Australia went through a period of awkwardness when then Governor-General Peter Hollingworth was accused of having covered up sexual abuse in the Anglican church. But that’s nothing compared to what Israel is now going through with its head of state.

Israeli president Moshe Katsav has been under investigation for several months for what started out as claims of sexual harassment but have progressively become more serious. The investigators have now recommended that he be charged with rape, sexual assault and fraud.

Israel, like Australia, has a Westminster system of government, where the head of state is a largely ceremonial figure. Under Israeli Basic Law, the president is assigned such fundamental tasks as appointing the prime minister, accrediting diplomats, signing treaties, granting pardons, and so forth.

Unlike our Governor-General, the president cannot be appointed and removed at the will of the prime minister. Election is by a simple majority in the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), and the president can only be removed by a vote of three quarters of the Knesset, for “conduct unbecoming his status as President of the State.”

These are normal provisions for a head of state; Australia will probably have something similar when we become a republic. But allegations of such serious crimes are very much abnormal, more characteristic of a banana republic than a robust democracy like Israel. (Recall for example Canaan Banana, first president of Zimbabwe, later jailed for homosexual assault.)

When he was elected in 2000, Katsav was a surprise selection and the first Israeli president to come from the right-wing Likud party. He has dismissed the allegations as a politically motivated witch-hunt, but most observers regard his position as untenable.

Although a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, it is assumed that the filing of charges would induce Katsav’s resignation – he has already absented himself from the opening of the Knesset’s winter session “to protect the dignity of the Knesset.” Certainly the dignity of the president is going to need some refurbishment.