Weizman probe

JANUARY 22: Unprecedented criminal proceedings launched against Israeli President Ezer Weizman for his business links with a French millionaire while a minister, have split the public down the middle, according to a poll published on Friday. Forty-one percent of the respondents said their head of state should resign in the light of the proceedings, while 39 percent said he should not, a majority of two percent which was well within the poll's margin of error of four percent. A full 20 per cent of the respondents expressed no opinion in the poll published by Israel's top-selling daily Yediot Aharanot.

The poll was carried out after Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein's announcement of the criminal investigation into Weizman over allegations that he received nearly half-a-million dollars from businessman Edouard Saroussi between 1989 and 1993 when he was an MP and then a minister.

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