Suicide mission

During those final moments, after his attack, one after another, on the symbols of the state, President Moshe Katsav shed his presidential status and became Citizen K., a helpless victim on whom the walls of the establishment were closing in from all sides. During those very moments, the outgoing president spoke in the voice of that same child from the ma'abara (immigrant transit camp), choked up with profound hostility toward the neighbors from the kibbutzim and the moshavim who treated him and his parents and the other new immigrants crowding into Kastina, today Kiryat Malakhi, as if they were defective and primitive creatures.

During those moments he seemed to forget his rise to the top, his election as head of the local council at the age of 24, his election to the Knesset at the age of 32, his marvelous climb to the upper reaches of Israeli politics and his amazing landing in the office of Israel's presidents, the place where a person touches the sky and is showered with respect and honors as though he were a king of Israel.

During those moments, the face of the president was as enraged as a wounded animal that has just been trapped by a bloodthirsty hunter. During his entire, endless speech, he gazed at the hunters, who were standing in front of him eagerly watching the last signs of his presidential life.
At its conclusion, he took leave from the nation, as he came down from the dais and made his way to his office, that same mysterious office where the dark deeds that have brought bruised and beaten Israeli society to one of its nadirs, did or did not take place.

The members of his family immediately jumped up from their seats and marched off in his wake, like a disciplined flock. For an entire hour, during his tirade against Israeliness, they sat on chairs with the sadsack look of a backup band, listening to the words of the paterfamilias. Five children and his wife, and in the row behind them the military secretary and the president's entourage that surrounds him in his official and less-official hours.

Only God knows what they were thinking during those moments, as the symbol of the kingdom battered and kicked at his kingdom. Some of them wore knitted skullcaps, others did not. His four sons and daugher looked lost, children who had grown up in Israel and walked with their heads high, a symbol of the success of a society that opened its gates to immigrants from the East and catapulted them to the highest place.

On that night on which their father fought for his life's legacy, they stared at him. Perhaps out of love, perhaps out of pity, perhaps knowing what nobody else knew. Perhaps they knew their father was guilty, perhaps they were accomplices to the solo show of a man who was fighting for his life. The impression they gave was that they identified with every shot fired by their father at the prime minister, the media, the prosecutor's office, the police and the government establishment.

Forbidden adventures

And at the end of the row sat Gila, that same Gila Katsav whose existence became known to the public only when the president came to celebrate in the Chagall State Hall in the Knesset, immediately after his election. She sat stony-faced the entire time her husband was acting as executioner of the state's dignity. How many secrets was she hiding, while her husband boasted of the wonderful relationship they have had for 37 years? She remained stuck with the same indecipherable expression, as though she knew what nobody else knew.

Who knew as well as she what everyone knew - about the persistent rumors of the forbidden adventures of Minister Katsav and President Katsav? They were discussed in the Likud Party Central Committee and in the ministries of transportation and tourism, in both of which Katsav had served, and in the President's Residence, during his time of service there. Wherever he went, he was dogged by a trail of rumors about illicit contacts.

During the entire speech, the president did not succeed in bursting into tears. Yes, he choked up again and again, but only his adviser Zion Amir, with well-groomed white hair pulled back, and dressed in a suit befitting a fashion plate, would have hoped that the choked-up throat would turn into real tears. Amir, of course, knows what every top attorney knows - that pity can serve as the last refuge of someone who finds himself in a difficult situation.

Amir understood that the speech would determine the fate of the president, for good or ill. Because during those moments the president placed his future in the hands of the general public, which sat at home and watched the death throes of the symbol of the kingdom. "This is his only chance," he explained to a journalist, "because you have all judged him and convicted him already."

Amir was convinced that President K.'s sense of persecution erupted from the depths of the heart of that same ma'abara child, who reached the heights and then was ambushed by the forces of evil. "Ask anyone who was in a ma'abara," he added, "and he'll tell you that the president is right. That he really is a victim of those elites who don't want people like him anywhere. Today it's him, tomorrow it's you or someone else. Think about it."

Victory, catastrophe

Long before his presidency capsized, Katsav continued to smart from the angry reception that greeted his election in the year 2000. During the very moments after the results became known, after the votes were counted and the extent of the victory - or catastrophe - became clear, MKs from Labor and from the left-wing parties had the appearance of condemned men standing before the firing squad. Colleagues from the Likud and even to the right of the Likud also froze, white as chalk.

Even the impresarios of his election, led by Ariel Sharon, had difficulty believing that their plot to block the path of Shimon Peres to the President's Residence might really succeed. None of them imagined that the little man and the petty politician would fool them all and grab victory out the hands of a man who all his life had pursued respect and honors, and never had enough.

Before he ran for the presidency, Katsav had been ready to retire from political life, bitter and frustrated over his failure to climb even higher. As long as he was successful, he saw that as entirely natural. Each time he failed, though, he blamed Israeli society for not being sufficiently mature for someone of his background. That was how he felt when he failed in his race for the leadership of the Likud, and that was how he felt later in his career.

"I've decided not to run for office any more in future," he admitted to me a few months before he joined the race for the presidency. "Not because I'm less suitable or worthy, but because I've reached the conclusion that under the present circumstances, Israeli society is not ready to accept a man like me as a candidate."

Even six years as president did not succeed in erasing that searing humiliation that he felt after his election. At every opportunity, he condemned the power groups that, in his estimation, regarded him with disdain and mocked him. Last Wednesday evening, in the President's Residence, he took aim at everyone, one after the other, in front of the nation. Never before has there been a mass attack of this kind in Israel, and a home-grown one to boot.

At the last moment, just before he fled into his office, he remembered Gila and turned back. At this stage, and in the stages sure to come, she is his best writ of defense. He hid his face in her shoulder. In another moment he would have burst into tears, and he hastened to disappear into the office, the site of the dark and mysterious happenings. There, apparently, he did break out in tears. A few moments later, the echoes of the applause of his family and aides were heard.

He read everything

Anyone who was involved in this saga said that the president's distress had the effect of drawing his family closer to him. They all knew and read every piece of information. All the sons and his daughter, as well as the grandchildren, followed the precise details of the deeds of the president as alleged by the complainants. How he forced his will on them, how he performed indecent acts, how he acted in order to silence them.

"The most astonishing thing is that he himself did not miss a single article written about the affair," said an associate who was close to the president in recent months. "Mountains of newspaper clippings piled up in the office, and Katsav read all of them, word for word. Even articles in translation. From the Russian and Arabic and English press."

The family, the staff, all found it difficult to conceal their admiration for the president's steadfastness in the face of the public uproar that accompanied the accusations. There were employees who were worried about his welfare, there were associates who were afraid that he would take the law into his own hands. "I pray for his welfare all the time," said Zehava Zelikovitz, who has served seven presidents during her 35 years working at the President's Residence.

From his long experience, attorney Amir has discovered that when a very harsh blow lands, an individual can find within himself powers that protect him from self-destructing. The more the president plummeted into the depths, the more determined he became to survive. "Any woman, if you were to ask what she would do if her son were killed in a military operation, would immediately tell you that she would rather die than keep living," he said, while listening to his client's speech. "But when it happens, God forbid, and the son is killed, she suddenly finds the strength to go on living."

I stood next to the cupboard of souvenirs in the president's reception hall, not far from the platform where Katsav made his cri de coeur. On one shelf was a pitcher he received as a gift from U.S. President George W. Bush, and another gift that he received from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Next to them was a colorful Hanukkah menorah inscribed by Prisons Authority head Yaakov Ganot and his staff.

And even on the last day of normalcy, when he was assembling the suicide belt, the president was possessed by the calm of a person who is about to embark on a mission from which he may not return alive. One of the aides said that the president was somewhat paler than usual. He called a staff meeting and listened to the words of his aides. On the desk were the newspapers, which featured images of that same demonic figure who had exploited the position of this most important residence.
"It was a macabre situation," said one of the aides. "The president never imagined that such a serious indictment would be filed against him. Until the last moment, he believed that he had convinced the police investigators with the evidence he presented to them. Suddenly the entire country discovers that its president is a habitual and dangerous sex offender. It was terrible, and all the newspapers described how long a jail sentence he could receive for each crime. The president read every word that was written without batting an eyelash. During those moments, I felt sorry for him. I saw him crashing before my eyes."

And in recent months, when the doors were closing all around him and the guests were few, Katsav increased his visits to the synagogue. Only prayer was left to him. And the prayers of some of his aides. "Do you know what has happened in this residence?" whispered one of the veteran employees in my ear, "everything has happened here. And I don't want to spell it out because I'm an observant man. But they never did to the others what they've done to President Katsav. I'm sure that it's because of his color. I worked with many presidents and they were all given a great deal of respect. From the first moment, I felt that Katsav was not given respect."

Maybe it was because of this existential situation - into which deprivation and persecution and absorption traumas and childhood distress and lack of belonging and a shattered dream were all stuffed into one container of explosives - that the symbol of the kingdom embarked on the mission of terror against the kingdom he represented. The speech, more than a cry of personal anguish, was a call for civil war. A war of the members of the "screwed" Israel against well-to-do Israel. Last Wednesday evening, before the entire world, the president of Israel abandoned the company of the First Israel - the mostly Ashkenazi establishment elite - and returned to the warm and cozy bosom of the Second Israel, the mostly Sephardi underclass. He probably believed that he would feel safer there.


By Daniel Ben Simon