mazuz only made a public announcement after the president chose to publicly report the content of the meeting between them, which was far from the truth. Mazuz is not quite the government official who takes orders from a few head choppers in the media.

People tend to confuse honesty with factual truth. The emotional turmoil Katsav was in was real, it was no show: He truly felt that he was suffering an injustice. However, the subjective sense does not shed any light on what really happened.

The president described the media as a spoilt elite, born with a silver spoon in its mouth. True, it was unpleasant watching how Channel 2's TV presenter rudely interrupted the speech of Katsav's life, as though the presidential residence was his personal studio, but it's not the TV presenter's manners being questioned here.

My heart went out to Gila

Katsav went on to say that journalists are unable to maintain a long-term and happy marital life as he and his wife have done throughout the years. Only one thing can be said about such an accusation uttered by a president of a state: He should not be judged at his time of sorrow.

The problem lies in the accusations he leveled at the police. They shed light on the internal contradiction Moshe Katsav has found himself in: As a suspect he is entitled to level accusations at his interrogators as much as he wishes; as a president he is spitting into the well from which he drinks. He cannot accuse the police of subversion and of a coup and in the same breath embrace and praise it. He must resign.

The president's employees, attorneys and public relations personnel stood alongside the president Wednesday evening, and in the first row sat his family.

Not a muscle moved on the faces of his children, but his wife Gila wept under her breath. She wept in the beginning when her husband announced that he would "fight to his last breath" to prove his innocence and she cried later on. Her eyes were puffy, her body rigid. Of all the people who were there last night, my heart went out to Gila.