Calls Mount for Israeli President to Resign Over Cash Gifts

President Ezer Weizman, a blunt-spoken politician beloved by many Israelis, faced mounting pressure Tuesday to resign following allegations of financial impropriety.

Amid calls in several newspapers for him to step down, Weizman said he is not prepared to quit his largely ceremonial post over the recent disclosure that he accepted substantial financial gifts from a French businessman, whom the 75-year-old president describes as a close friend. Weizman has acknowledged receiving gifts totaling $450,000 over several years from the businessman, Edouard Saroussi, but denies any wrongdoing.

“I am going through a period that is not easy, but I will pass through it,” Weizman said in a statement broadcast Tuesday on government-owned radio and television stations. “I am waiting to see what the prosecutors decide. . . . I am not ready to resign.”

Nonetheless, the controversy swirling around Weizman sparked speculation in Israeli newspapers and on radio talk shows Tuesday about a successor, with former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, among the favorites.

State Atty. Edna Arbel launched an investigation Monday into the allegations of impropriety, which were first made in a news conference last week by investigative reporter Yoav Yitzhak. The journalist, who contends that Weizman broke the law by not reporting the gifts to tax authorities or to parliament, called another news conference Tuesday to accuse Weizman of continuing to accept money even after he was elected president in 1993.

In his initial meeting with reporters last week, Yitzhak said the president accepted the gifts from Saroussi in monthly allowances between 1988 and 1993, when Weizman was a legislator and Cabinet minister. On Tuesday, the journalist said Weizman and unidentified family members also received money from the businessman between 1993 and 1995.

Yitzhak also said that Weizman had pocketed thousands of dollars in donations that Saroussi made to Yahad, a small political party Weizman headed in the 1980s.

Aryeh Shumer, the director of the president’s office, reacted angrily to the latest allegations and described persistent reports that Weizman might resign as “malicious rumors.” He urged Yitzhak to release any further information he possesses about the case and stop “trickling it out” to the Israeli media.

Shumer, in an interview on Israeli television, also reiterated statements by Weizman that the funds were personal gifts from a friend who has no ties to Israel. As gifts, the spokesman said, they were not considered taxable under Israeli law.

But Israeli news reports have said Saroussi owns a home in Israel, in Kfar Shmaryahu north of Tel Aviv, and has been linked to several business ventures here. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Weizman’s aides and associates told Israeli newspapers that Saroussi had given the money partly to pay for medical care for Weizman’s son, Shaul, who was disabled in 1970 by a sniper’s bullet fired across the Suez Canal. Shaul Weizman died in 1991 in a car accident.

Ezer Weizman’s attorney, Yaakov Weinroth, later said that whether or not the money was for Shaul Weizman’s care, the president would not use that as a defense in any legal case against him.

A colorful former fighter pilot who became a wholly unorthodox politician, Weizman is no stranger to controversy. In fact, he has often seemed to relish it, remaking his nonpartisan, mainly ceremonial job into a platform from which to voice his outspoken opinions, often about the peace process.

Polls show that Weizman is hugely popular, with approval ratings often around 70%. But he has also angered many Israelis, becoming known for his loose, occasionally crude tongue, along with his committed peacemaking.

A onetime hawk turned passionate dove, Weizman has become a particular thorn to the Israeli right, which has accused him of violating practically every unwritten rule of his office by engaging in politics.

Last week, Weizman outraged right-wing politicians anew when he declared that he would “go home” to his private residence in the coastal town of Caesarea if Israelis failed to approve an Israeli-Syrian peace deal. Talks aimed at reaching such an agreement are underway this week in rural West Virginia, and Prime Minister Ehud Barak has promised to let Israelis vote on any accord in a binding national referendum.

In an editorial Monday, the liberal Haaretz newspaper, which has often applauded Weizman’s peacemaking efforts, urged him to resign, three years before the end of his second term. Even an eventual ruling that the gifts were legal should make no difference, the newspaper said.

“With high-ranking public positions, it is impossible to come to consensus as to the distinction between private gifts and those that are given for purposes of bribery,” Haaretz said. “Weizman must step down as president now.”

The English-language Jerusalem Post followed suit Tuesday. “Either the strong scent of corruption or the distortion of the president’s role beyond recognition should be grounds for resignation,” the newspaper said. “The combination makes Weizman’s presidency untenable.”