does he deserve the benefits?

Everyone is up in arms that former President Moshe Katzav has rented, on the government and taxpayer dime, offices in the most lucrative of office buildings, and a luxury car. All this while he is under investigation for sexual misconduct and possibly rape.

The truth is that the whole thing is wholly insensitive of Katzav. Considering the free fall the economy is heading into, the way it is in the world economy and the increasing amount of people being laid off and pension funds disappearing and the like, he perhaps could have been more sensitive to the financial standing of the country and rented more modest offices, and hired a more modest car.

but I understand him. He was attacked, and I am sure he thinks he is innocent. He was already declared guilty in the media, and therefore he is lambasted for fighting for his innocence. he probably feels he has been given a raw deal, and therefore he wants to squeeze out every penny, or shall I say agura, that the law says is coming to him.

But the greater issue, the one more upsetting to people, is not the high price tag of his rentals, but the fact that the State has to pay for an office for him at all.

And to that I say too bad. It is coming to him. He is a former president of Israel. No matter what he did, nothing has been proven yet, and from the way it has been dragging on, it looks like nothing there is going to be easy to prove. He lost his job because of the suspicion, but former presidents are, by law, entitled to certain benefits. He deserves those benefits just like any other former president does.

Are those benefits too high? I think so. And I think the law should be changed to lessen the benefits to former presidents, to former MKs and all those others who eat off the public dime. But as long as the law says this is what they get, I see nothing wrong with Moshe Katzav taking what is coming to him.