JERUSALEM Former Israeli defence minister Yitzhak Mordechai, once a rising star in Israeli politics, was sentenced to an 18-month suspended jail term on Monday in a sex crimes case that put Israeli machismo on trial, Reuters said.

The former general looked pale and gaunt as he sat in court to hear the sentence for sexually assaulting two women during his army career. Mordechai, 56, sighed with relief when he heard he would not be jailed.

Women's groups, which have fought against what they see as long-entrenched sexual harassment in Israel's army and public institutions, called Mordechai's trial a landmark case.

A three-judge panel in the Bait-ul-Moqaddas magistrates court said they took account of Mordechai's military career in deciding not to send him to jail. The maximum term for his crimes is seven years in prison.

"I am certain of my innocence and I will appeal any judgement until I am acquitted," Mordechai told reporters as he left the courtroom. He declined to say whether he would return to politics.

Mordechai served as defence minister in former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

An Iraqi-born Kurd, he ran for prime minister but pulled out of the race hours before a May 1999 ballot, helping Ehud Barak win the election. He resigned as Barak's transportation minister after the sexual assault charges were brought against him.

-----Political Career Shattered-----

Mordechai's fortunes have taken a downturn since police began an investigation last March following complaints from at least three women who accused him of sexually assaulting them during his time as a cabinet minister and army general.

The court convicted him on two counts of sexual assault during his 32-year army career, acquitting him of a third charge relating to his term as transportation minister.

The scandal shattered Mordechai's budding political career and coincided with the divorce from his wife, Kochi, who is almost 30 years his junior and was his aide before they married.

Yael Dayan, the daughter of Israeli warmonger Moshe Dayan, said she hoped Mordechai's conviction would serve as a warning to other Israeli military men and politicians not to abuse their positions to sexually harass women.

"Norms are sometimes twisted," she told Israeli television, expressing the hope that sexual harassment would become a thing of the past in the Israeli army, where women, like men, are conscripted at the age of 18.