Case of Yitzhak Mordechai
(AKA: Itzik)
Former Israeli Defense Minister - Israel
April, 2001 -- Convicted on charges of sexual assault and and sentenced to an 18-month suspended jail term.
Yitzhak Mordechai was born in 1944, in Iraq. He immigrated to Israel at the age of five. He served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for 33 years (1962-95), most of them as a paratrooper. He graduated the Staff and Command Colleges in Israel and in Cambridge, England. In addition, he holds a B.A. in history from Tel-Aviv University, and an M.A. in political science from Haifa University.
June 1996 -- was appointed Minister of Defense of Israel. He was fired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in early 1999 when it was learned that he was planning to join a new centrist party.
July 1999 -- Appointed Minister of Transport and Deputy Prime Minister. He resigned after being accused of sexual assault.
March, 2001-- He was convicted of sexually assaulting and harassing two women and was given an 18-month suspended sentence.
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1999
2000
2001
Israeli Official Is Found Guilty On Sex Charges (03/21/2001)
Israeli politician guilty of sex charges (03/21/2001)
Once a hero of Sephardi politics, Mordechai guilty of sex charges (03/23/2001)
Israel watches hero fall in sex harassment case (03/23/2001)
Women's groups blast 'lenient sentence' for disgraced minister (05/01/2001)
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Also see:
When A Family Member Molests: Reality, Conflict, and The Need For Support
Candidate's Fact File: Yitzhak Mordechai
Jerusalem Post - 1999
http://info.jpost.com/1999/Supplements/Elections99/candidates/mordechai.shtml
Party: Center (moderate center).
Year of birth: 1944.
Place of birth: Iraqi Kurdistan.
Education: He has a BA in History from Tel Aviv University and an MA in Political Science from Haifa University. He was studying, and has since postponed, his studies in Law at the Herzliya "Michlalah" and Jewish Studies at Bar Ilan University because he took up a high profile public position. Former OC Northern Command (major-general).
Former political positions: Member of Knesset since 1996. Served as defense minister in the Netanyahu government (1996-9).
Basic positions: Favors continuation of the peace process. Advocates "a different style of leadership." Strongly identified with the weaker parts of the population.
Strengths: First serious Sephardi candidate for prime minister. Considered balanced in his positions. Religiously traditional, thus not opposed by the religious parties. Folksy charm.
Weaknesses: Said to carry a grudge regarding his non-appointment as chief of General Staff. Regarded as a "political traitor" by many Likud supporters, because of his decision to join and lead the Center Party.
According to latest opinion polls: Chances of winning if he reaches second round: excellent. Chances of reaching second round: slim. Where votes will go if he does not reach second round: most to Barak, some to Netanyahu.
Yitzhak (Itzik) Mordechai -- Military commander and
politician. Born in the Kurdish part of Iraq in 1944, he grew up in Tiberias
in a national religious family. He was drafted into the IDF in 1962 and served
for 33 years. During the Yom Kippur War he was decorated for bravery in the
battle of the Chinese Farm, when he commanded a Paratroop unit. Following
the Lebanon War he was appointed OC Paratroop Brigade. Following the terrorist
attack on bus No. 300 near Ashdod in April 1984, Mordechai, then a
brigadier-general, was suspected of involvement in the beating to death two
Palestinian terrorists who had been captured alive, but were subsequently
brought dead to hospital. He was cleared by a military court.
Mordechai was promoted to major-general in 1986, after which he served as OC Southern, Center, and Northern commands. During the intifada, when Mordechai was OC Southern Command, he was considered to favor using violent methods to suppress the violence. As OC Northern Command, he commanded Operation Accountability to strike back against terrorists in Lebanon in July 1993. He resigned from the IDF in October 1994, after failing to be appointed deputy to Amnon Lipkin-Shahak when the latter was appointed chief of General Staff.
In the course of his military service, Mordechai earned a BA in political science and Jewish history. After his resignation from the IDF he started to study agriculture and take courses toward an MA in political science. He participated in courses at the Sde Boker College on the heritage of David Ben-Gurion.
Mordechai joined the Likud in March 1996. In the Likud primaries before the elections to the 14th Knesset he unexpectedly came first and was appointed defense minister in the government formed by Binyamin Netanyahu in June 1996. In this job Mordechai was one of the more popular members of Netanyahu's government, and gained the sympathy of many in the Left for his positive attitude toward the peace process with the Palestinians, and especially his contribution to the attainment of the Wye agreement. Mordechai objected to a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, and pushed for the appointment of the Iranian-born Shaul Mofaz, rather than Matan Vilna'i, as Israel's 16th chief of General Staff.
Growing differences of opinion with Netanyahu over the implementation of the agreements with the Palestinians, and growing personal mistrust in him, led Mordechai to start talks with the leaders of the new Center Party -- Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Dan Meridor, and Ronni Milo -- about the possibility of leaving the Likud and joining them. On the evening of January 23, 1999, while Mordechai was meeting with the three at his home, and just several minutes after receiving a letter from Netanyahu informing him that he had decided to fire him, the prime minister announced his decision on live television, accusing Mordechai of unbridled ambition and disloyalty. Soon after it was announced that Mordechai would lead the Center Party and be its candidate for the premiership. Unlike the other leaders of the Center Party, Mordechai is traditionally religious and less committed to granting equality to the non-Orthodox Jewish religious streams in Israel. He is also the first Sephardi candidate for the premiership in Israel.
Israeli minister on sex charges
Yitzhak Mordechai: First Israeli minister to face sex charges
BBC - May 25, 2000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/763967.stm
Senior Israeli cabinet minister Yitzhak Mordechai has been charged with three offences of sexual assault, the justice ministry has announced.
Mr Mordechai, 55, is expected to resign from his cabinet post of transport minister next week, a statement said.
He is accused of attacking three women, including a 23-year-old employee who was allegedly locked in his office, thrown to the ground and groped.
Mr Mordechai has insisted that he did not carry out the assaults, but has previously said he would resign if charges against him went ahead.
It is the first time in Israeli history that a minister has faced sex charges.
Women's groups had demanded Mr Mordechai's resignation
A statement released by the justice ministry on Thursday confirmed that the case would go ahead.
"Attorney General Eliyakim Rubinstein decided Thursday to start judicial proceedings against Yitzhak Mordechai for three cases of sexual assault," said a statement, quoted by the French news agency.
It said the attorney-general would seek to remove Mr Mordechai's parliamentary immunity.
Mr Mordechai, who was born in Iraq, formed his own party, the Centre Party, after being sacked as defence minister by former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in January 1998.
Series of scandals
He was given the post of transport minister after entering the coalition government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Mr Mordechai had already stood down temporarily from the post while the accusations against him were investigated.
The allegations against Mr Mordechai are the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Israeli political elite in recent months.
Mr Barak's election fund-raising activities have been under investigation, along with alleged fraud and corruption by Mr Netanyahu and his wife.
An inquiry into corruption allegations against Israeli President Ezer Weizman was dropped, when police recommended that no further action be taken against him.
Israeli Official Is Found Guilty On Sex
Charges
By DEBORAH SONTAG
Published: March 22, 2001
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01EEDC163CF931A15750C0A9679C8B63
Yitzhak Mordechai, a former defense minister and transportation
minister, was convicted today of committing ''indecent acts'' against two
women subordinates. The court said that Mr. Mordechai had tried to use force
to molest the women.
It was the first time that a senior Israeli official had been convicted on such charges. Women's groups called the conviction an important step toward combating sexual harassment, which they say is a common abuse of power here.
Mr. Mordechai, who stepped down as transportation minister when he was indicted last year, said he would appeal the conviction. But it probably thwarts his political future after a swift, unexpected tumble from the top echelon of Israeli political life.
Mr. Mordechai, an Iraqi-born Kurdish Jew, had been a popular politician whose climb from poverty to military and political success was considered trail-blazing for Israelis of Middle Eastern descent. He ran as the first Sephardic candidate for prime minister in 1999, pulling out of the race in its final days when it was clear that Ehud Barak would win.
Mr. Mordechai, 56, looked pale and thin today as he emerged from a Jerusalem courthouse where he was found guilty of assaulting a female officer who served as his subordinate in the 1990's and of assaulting a political activist when she applied for a job in his defense ministry several years later. The prosecutor portrayed Mr. Mordechai as a politician who compulsively exploited his status to corner women subordinates and force himself on them.
Mr. Mordechai was found not guilty of sexual harassment of a clerk in the transport ministry because of what the court said were inconsistencies in her testimony. The clerk was the original complainant whose allegations, the most recent, caused the police to open an investigation into Mr. Mordechai.
''On the main central charge that began the whole process the court acquitted me,'' Mr. Mordechai said. ''I intend to fight with all my might until my last breath to prove my innocence and I believe I will.''
This afternoon, Mr. Mordechai announced that he would take a leave from Parliament pending the outcome of his appeal. Other lawmakers pushed for his outright dismissal.
Israeli politician guilty of sex
charges
BBC - March 21, 2001
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1234420.stm
An Israeli court has found former Defence Minister
Yitzhak Mordechai guilty on two charges of sexual assault in a case activists
have hailed a turning point for women's rights in the country.
I will take all legal action to prove my innocence-- Yitzhak Mordechai
Once tipped as a possible future prime minister, Mr Mordechai could face seven years in jail after being convicted of making unwanted sexual advances.
Mr Mordechai - who is the first senior Israeli public official to be convicted of sex offences - says he is innocent and plans to appeal. Sentencing is expected in April.
His prominence has generated intense media interest in the trial. Israeli women's groups sought to focus attention on the case, saying that sexual harassment is rarely prosecuted in the country.
The court is sending a very clear message to men...they can no longer say, 'We didn't know' --Zehava Galon, Israeli legislator
Speaking after the verdict, Mr Mordechai, looking pale and drawn said: "I plan to fight with all my might in order to prove my innocence."
Outside the court women demonstrators chanted: "Which part of 'No' don't you understand".
Unwelcome advances
The case came to light a year ago when a 23-year-old employee at the Transportation Ministry said Mr Mordechai had shoved her onto a couch and put his hand under her blouse.
After the accusations were made public, two other women - a former soldier and a political activist - came forward with accounts of unwelcome sexual advances.
The court dismissed the charges brought by the Transportation Ministry employee, saying her testimony was inconsistent, but convicted Mr Mordechai of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the other two cases.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described the verdict as a regrettable event, and said he hoped that Mr Mordechai would "continue his legal battle and prove his innocence."
The highly decorated former general resigned as transport minister last May after first being charged, but remains a member of parliament.
Once a hero of Sephardi politics, Mordechai
guilty of sex charges
By NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency - Friday March 23, 2001
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/15733/edition_id/307/format/html/displaystory.html
JERUSALEM -- In a ruling that Israeli women's groups are hailing as a landmark, a former Cabinet minister and candidate for prime minister has been convicted of sexually assaulting and harassing two women.
In its ruling Wednesday, a Jerusalem court cleared Yitzhak Mordechai of similar charges brought by a third woman, citing inconsistencies in her testimony. But the judges stressed this should not be interpreted as a repudiation of the woman's claim.
The third woman, identified only as S., was a secretary in Mordechai's office when he served as transportation minister under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
It was this woman's complaint that prompted prosecutors to investigate Mordechai -- and which ultimately persuaded the two other women to come forward with their own complaints.
Mordechai, whose wife left him after the allegations surfaced, faces a maximum of seven years in prison. He is expected to be sentenced next month.
Jeered by a group of women as he emerged from court, a haggard-looking Mordechai insisted he was innocent.
"I will fight with all my strength and to my last breath through every legal process to prove my innocence," Mordechai told reporters after the verdict was read out.
Mordechai had accused the media of a witch-hunt, and his attorney, Dror Arad Ayalon, accused the media and police of "conspiring" against his client.
Supporters said Mordechai had been charged with acts that were a norm in the Israeli army and political circles for decades.
But women's organizations hailed the ruling as a breakthrough in efforts to combat sexual harassment, saying it would encourage more women to come forward.
"It says the rules of the game have changed," said Zehava Gal-On, the Meretz legislator whom S. first approached with her complaint.
Mordechai stepped down as transportation minister last year when charges were filed against him. Though he remains a Knesset member, he has been virtually absent from legislative activity in the past year.
Mordechai said Wednesday he would suspend further participation in the Knesset until a decision is made on the appeal he lodged against the verdict, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Mordechai had served as defense minister in the government of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In 1999, after a split with Netanyahu, he left the Likud and ran for prime minister at the head of the newly formed Center Party, becoming the first major Sephardi candidate for prime minister.
Just days before the May 1999 election, Mordechai stepped out of the race, leaving the field open for Barak, who eventually won.
Mordechai went on trial last November for committing forced indecent acts on the three women while serving in the army, as defense minister and as transportation minister.
On Wednesday, Mordechai was found guilty of attacking one of two women, identified only as A., who was a soldier in his office when Mordechai headed the army's northern command in the 1990s.
In one incident in 1992, Mordechai drove A. to a secluded area and tried forcibly to kiss her. When she resisted his advances, he made her walk back to the base in the dark.
In another instance, he brought A. to his apartment in Netanya and then forcibly lay on top of her, wearing only a towel.
Israel watches hero fall in sex harassment
case
By PHIL REEVES
(NZ) Herald - Friday March 23, 2001
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=178723
JERUSALEM - In a spectacular fall from grace that
has transfixed Israel, Yitzhak Mordechai - former Defence Minister, decorated
war hero and candidate for the premiership - faces prison after being convicted
of sexual assault.
The verdict, applauded by women's rights campaigners, marks the end of the political career of a former general who was widely viewed as a public figure of impeccable standing and a role model for Israel's Sephardi population - Jews of Spanish or Portuguese descent.
Less than four years ago, he was being warmly received, as a minister under Benjamin Netanyahu, with an honour guard at the Pentagon.
Trembling, and on the verge of collapse, Mordechai emerged from the Jerusalem magistrate's court after being found guilty of having assaulted a woman under his command in the early 1990s and a second woman, a political aide, while he was in charge of the Defence Ministry.
The court found insufficient evidence to support a third assault charge levelled by a temporary worker with whom he worked when he was Transport Minister in the Government of Ehud Barak.
Mordechai said he would campaign to overturn the convictions. "I intend to fight with all my might ... and with all possible legal measures, to prove my innocence, and I believe that I will do that."
When he is sentenced next month he faces up to seven years in prison.
The case dominated news headlines, causing Israelis to switch their attention from the continuing violence to allegations of how the 55-year-old took one of his victims to his apartment, where he slipped to the bathroom, stripped off, lay on top of her and tried to kiss her.
Scandals in Israel, as in the United States, have become part of daily political life. In the last two years alone, they have engulfed a former President (Ezer Weizman, for accepting cash gifts), a former Interior Minister (Ariyeh Deri, now in jail for accepting bribes) and Ehud Barak's 1999 election campaign team (under investigation over alleged election finance law violations).
But this case threw the spotlight on the treatment of women in Israel, where activists have long complained that this kind of behaviour is commonplace in military and political circles. They greeted the verdict as a watershed.
"The court is sending a very clear message to men that the rules of the game have changed," said Zehava Galon, a liberal parliamentarian. "Men can no longer say, 'We didn't know'."
Since the scandal broke, Israel's armed forces have reported a sharp increase in the number of women willing to lodge complaints about sexual harassment.
Until recently, Mordechai's star was rapidly on the rise. In 1999, he was a contender for prime minister, but dropped out at the last minute to give Ehud Barak a better chance against Netanyahu.
The Iraqi-born soldier, who is of Kurdish Jewish origins, was the first Sephardi Israeli to run for the premiership.
In 1984, he was blamed for beating to death two Palestinians who were under interrogation, but it emerged that senior officials in Israel's Shin Bet security service had framed him. The agency's own operatives were responsible.
Although he acknowledged pistol-whipping the captives, he won much praise in Israel for his stoic handling of the affair.
Women's groups blast 'lenient sentence' for disgraced
minister
by Joseph Millis
Jewish Chronical (London) - May 1, 2001
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?AId=9957&ATypeId=1&search=true2&srchstr=sexual%20abuse&srchtxt=1&srchhead=1&srchauthor=1&srchsandp=1&scsrch=0
Israeli women's rights activists harshly criticised a suspended sentence handed down on Monday against former Defence Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, convicted on charges of sexually assaulting two female subordinates.
A three-judge panel gave Mordechai an 18-month suspended sentence, after convicting him in March of two of three cases brought against him.
Two male judges wrote that they weighed Mordechai's public achievements in determining the sentence. The dissenting judge, a woman, said the defendant should have served time in jail because of the severity of the offence.
Labour MK Yael Dayan, a women's rights activist - and the daughter of the late Moshe Dayan - said the sentence "bordered on the scandalous. The court sent a message here that the offence isn't all that terrible."
Tal Korman, who runs a centre to aid sexually abused women, said Mordechai should have been sent to prison. "The court is sending a very murky signal about sexual abuse," she said.
Last May, a 23-year-old employee at the Transport Ministry filed a complaint against Mordechai, the minister at the time, alleging that he had shoved her onto a couch and put his hand under her blouse.
After the accusations were made public, two other women - a former soldier and a political activist - came forward with similar allegations of sexual assault by Mordechai earlier in his career.
The court rejected the charges brought by the Transport Ministry employee, saying her testimony was inconsistent, but convicted Mordechai of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the other two cases.
Mordechai, stone-faced as he left the courtroom, said, "I am certain of my innocence, and I will appeal every verdict until I am found innocent."
Friends and supporters of Mordechai were in the courtroom. They rejected the sentence. "He was accused of something that was proved not to have happened," said Zvi Weiss, a friend, referring to the charge that was rejected.
Mordechai faced a maximum of seven years in prison. The prosecution is considering an appeal against the leniency of the sentence. "He exploited his rank. He abused his power," prosecutor Eli Abarbanel told army radio.
Legal commentator Moshe Negbi objected to the suspended sentence. "I am a father with a daughter serving in the army," he told Channel 1 TV. "I think that every father should be worried if this sentence blurs the message that military rank must not be exploited to take advantage of his daughter."
By Netty C. Gross
The Jerusalem Report - June 4, 2001
SECTION: Pg. 11
Was 1999 just two years ago? The question was posed one recent morning by an elderly resident of my Jerusalem neighborhood as she sifted through a stack of old newspapers before tossing them out. Indeed, glancing through the tabloids, those seemed, by comparison, such innocent times. Jordan's King Hussein was alive; Internet companies were sizzling; the peace process, however wobbly, was limping along; and, Yitzhak Mordechai, who had been fired as Bibi Netanyahu's defense minister, was being touted as a candidate for prime minister. ("It will either be Netanyahu and Barak, or Netanyahu and Mordechai" in the expected runoff, wrote one pundit.)
Accompanying photographs portrayed a thick-set, confident Mordechai shaking hands with Shas spiritual leader Ovadiah Yosef; another, at his 1997 wedding to a woman 25 years his junior. "And look at him now," sighed the woman, about 80. "He looks terrible. Skinny like a pencil. And his wife left him. It's so sad," she said wringing her hands.
At that moment, a neighbor - an 18-year old female soldier recently drafted intothe army - breezed by. In her case, two years really does make a difference, I observed silently. Just yesterday, it seemed, she was a kid; now, the uniform. There was something touching in her transition from shy schoolgirl to confident soldier.
Something scary too. In late April, two male judges - who evidently shared the older woman's sympathy - sentenced Mordechai, the highest-ranking Israeli public official and only prime ministerial candidate to ever be convicted of sexual assault, to an 18-month suspended jail term, explaining that they were averse to sending one of the country's greatest war heroes to prison. The third judge, a woman, wrote the dissenting opinion in favor of a four-month jail sentence.
According to the March verdict, on two separate occasions Mordechai attacked women who fended off his advances: One, an officer who worked for him in 1992; another, a married Likud activist who applied for a job in 1996 when he was that party's defense minister. For years they remained silent. It was the news that another woman had complained of a similar assault that led them to come forward.Ironically, Mordechai was acquitted of attacking her.
The state prosecutor's office is weighing an appeal against the sentencing, and Mordechai plans to appeal the verdict. The former jovial, contented pol, who has lost a ton of weight and developed an angry, haunted demeanor, continues to insist on his innocence. My elderly neighbor, for one, bought the ex-defense minister's victimizer-turned-victim act and felt he'd suffered enough. "And now, with the security situation what it is ... to jail a general?" she mumbled.
But it is the young draftee neighbor's world now. A friend, a leading academic who served decades ago under Mordechai, told me, quite casually, that "this stuff had been going on all the time. Girls used to come out of his office crying. But things are much better today."
Women's groups reacted with expected anger at Mordechai's light sentence; spokeswomen for Na'amat and WIZO and the Israel Women's Network say they are taking a wait-and-see approach, planning to wage both legal and public campaignsif the state does not file an appeal. Still, one can't help but notice a certainlack of public rage. A Saturday night demonstration in Tel Aviv was only attended by several hundred women. Na'amat legal counsel Michal Baron says Israelis are "just beginning to understand that what Mordechai did was a criminal offense and not an acceptable macho norm." Men, she says, like Mordechai, for whom women "are mere chattels" and Israeli women - like my elderly neighbor - who have been browbeaten into accommodating the situation, are "transitional figures."
And yet Baron, who recently represented Na'amat in a Supreme Court plea to overturn the appointment of Lt. Col. Yaron Be'eri to commander of the Southern Command's logistics unit, after receiving several complaints from married women soldiers about Be'eri's abusive behavior - including screaming, intimidation andmaking humiliating remarks about their job performance - acknowledges the difficulties of this transition period. The Mordechai conviction, she says, "wasa watershed event for us. That a man of his stature was found guilty is quite extraordinary. It's still very hard to get a conviction in these type of cases. The witnesses, typically, are terrified to come forward. This is a small country, and women are afraid to lose their jobs or get a reputation as a trouble-maker. It's also often hard to remember details in these type of cases, and the defense lawyers are very aggressive. Many women just crumble on the witness stand."
The judges, adds Baron, who says she anticipated Mordechai's light sentence, are also something of a mixed bag. "Some understand the severity of sexual harrassment, what it does to a woman to go through something like this, others don't." Still, Baron believes "there have been many positive changes. New social norms, which reflect the belief that aggressive male behavior toward women is not acceptable, are starting to sink in."
But not fast enough. Indeed, early May has seen a rash of violent sexual attackson young women by males, including the gang rape of a 17-year-old in Rishon Letzion, and the sodomizing of a 13-year-old girl in Ashdod by three youths. In the former case, one defendant simply said that he was just "having some fun."
I wonder what the elderly woman, who'd held on to those old, beaming press photos of Mordechai, thinks of that.
Ex-minister Mordechai seeking court's acquittal
By Yuval Yoaz
Haaretz - Tue., January 13, 2004
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/382297.html
Former defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai, left, with his attorney, Ram Caspi, arriving at the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court where closing arguments were heard yesterday in his legal action against a previous conviction for sexual harassment.
According to Mordechai, a letter written by one of the women after the trial could lead to his acquittal. The judges hearing the case will hand down their ruling at a later date. (Yuval Yoaz)
Ex-minister asks court to reconsider appeal in sex
abuse case By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
Haaretz - December 09, 2004 Kislev 26, 5765
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=512380
Former defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reconsider its decision not to hear his appeal of a conviction on sexual harrassment charges.
The Supreme Court refused to hear Mordechai's appeal last month, thereby putting an end to the former minister's three-and-a-half-year effort to overturn the ruling.
Mordechai was originally convicted in 2001 by the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court of sexually harassing two women. He appealed the conviction to the district court, which upheld it, and then to the Supreme Court.
His Supreme Court appeal centered on a letter written by N., one of the women Mordechai was convicted of harassing, some time after his conviction, in which she ostensibly retracted her complaint against him. Mordechai argued that this was grounds for overturning the conviction.
But Justices Mishael Cheshin, Eliezer Rivlin and Edmond Levy said the evidence that N. had been coerced into writing this letter was so strong that the attorney general should open an investigation into whether the pressure applied to her constitutes a crime in and of itself.
"We discovered a worrying development: an attempt to alter the results of a legal proceeding by cooking up a piece of evidence," Levy wrote for the court. "Such a phenomenon must not be overlooked. We therefore request that all the investigative material be transfered to the attorney general for an inquiry into whether any of those involved in the affair committed a crime."
However, the justices added, even had N.'s letter not been coerced, its wording indicates that she "was not expressing regret for having incriminated an innocent man, but rather sorrow for the suffering that his trial and conviction caused him."
Therefore, it could not constitute grounds for reversing the conviction, and there was no reason for them to bother hearing the appeal. Since Israeli law entitles a litigant to only one appeal, the court was not required to hear the case.
The justices stressed that given the evidence before them, the magistrate's court had been justified in deciding to convict, and they lambasted an attempt by Mordechai's lawyer to claim that his client's harassment of N. was merely "friendly."
"It would not be superfluous to once again recall that Mordechai bent over N. with the intention of having intimate relations with her, and if her claim that she did not consent to this is true, it is hard to understand what `friendliness' has to do with acts such as this," Levy wrote. "A woman's consent to physical contact of this nature is not self-evident, and Mordechai should have clarified this before stooping over N. and stretching his hand toward her breast."
What the IDF is hiding with a
towel
By Amir Oren
Haaretz - August 16, 2005 Av 11, 5765
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/612955.html
After a delay of decades, Israel Defense Forces soldiers are now enforcing the law in the territories. So much law is being enforced in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria (West Bank) that too little of it is left for the army inside Israel. At the Gelilot base, where the members of a respected committee pose for souvenir photographs in officers' uniforms, it again emerges that in the army's dictionary, law is a flexible term.
Law for the private and the captain is one thing, and for the major general - something quite different. Woe betide the stupid offender who is caught while he is still in the middle ranks. If you climb to the top of the ladder, you will not be caught, and if you are caught, your friends will come to your aid.
Thus, the tale of a soldier who gave a lift to a female soldier from Safed to Bat Yam, with a stop along the way in Netanya: The soldier, according to the judge advocate general, "wanted to stop to refresh himself at his apartment in Netanya, on false pretenses. She waited on the sofa for him to finish showering. He came out of the shower wearing only a towel, sat down beside her and suddenly lay down on her, tried to undress her and kissed her, ignoring her resistance. He rubbed his sexual organ against her crotch and at a certain stage stopped what he was doing. Then she crawled out from under his body and left the apartment hurriedly. The magistrate's court convicted him, after determining that it believed her. The district court approved the conviction, after confirming that she had been subjected to `compelling force.'"
An embarrassing matter. Had the soldier been a major, the JAG would have asked to have him demoted to staff sergeant or second lieutenant; a colonel - to captain. Three ranks, at least, as has been customary during the 50 years of the existence of Article 533 in the Military Trial Law, which allows the demotion of commanders who have been convicted of offenses that involve moral turpitude and their expulsion from the career army or from the reserves, even if the offenses, the courts and the convictions were civilian. The article is supposed to be a deterrent to those who are keen to hang on to their ranks as a selling point in their civilian lives and in politics, and also to prevent military people from seeking refuge in civilian courts.
But the soldier is Yitzhak Mordechai, who was convicted of committing an indecent act in aggravated circumstances on a female officer, his personal secretary, when he was GOC Southern Command, and of committing an indecent act on a female political activist when he was defense minister, again the very model of a major politician who preaches to the ranks. From Netanya to Motza, the behavior pattern of the serial attacker did not change: an invitation on some pretext to his apartment, overwhelming, the application of force, determined mauling, cease-fire, disengagement.
Mordechai's supporters do not understand what the problem is here: A sex offender is one thing and a major general is another. The JAG, Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit, understands. He puts Mordechai's deeds "at the upper threshold of the scale of indecent acts" and also speaks about another threshold, "the threshold of behavior expected of an officer," which rises as the officer advances in rank. Therefore Mandelblit is demanding "a real blow" to his rank, the implication being a demotion by three ranks.
Mandleblit's demand was met with a forgiving attitude at the Vinograd-Yaari-Telraz committee, one of whose members, Aviezer Yaari, is a major general in the reserves. His colleagues, retired Supreme Court Justice Eliyahu Vinograd and attorney Yosef Telraz, received representative acting ranks of major general and in the blink of an eye began to radiate a sense of belonging to the major generals' club. There is no woman on the committee; among the six judges who convicted Mordechai, the two women were severe and the men were lenient.
To do well by Mordechai and to justify a decision that will affect his rank but little, if at all, the members of the Vinograd committee made requests of both sides: It asked the JAG "to consider whether it is possible to submit a new, revised and refined position" and it requested from Mordechai's attorneys "a document that details his life and activities."
Ram Caspi, one of the lawyers representing Mordechai, was hasty at first and expressed bitterness. "This isn't Buzaglo," said Caspi, referring to the Israeli surname used colloquially to indicate an average, possibly lower-class citizen. "The judges realized that this was Yitzhak Mordechai. Do they need his personal file? They didn't send him to prison. Had it been anyone else, maybe he would indeed have gone to prison."
Thus Mordechai is supposed to benefit twice. He was not sent to prison, because he is a major general, and he will remain a major general, because he was not sent to prison.What Mordechai will say of himself is not hard to guess. But this is not necessarily the only version.
The public and Mordechai's victims apparently do not have any standing with the Vinograd committee. The army, which is not ashamed of what was concealed behind Mordechai's towel, has left its owner to the JAG's determination. Much depends on Mandelblit's ability to stand up to pressure in the committee and the media, to defend the IDF's values from the major generals' club and to appeal the decision, if he believes it contradicts these values, in the Military Court of Appeals.
Former Defense Minister Mordechai allowed entry to
US
By Itamar Eichner
YNet News - May 23, 2008
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3546928,00.html
Visa granted after Olmert tells US officials Mordechai rehabilitated, does not pose threat to American public despite sex offenses
Former Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai was granted a visa by the US embassy in Tel Aviv at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's request, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Friday.
Mordechai's initial request for a visa, which was filed some four months ago, was rejected by the Americans due to his past conviction for sexual misconduct.
However, during President George W. Bush's first visit to Israel Olmert asked a number of senior US officials intervene in the matter while taking into account that Mordechai had been rehabilitated and does not pose a threat to the American public.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak's office also turned to the Americans on Mordechai's behalf.
Meanwhile, Mordechai also filed an appeal with the American embassy, which was reportedly debated among some of the highest-ranking officials in Washington. The appeal was eventually accepted and Mordechai flew to US a few days ago for a 10-day private visit.
During his tenure as defense minister between 1996 and 1999 under then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mordechai was considered the darling of the US administration and was a welcome guest at the White House and the Pentagon.
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Last Updated: 06/19/2008
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