The president of the State of Israel, Moshe Katsav, unlike his predecessor Maj. Gen. Ezer Weizman, is not well known in the United Kingdom, although the recent lurid press coverage of his alleged sexual activities is making up for this deficit. He was born in Iran in 1945 and emigrated to Israel six years later.

He was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and became a newspaper reporter. He got into the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) in 1977 and rose to become the deputy prime minister and minister for Israeli-Arab affairs. He was elected president in July 2000.

There is much to be said for having an elected, constitutional and nonparty political head of state, who is above the dogfighting of the day, and whose task it is to look after the formal side of national life — the official receptions and greetings and set piece parades and occasions.

I am a great admirer of Mary Robinson who was an outstanding president of Ireland. Through her intelligence, legal experience, time in the Irish Senate, style, charm and diplomacy she was an exemplary influence and a splendid ambassador for her country when abroad.

While having very few powers under the Irish Constitution — one of the best, if not the best, in the world — she carefully selected her causes and cultural interests, nurtured her favorite charities and set a very high standard for public life.

I first took an interest in the Israeli presidency when Ezer Weizman was in post. A colorful character, and former Spitfire pilot and co-founder of the Israeli Air Force in 1947, he clashed regularly with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. In July 1998 he launched a carefully calculated attack on the government which appeared to have been designed to try to bring it down. He called for early elections. He told a television interview:

“I reached my red line. I am not willing to help Netanyahu any longer. It is not possible that everyone is angry at us — the US, Europe, President Mubarak, King Hussein — and only we are right. The peace process is not going anywhere and no one should try and tell me otherwise.”

I found it magnificent, although he had abandoned all conventions, forgot the traditional limits of his office and ignored his lack of a political mandate. Both he and the government survived!

President Moshe Katsav is a very different individual. The police in Israel have recommended that he should be charged with raping and sexually assaulting a number of young women. The police would only make such a recommendation after the most painstaking inquiry by their best people, and after consideration of all the evidence at the top level. Their reputation is at stake.

The police searched the president’s home and his office and claim to have found evidence of both fraud and illegal wiretapping of his employees’ phones.

The Israeli media, which is agreeably lively and able to represent a wide range of political and other opinions, has been having a field day. Ha’aretz reported that a woman, identified only as “B” told them:

“When I came into the minister’s office my colleagues told me: ‘We’ll see if you get through the first 100 days.’ I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that the minister’s behavior was the best-kept secret in the system.”

Yediot Aharonot, another Tel Aviv paper, asked:

“Who would credit that the president of Israel is a sex fiend? Yet having completed a three-month investigation into claims by seven women of rape and sexual harassment, the police — to our shock and shame — are recommending that Moshe Katsav be prosecuted.”

Ynet, the web news group, quoted Sheikh Darwish, a leader of Israel’s Islamic Movement:

“I cannot accept that such a distinguished media in a democratic nation would hang the president in the town square before an indictment is even filed. We are a country governed by laws, so let the law do its job.”

In the right-wing The Jerusalem Post Uri Dan took a different line:

“Good people of Israel, have pity. If the attorney general recommends Katsav be indicted, it will force the Knesset to vote him out of office immediately (since he can’t be indicted while president) — and that in turn would destroy what little is left of our country’s dignity. Far better if the women who claim to have been molested can be persuaded to drop their case. (They already have their pound of flesh in terms of the public humiliation heaped upon Katsav.) That way the president will no longer have an incentive to cling to office he can step down and allow the scandal to flicker out.”

This follows the case of former Justice Minister Haim Ramon who went on trial only days ago for forcibly kissing a female soldier at an office party.