He fought and fought and fought. He stalled and stalled and stalled. Having been confronted with unassailable testimony from his several victims, former Israeli President Moshe Katzav agreed to resign the presidency and accept a plea bargain last year (I mentioned this as it was initially developing in a blog entry almost 2 years ago) for lesser charges than the rape he was accused of committing. In one of the more laughable and pathetic media performances ever given up by a political figure, Katzav took the defiant tack in an infamous press conference in January, 2007, even as he accepted the plea.
After over a week's delay, Katzav finally was to appear in court today to admit to guilt on lesser charges according to the plea agreement. Guess what? He showed up in court and announced he was rejecting the plea bargain which he and his lawyers agreed to back in late June, 2007. Defiant to the end, he'd rather fight the specific charges that he serially raped exposed his gentials to female workers in his office while he was Minister of Tourism, and treated one of his secretaries as a "sex slave" in exchange for promotions. Now all these charges will have to be re-examined by state prosecutors, and the public will be treated to a miserable judicial farce that should have ended long ago.
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