Did Israel's judicial system cover up sex scandal?

In the summer of 2006, two senior police officers rushed to Guatemala to convince "H" to return to Israel and testify against former Justice Minister Haim Ramon. H was a female officer in the office of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Ramon was suspected of having kissed her against her will several weeks earlier. Initially, H did not want to submit a police complaint, but heavy pressure was exerted on her by, among others, Lt.-Cmdr. Miri Golan, who served at the time as head of the police department’s National Fraud Squad.

The police and state attorney turned Ramon’s kiss into the serious offense of sexual harassment. No one denied that Ramon’s behavior was problematic, but equally troubling were the efforts and resources invested in pressuring H to complain to the police and then testify against the high-level minister. At the time, Ramon was attempting to implement structural changes in the Justice Department. He was eventually convicted of harassment, and to this day, Ramon blames the state attorney and police, claiming that they had ulterior motives to discredit him.

Eight years later, Ramon’s arguments are again relevant amid the current accusations of sexual harassment leveled against Nazareth District Court Judge Yitzhak Cohen. Cohen had been a candidate for Supreme Court justice until the beginning of September, when a criminal investigation commenced against him on suspicion of harassing and perpetrating indecent acts against various women.

One of the incidents being investigated ostensibly took place about two years ago, when Cohen allegedly sexually harassed a female prosecutor from northern Israel. It turns out that the then-state prosecutor, Moshe Lador, had learned about the incident shortly after it happened, when the district attorney reported to him what the female prosecutor had told her. This information was also relayed to Cohen’s deputy, Judge Tawfik Katili.