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Weizman findings spur
calls from all sides for
president to quit.

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

T

he removal of a president, a
specter that has hung over
American public life twice
during the past 26 years, is
now casting its shadow over Israel.
Ezer Weizman, president of Israel
for almost seven years, emerged last
week from a police inquiry into his
financial affairs without a recommen-
dation that he be charged — but with
a less-than-blemish-free verdict from
the police.
Politicians from all parties are now
urging him to resign his office before
the attorney general issues his formal
opinion on the police findings — a
ruling that will probably contain a
condemnation of the head of state's
ethics.
Weizman had said that he won't
resign, but changed his mind this
week and announced he would step
down in June.

French Gifts

4111.

4/14
2000

38

Israeli police launched their investiga-
tion of Weizman after a free-lance
journalist, Yoav Yitzhak, published
allegations that the leader had received
a regular stipend for years, starting in
the late 1980s, from a French million-
aire friend, Edouard Saroussi. The
sums totaled more than $300,000,
Yitzhak asserted — and the police
confirmed.
Weizman received the gifts when he
served as a legislator, a minister and
even as president, from a trust fund
held by another close friend, Tel Aviv
attorney Hanina Brandes.

Police also corroborated that
Saroussi had given $100,000 to
Weizman's daughter and a car to
Weizman himself.
An Israeli businessman-friend,
Rami Ungar, was also found to
have paid monthly stipends of
$1,000 to Weizman during the
mid-1980s.
.Weizman declared none of
these gifts to the state comptroller,
as he was required to do as an
elected official.
,
The police report, released April
6, found insufficient evidence to
sustain a charge of bribery, even
though the police documented
instances in which Saroussi sought
Weizman's help to promote
Saroussi's business interests in
Israel.
The police did find evidence of
fraud and of breach of trust. They
recommended that no charges be
brought only because the statute
of limitations had expired.
It is these findings, in the view
of most political and legal
observers, that make Weizman's
continued tenure unacceptable
from the standpoint of public propri-
ety.

The Differences

The differences between this Israeli
trauma and the American experiences
with President Nixon in 1974 and
with President Clinton last year are as
pronounced as the similarities.
In Washington, after all, a president
is no mere figurehead, installed by the
legislature, but the head of the execu-
tive branch who is elected directly by
the nation.

Ezer Weizmann: When, not if:

This difference renders Weizman's
situation all the more sorry. For while
impeachment in the United States is
inevitably a process imbued with
political partisanship, in Weizman's
case the calls for his speedy retirement
— or compulsory removal — are
coming from across the political spec-
trum.
"It's his call; but if I were he, I'd
go." This was the almost formulaic
phraseology employed by such key
officials as Finance Minister Avraham
Shochat and Justice Minister Yossi
Beilin, both of whom are on the

dovish left of the Israeli political
divide — the area from which
Weizman now occupies.
Moving rightward on the political
spectrum, the voices are less
euphemistic, the message more unmis
takable.
For example, the normally soft-spo
ken housing minister, Yitzhak Levy,
leader of the National Religious Party
stated categorically on Monday that
Weizman was "bringing no honor to
the office of the presidency" by con-
tinuing to cling'to the post.
And in the Likud opposition,

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