Only one truth
MK Ziv's silence in face of sexual assault allegations raises questions
There can be no middle ground in this story: Either the complainant against Deputy Knesset Speaker Izhak Ziv fabricated the story, or the honorable MK is brazenly lying. Someone here is not telling the truth.
As of now, the complainant took an important step in establishing her claims: She gave the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper a detailed version, agreed to undergo a polygraph test, and identified the person who heard what she had experienced in real time.
There is evidence that she did not keep the story of the alleged abuse to herself. True, the complainant is still apprehensive about lodging a complaint with the police after what the complainants in the Katsav affair had to endure. She does not wish to suffer the ensuing slings and arrows.
Yet it may be assumed that if and when she is approached by the police, as required by law even without lodging a complaint, she will soften up and cooperate, just like past cases involving Yitzhak Mordechai and Haim Ramon.
Knesset member Ziv has hired the services of attorney Zion Amir, the attorney who represented former President Moshe Katsav, but he currently prefers hiding behind a sweeping denial. He has chosen the right to remain silent and rejected Yedioth Ahronoth's offer to take a polygraph test. The deputy Knesset speaker is behaving as someone waiting for the next scandal, more severe than his own, in the hope it may obliterate the seriousness of the complaint against him.
In a crazy country such as Israel, this may indeed happen at any given moment. Nonetheless, Ziv is wrong: A story pertaining to suspicions of indecent acts, particularly during a period in which the country and public are waging a war against sex offenders, will not die out on its own.
Ziv should have called police chief
These are no light charges. It's hard to sweep such allegations under the Knesset's rug, particularly when Knesset members Shelly Yacimovich, Zahava Gal-On and Limor Livnat are around.
With this in the backdrop, Ziv himself should have initiated a police investigation to cleanse his reputation. If indeed the complainant plotted against him, as he claims, he should have called the police commissioner Wednesday morning immediately after Zvika Brot's story was published in Yedioth Ahronoth in order to set up a meeting and say: My hands are clean, I have been wronged, I am at your disposal at any time. I am willing to confront the complainant at any time of your choosing. I want to prove my innocence.
Until Wednesday he was innocent. Until Wednesday he looked at the affair from the sidelines as though he were not involved. Although Ziv did not receive a warm embrace from his friends, they didn't push him to file a complaint either.
What bothered Israel's legislators Wednesday was not, heaven forbid, the allegations against the deputy Knesset speaker, but rather, the concealment of the suspect's identity. This was a terrible act as far as they were concerned. How can this be done, many asked in radio interviews and in talks with reporters, how can so many Knesset members be made suspects because of one member?
It's a good question. It's a pity it is not asked in the Knesset each time a different genius there recycles a proposed bill to ban publication of suspects' identities. It's a pity that Knesset members recall the harm that rumors can do only when they threaten to hurt them personally.
