Plea Deal for Israeli President Challenged

New York Times:

JERUSALEM (AP) A plea bargain that would allow Israel's former president to avoid rape charges and jail time has drawn a fierce public backlash, with protests in Tel Aviv and a Supreme Court appeal on Sunday that have put the deal in doubt. ...

The Supreme Court might take the rare step of declaring the plea bargain unacceptable and sending it back for revision, said Noya Rimalt, an expert on criminal law and feminist legal theory at Haifa University.

In announcing the plea bargain, Mazuz said one of his considerations was the reputation of the Israeli presidency and his desire to avoid a prolonged trial with painful headlines -- a point Rimalt said could be legally invalid and might provide a motive for the court to strike down the deal.

Even if the Supreme Court chooses to let the deal go ahead, a lower court that has to approve it could decide that the sentence is too light and impose a heavier one, Rimalt said.

The public outcry might also play a role.

''Judges are not supposed to be affected by such things, but of course they're human beings,'' Rimalt said.

The outcry over Katzav's plea deal is evidence of a slow evolution in Israeli public opinion, once tolerant of sexual misbehavior by high-ranking public figures, said Tziona Koenig-Yair, executive director of the Israel Women's Network, one of the three groups behind the Supreme Court appeals.

Israeli heroes like Moshe Dayan were reputedly notorious philanderers, an excess that the country's macho culture was willing to accept decades ago. But that changed...