Katzav Verdict: A Triumph for Democracy and the Rule of Law

In Saudi Arabia, the rape victim would have been sentenced to death for having sex before marriage.

A fantastic triumph. No doubt in other Western democracies a Head of State who committed such crimes would have been equally tried. Thank God Israel isn't like its neighbours. And thank God we don't have to compare it with them.

A fantastic triumph. No doubt in other Western democracies a Head of State who committed such crimes would have been equally tried.

Remember that Clinton was accused of precisely that by some female supporters?

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2010/12/former-president-katzav-convict...

Remember that President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon?

OK Nixon did not commit rape but he did try to obstruct democracy!

I agree, Jonathan. The US is a weird place when it comes to the status of the President. It has a lot to learn about equality before the law.

Yet, no one but a lunatic would claim that USA is not a democracy. So why would Israel-bashers be smarters than these lunatics?

Has anyone here said that the US is not a democracy? Of course it is. But when it comes to presidents and former presidents it has a different way of doing things.
In France, for instance, Chirac's on trial. Berlusconi (PM, not President) has been tried in Italy, as have other political leaders.
Here we have had the trials of Jonathan Aitken and Geoffrey Archer. Not Presidents or PMs, but ministers of the crown nonetheless.

In France, for instance, Chirac's on trial.

HAHAHA ! You forgot that I'm French and know much better than you what happened.
Chirac has not only never been on trial when he was a president, but he had hid party vote a special law exonerating the president while doing his term (he served two, during 12 years).
Then he got safely out of a trial for abuse of taxpayers money at the time he was a mayor of Paris. The other mock trials will lead to nothing.

Katzav, on the other hand, was indicted while he was still president and had to resign.

Chirac, Jose, was put on trial after his presidency, like Katsav. The investigation into his actions were done during the presidency, like Katsav.

And Katsav reclused himself. He did not resign. In fact, he had to be persuaded not to stand again.

Chirac, Jose, was put on trial after his presidency, like Katsav.

Not at all: Chirac's presidency stopped all trials. Chirac had Juppé convicted in his place for his abuses of taxpayers' money. Katzav was forced to resign for fear he would be indicted while he was in office. Chirac had the French Parliament vote a law to prevent any trial.

Compared to Israel, France is a banana republic.

And of course, Chirac will never be convicted of anything. If he was, his former 'enemy' Sarkozy would issue a presidential grace immediately (a 'royal' right, in France). So what's the problem?

Millis is still on his all-out criticism for Israel again. No way to stop the flow. He will not utter a word of criticism against the mock democracies, the normal Western democracies such as France and USA. But Israel that shows again its justice and morals deserve criticism.

What a joke!

No, Jose, Katsav reclused himself. He had to be dragged almost kicking and screaming from the President's Residence. Just watch the press conference he gave at the time.
I think you may have missed it when I wrote that it was a triumph for Israeli democracy. Never mind, eh. Boogaloo on, Jose.

France seems to have a tradition of utter lowlife and borderline gangsters at the top: de Gaulle, Chirac, Giscard-d'Estaing, that socialist shit whose name I forget, the one who looked like a cross between a dead sheep and a rat on steroids, he's dead now ...

Mitterrand? - he wiretapped journalists

That's the one. Didn't he also steal millions?

Indeed, Mitterrand, the first French President to accept the part of the French nation-- and not just Vichy -- in Nazi crimes. But we'll forget about that.

By the way, Millis, it was Chirac who did that, not Mitterrand.
Mitterrand was accused of being a Vichist at the beginning of the war.

But you already forgot about it, didn't you?

You can imagine how well Millis knows Israel by his knowledge of a much closer and more important (at least on the size point of view) than Israel.

Perhaps, Jose, but Mitterrand started the process. Why don't you just grow up and Boogaloo.

Perhaps, Jose, but Mitterrand started the process

No he didn't. You know Israel better than Israelis, you know France better than Frenchmen and needless to say, you know England better than Englishmen.
But at the end of the day, your ignorance appears clearly to all.

Mitterrand was a shrewed guy, certainly a very good president for France, with a lot of personal culture. But he was the product of another era.
He never recognised the errors made by the French regime of which he was a product: the Popular Front and the Socialist International, which was the origin of the Socialist Party, the political machine that finally brought him to power.
Mitterrand kept, up to his last days, friends whose pasts were more than suspect.

Chirac, at least, admitted all the wrongs France (and not just the shameful, racist Vichy regime) has done to its Jews.