President Katsav of Israel has the benefit of a good deal. Following complaints of rape and sexual harassment (by and of women) and investigation of those complaints the Attorney General of Israel has made the deal with him.

Under the deal he will plead guilty to minor sexual offences and will not be tried for rape. He will resign two weeks ahead of the expiry of his term of office.

The complainants do not appear to have agreed to the deal. The first complainant, “Ms A�, stated:

It [the deal]

gave sex offenders license and legitimacy to do anything they want with impunity.

The Attorney General gave as his reason

it was important to spare Israel the sight of a president on trial.

There could be no better example of an act taken for “Raisons d’Etat�, and of course what happened was not a judicial process being a classic insider fix and a denial of the Rule of Law.

It should always be remembered, the State is an abstraction and the women are real. To prefer an abstraction over a person is to promote crime.

The interests of the State, but more importantly, the people, require that the deal not stand.