Who by gunfire and who by rape

Yom Kippur is a good half a year away, but Sunday represents a judgment day of sorts for at least two people who find themselves dominating the news agenda: former president and current convicted rapist Moshe Katsav, who is hoping to be sprung from the can early, and the unnamed soldier at the center of the Hebron shooting brouhaha, who’s hoping to avoid ending up there at all.

Both cases jostle for prominence in the three major dailies, but aside from some great plots of print real estate, things don’t look especially good for either Katsav or the soldier.

Haaretz reports that the path to damnation for the shooting soldier is becoming clearer and clearer, though an upcoming autopsy of his victim could prove to be his salvation.

“The prosecution will be able to decide what charges are to be brought against the soldier after receiving the report of the autopsy, which is to take place on Sunday at the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine. If the autopsy shows that the Palestinian, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, was still alive when the soldier shot him, as the evidence, including testimony from the shooter himself, indicates, the soldier is expected to be indicted for manslaughter,” the paper reports.

Israel Hayom also leads off with the Hebron story, but seems less sure that an indictment is barreling down the pipeline and takes the angle of trying to make it instead a heartbreaking story about his family.

“The mother brought food for Shabbat,” reads the paper’s bizarre headline on the story, which focuses mostly on the court case and the upcoming autopsy, but also details his family’s visit to him while he remains in supervised detention.

“I want to thank the Jewish people for the strength you’ve given us in these very hard days. The way is long and the truth will come out,” the paper quotes the soldier’s father saying.

Further cementing Israel Hayom’s place as the go-to tabloid for those holding near-daily rallies in support of the shooter, Boaz Bismuth seemingly wades into their camp with a commentary in which he puts “injured Palestinian” in scare quotes, and makes the same “we don’t know anything yet” argument as the folks defending the soldier, while donning a guise of even-handedness.

“The two activist camps – for and against the soldier – want to paint the complicated reality of the Middle East in black and white. Only at the end of the trial will we get a verdict: guilty or innocent. Until then we should maybe sit patiently, something we are not great at. It’s better not to jump to conclusions, even if they dovetail with the narrative of one camp or another,” he writes.

In Yedioth Ahoronoth’s op-ed page, Kobi Richter isn’t waiting to pass judgment, but who he declares guilty is not whom one might think.

“We, the parents and grandparents on both sides of the trigger and knife handle, are guilty,” he writes. “We, who have created between us an environment that forces them to make decisions beyond their abilities and age. We, who have given them a present without a future, and who force them to cut down their own lives,” he writes. “We, all the fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers on both sides of the Green Line, are guilty like me – and for their children’s sake need to stop exhorting the parents of the other side and take on only what they have the ability to change.”

Compare that even-handed indictment with a column from Haaretz’s Rogel Alpher, which also blames the country as a whole, but takes the word shrill to whole new levels. The man who compared a bereaved rabbi quoted on the radio to an Islamic State preacher and dared to speak ill of hummus now heralds the end of Israel as a state and crowns IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot as the next Yitzhak Rabin, somehow comparing Rabin’s assassination to some criticism aimed at the army for the prosecution of the soldier.

“Anyone who supports the soldier does not recognize the authority of Chief of Staff Eisenkot to command the army. Anyone who supports the soldier does not recognize the authority of the chief of staff to serve under the laws of the State of Israel. There are higher laws. They are the laws of the Jewish republic. They are stronger than democracy, stronger than the rule of law. Israel has ceased to exist,” he writes. “The soldier who murdered the terrorist in Hebron serves the army of the Jewish nation, not the Israel Defense Forces. He is a soldier of the Jewish republic, exactly like Yigal Amir. For him, Eisenkot does not count. He has raised the banner of rebellion against the traitor Eisenkot. That’s why he is a hero.”

Rape? Just a big misunderstanding

Alpher, of course, once famously apologized to his future killer, in a much ridiculed column. One person who isn’t doing any apologizing in Moshe Katsav, though he is still hoping to shave off a third of his time behind bars for sexually harassing women, a decision all papers report was due Sunday (in the end the decision was pushed off until Wednesday).

The papers seem to all play the decision as one weighing the horribleness of prison for Katsav against his lack of remorse.
Yedioth’s front page story offers little new other than recounting his appearance before the parole committee last week, including this pathetic passage.

“In a broken voice, during which he broke into tears, he glumly described his situation and vociferously denied he hurt any women and didn’t express remorse over the rapes and sexual harassment he was convicted of,” the paper recounts.

Of course, expressing remorse is supposed to be one of the key factors in deciding whether to spring him early, though the paper recounts in a pros and cons column it’s not a precondition, and also notes in his favor his good behavior and the extra punishment of the fact that this has played out in the public eye. Against him, though is the fact that he didn’t undergo any sexual predator rehab and his victims are against him getting out early.

Haaretz reports that instead of saying he’s sorry, Katsav made do in the parole hearing with claiming it was all just a big mix-up, which the paper doesn’t hold out much hope for the judge’s being okay with.

“Sources in the prosecutor’s office noted that Katsav’s testimony in the last hearing argued that his conviction was the result of a misunderstanding on the part of the women involved. This shows he still doesn’t recognize the seriousness of his offenses, they said,” the paper reports. “Sources who have seen the parole hearing transcript said that Katsav claimed he had close relationships with the complainants, but because they were young and generally inexperienced, they didn’t understand the nature of the relationship and interpreted it differently. … Katsav came to the last hearing accompanied by four lawyers, including lead attorney Zion Amir, who reportedly slammed the female complainants. If Amir’s comments also reflect Katsav’s views, there are no grounds for shortening his jail term, the sources said.”

Despite all that, Israel Hayom quotes sources telling Channel 2 that Katsav believes in the justness of his request for early release. However, the paper notes, “he isn’t optimistic.”