Extraordinary

The news last week that there had been multiple resignations from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should have attracted rather more attention than it did. At least two of the resignations were whistleblowers who wanted to highlight the behaviour of a third colleague, the Prime Minister's bureau chief, Natan Eshel. Eshel has now resigned after admitting to sexual harassment of a female employee in the office.
It really says something when the country's former president is in prison for multiple sexual harassment and rape, and still there are men who believe they can behave as inappropriately as they like towards women, secure in the illusion that they are untouchable because they are in positions of power.
Eshel, plainly, learnt nothing from the Katzav affair. I do wonder, however, whether Mr Netanyahu himself has absorbed any useful lessons. He reserved his rage last week for his whistleblowing staffers because he had to learn about the Eshel situation from the media. Too much amour propre and not enough attention to what was going on, almost literally, under his nose.