Attorney general to rule Sunday on Shalom harassment probe
7 women publicly accuse the Likud minister of sexual harassment in the past decade; police ‘gathering material’ for possible investigation; probe is later closed
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein will convene a special meeting of senior law enforcement officials to consider ordering an investigation into multiple allegations of sexual harassment made in recent days against Interior Minister Silvan Shalom, the Walla news site reported.
Though no complaints have been made to police, two more women came forward Thursday to allege that Shalom sexually harassed them while he was their boss, bringing the total number of public complaints to seven, Channel 2 reported Thursday.
Shalom has strenuously denied the allegations.
(Update: The allegations against Shalom were not substantiated and a police investigation was subsequently closed.)
Police were “gathering material” against Shalom in case the attorney general orders an investigation. There may be two additional complaints that were received by a women’s group but were not made public, Channel 2 said.
The Sunday meeting will include senior Justice Ministry and police officials, and will decide, among other things, which law enforcement agency will conduct the investigation. According to Walla, the investigation is expected to be handed to the police’s top anti-corruption body, Lahav 433.
Investigators will approach the women who made the accusations in order to determine if evidence exists for a criminal investigation. They will also ask the women to file formal complaints.
Zionist Union MK Shelly Yachimovich urged Shalom to suspend himself. Meretz leader Zehava Galon called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order the Likud minister’s suspension.
On Thursday, Shalom’s outspoken media-personality wife, Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes, wrote a tweet that seemed to imply she was collecting information about the women who are claiming her husband harassed them.
“In the end I will speak. Each [of the women] has a past and a present and the facts are coming to my attention. For now, anyway, there is no chance of any objectivity and I’m not in the mood to badmouth [the women],” she tweeted. Minutes later, she deleted the tweet.
The two women who came forward on Thursday were not previously known to the police. They alleged instances of sexual harassment from four and six years ago.
Allegations of sexual harassment already surfaced against Shalom a year and a half ago, when he was running for president.
The accounts of the various women were similar and seemed to point to “a pattern” of alleged behavior by Shalom, according to a Channel 2 analysis.
One accuser said the alleged offenses against her were from over a decade ago, beyond the statute of limitations.
On Wednesday, two former employees of Shalom described to Channel 2 the minister’s alleged method. One woman, identified only by the initial G., told police that the interior minister made unwanted advances and physical contact with her frequently, to the point that she was worried about being alone with him.
“The first time happened on a trip abroad,” G. said. “Silvan asked me to come to his hotel room at the end of the day and there he waited for me without a robe, completely naked.”
“I heard the version of the first complainant and those were simply the same sentences he used,” G. said. “‘Come sit beside me, you do me good, this is our night now, this is our time, why don’t you love me too?’ Since then I was concerned about flying with him.”
She conveyed her account to Channel 2 hours after another woman leveled similar allegations against Shalom in an interview with the Hebrew-language newspaper Haaretz. Shalom denied the Haaretz account.
According to the unnamed woman in the Haaretz story, Shalom often tried to touch her when they were at work. On some occasions, when they were sitting together in the backseat of a car, he put his hand between her legs and tried to touch her. It was only because of the clothing she was wearing at the time that he failed to do so, she claimed.
Hotel visits were the most traumatic, as Shalom would call her to his room and grope her, she said. The woman asserted that she repeatedly pushed the minister’s hands away and told him to stop. Following the alleged hotel assaults, the woman claimed she was so upset it made her physically ill and she would sometimes miss days of work.
In an effort to prevent the unwanted advances, the woman said, she asked that another employee accompany her on occasions when she needed to work outside of the office with Shalom, to limit the amount of time she would have to spend alone with him.
The woman recalled that each time she rejected Shalom’s advances he would immediately stop, but then begin again later on. She stressed that she never agreed that Shalom touch her and that she never had sex with him.
The report did not say when the woman worked with Shalom or in what position.
Shalom has spent decades in politics, previously serving as foreign minister and a number of other high-level positions.
The woman insisted she is not seeking revenge and does not want to see the minister jailed.
According to the Haaretz report, the woman was asked to explain why she continued to work with Shalom for such an extended period and under such conditions, and why she bought the minister a going-away gift when she left the job. She countered that she loved her job but eventually the harassment became too much for her to bear.
In a statement, Shalom’s office rejected the allegations as baseless.
“These are claims that have no basis. The matter was thoroughly checked in the past by law enforcement and, in accordance with a decision by the attorney general and the opinions of the police and the prosecutor, the matter ended with nothing.”
Knesset members from the opposition Meretz party on Wednesday turned to Weinstein and requested that he instruct police to conduct a criminal investigation into the allegations against Shalom.
In a letter, MKs Galon, Michal Rozin and Tamar Zandberg wrote: “An elected official cannot barricade himself in silence or suffice with a laconic denial in the media. He must give his account and provide his version to the police.
“We request,” they continued, “that you instruct the police to summon Minister Shalom to an interrogation in light of repeated accusations of sexual harassment from his female subordinates.”
Allegations of sexual misconduct have dogged Shalom in the past, and some have speculated they were what prompted him to drop out of the 2014 race to become president.
The Times of Israel Community.