Israel: a sick, confused and racist society

Unravelling the Israeli Arab 'rape by deception' case

By Dina Newman BBC News

New evidence has emerged in the widely-reported case of Sabbar Kashur, an Israeli Arab who was found guilty of rape by deception after having sex with an Israeli Jewish woman.

Back in July, it was reported that the two met in a Jerusalem street in 2008, had consensual sex within 10 minutes of meeting each other.  Two weeks later the young woman discovered that he was an Arab, not a Jew, and went to the police.

After his verdict was announced in July, Kashur protested his innocence in an interview to the BBC: "The whole case focussed on the fact that I am an Arab. It was real racism. The court insisted that I presented myself as a Jew and not as an Arab which is not true."

The conviction of Sabbar Kashur generated a heated debate around the world about racism, sexual mores and justice in the Jewish state.

It was also reported at the time that Kashur was charged with rape and indecent assault, and the conviction of rape by deception was a result of a plea bargain.

New details in the case emerged when the woman's testimony, which had been kept secret, was declassified last week (what?!  that the 'victim's' name not be released is understandable, but why in the world would a criminal case be *classified*?!)

It shows an emotionally disturbed woman who had been sexually abused by her father from the age of six, forced into prostitution, and lived in a women's shelter at the time of the encounter with Kashur.

During her initial testimony, she repeatedly broke down in court as she accused Kashur of rape.  She was adamant she did not want sex at the time of the encounter, but was looking for a lasting relationship.

Asked why she went into an office block with a strange man, she said: "You have to understand where I came from. I used to live in the streets. I needed someone to place my trust in. I felt I was safe with him."

Following the encounter with Kashur, the victim - identified only as B in the testimony - says she was taken away in an ambulance half naked and bleeding.  However, Lital Grossman - an Israeli journalist who has had access to B's full testimony - said she got very confused and upset at this point.  What is clear from the court record is that the woman was inspected by doctors, who found bruises on her body. (ok. but if she was physically assaulted, then this is not a case of 'rape by deception', right?)

Photograpic evidence of the abuse was presented in court, but prosecutors feared the woman would not be able to give a coherent testimony, given her emotional state.  B had lodged 14 complaints of rape and sexual violence in the past. Most of those resulted in convictions, but in at least one case, she was found an unreliable witness because of her confused state of mind (14 accusations of rape does beg the question of entrapment on her part, does it not?)

So when the defence attorney proposed to cross-examine her on every one of those 14 cases, the prosecution feared she may be too traumatised and undermine her evidence.

Thus, a plea bargain was struck whereby Kashur was accused of rape by deception for presenting himself as a Jewish bachelor available for a romantic relationship, whereas in fact he was a Muslim and a married father of two (oh, so that entire race-based nonsense is nothing but the product of some prosecutor's sick imagination?)

Kashur is now appealing against the 18-month prison sentence.  In a statement he gave after the victim's evidence emerged, he insisted he was innocent, pointing out that his release from house arrest backs his version of events.

"I have no prior convictions - this is the first time, while she has a long history of rape charges," Kashur told the UK's Guardian newspaper.  "She still claims I raped her - but even the prosecution, which is supposed to represent her, does not believe her."

In any case, Kashur's verdict left many observers wondering about the precedent it sets in Israeli law. The judge's decision focuses mainly on Kashur presenting himself as a bachelor, but his religious background is also mentioned in the verdict.

"The charge does in fact specify that Kashur presented himself as a Jewish bachelor when he was in fact a Palestinian Muslim, says Lisa Goldman, an Israeli journalist and blogger who has been following the case.  "This sets a dangerous precedent. We now have a legal precedent for rape by deception based on presenting oneself as a Jew when one is in fact a Muslim," she adds.

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Comment: this goes far beyond the sick racist imagination of some prosecutor.  Can you imagine such a 'rape by deception' charge presented in a civilized court?!  I can just imagine some US or French cop trying to say  "the perp concealed his race/religion your honor!" in court before finding himself immediately sentenced to a psychological evaluation and mandatory counseling .  But not in the last officially racist state on the planet - there such an crazy and sick accusation is actually taken seriously.

What a sick irony that Israel has turned into a reincarnation of the III Reich with its own set of Halacha-based "Nuremberg Laws"

The Saker

'Thou Shalt Not Murder' applies only 'to a Jew who kills a Jew,' write Rabbis

(thanks to L. for pointing me to this article)

The King's Torah: a rabbinic text or a call to terror?

Prohibition 'Thou Shalt Not Murder' applies only 'to a Jew who kills a Jew,' write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur.

By The Forward and Daniel Estrin in Haaretz

The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you'd find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore - but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults.

The prohibition 'Thou Shalt Not Murder' applies only "to a Jew who kills a Jew," write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Non-Jews are "uncompassionate by nature" and attacks on them "curb their evil inclination," while babies and children of Israel's enemies may be killed since "it is clear that they will grow to harm us."

"The King's Torah (Torat Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death between Israel and the Nations," a 230-page compendium of Halacha, or Jewish religious law, published by the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in Yitzhar, garnered a front-page exposé in the Israeli tabloid Ma'ariv, which called it the stuff of "Jewish terror."

Now, the yeshiva is in the news again, with a January 18 raid on Yitzhar by more than 100 Israeli security officials who forcibly entered Od Yosef Chai and arrested 10 Jewish settlers. The Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency, suspects five of those arrested were involved in the torching and vandalizing of a Palestinian mosque last month in the neighboring Palestinian village of Yasuf. The arson provoked an international outcry and condemnation by Israeli religious figures, including Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, who visited the village to personally voice his regret.

Yet, both Metzger and his Sephardic counterpart, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, have declined to comment on the book, which debuted in November, while other prominent rabbis have endorsed it - among them, the son of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Sephardic Jewry's preeminent leader. Also, despite the precedent set by previous Israeli attorneys general in the last decade and a half to file criminal charges against settler rabbis who publish commentaries supporting violence against non-Jews, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz has so far remained mum about "The King's Torah."

"Sometimes the public arena deals with the phenomenon and things become settled by themselves," Justice Ministry spokesman Moshe Cohen told the Forward.

A coalition of religious Zionist groups, the "Twelfth of Heshvan," named after the Hebrew date of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, has asked Israel's Supreme Court to order Mazuz to confiscate the books and arrest its authors.

"You open the book, and you feel that you read a halachic book. And it's a trap," said Gadi Gvaryahu, a religious Jewish educator who heads the coalition. It was, in fact, "a guidebook [on] how to kill," he charged.

Family members who answered phone calls placed to the homes of both authors said they did not wish to comment.

In 2008, author Shapira was suspected of involvement in a crude rocket attack directed at a Palestinian village. Israeli police investigated but made no arrests.

Co-author Elitzur wrote an article in a religious bulletin a month after the book's release saying that "the Jews will win with violence against the Arabs."

In 2003, the head of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, was charged by then-Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein with incitement to racism for authoring a book calling Arabs a "cancer."

In 2006-2007, the Israeli Ministry of Education gave about a quarter of a million dollars to the yeshiva, and in 2007-2008 the yeshiva received about $28,000 from the American nonprofit Central Fund of Israel.

"The King's Torah" reflects a fringe viewpoint held by a minority of rabbis in the West Bank, said Avinoam Rosenak, a Hebrew University professor specializing in settler theology. Asher Cohen, a Bar Ilan University political science professor, thought its influence would be "zero" because it appeals only to extreme ideologues.

But the book's wide dissemination and the enthusiastic endorsements of prominent rabbis have spotlighted what might have otherwise remained an isolated commentary.

At the entrance to Moriah, a large Jewish bookstore steps from the Western Wall, copies of "The King's Torah" were displayed with children?s books and other halachic commentaries. The store manager, who identified himself only as Motti, said the tome has sold "excellently."

Other stores carrying the book include Robinson Books, a well-known, mostly secular bookshop in a hip Tel Aviv shopping district; Pomeranz Bookseller, a major Jewish book emporium near the Ben Yehuda mall in downtown Jerusalem; and Felhendler, a Judaica store on the main artery of secular Rehovot, home of the Weizmann Institute.

The yeshiva declined to comment on publication statistics. But Itzik, a Tel Aviv-area book distributor hired by the yeshiva who declined to give his last name because of the book's nature, said the yeshiva had sold 1,000 copies to individuals and bookstores countrywide. He said an additional 1,000 copies were now being printed.

Mendy Feldheim, owner of Feldheim Publishers, Israel's largest Judaica publishing house, said he considered this a "nice" sales figure for a tome of rabbinic Halacha in Israel. He said his own company, which distributes to 200 bookstores nationwide, is not distributing "The King's Torah" because the book's publishers did not approach the company.

Prominent religious figures wrote letters of endorsement that preface the book. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, son of former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, blessed the authors and wrote that many "disciples of Torah are unfamiliar with these laws." The elder Yosef has not commented on his son's statement.

Dov Lior, chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and a respected figure among many mainstream religious Zionists, noted that the book is "very relevant especially in this time."

Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg, one of the country's most respected rabbinic commentators, initially endorsed the book, but rescinded his approval a month after its release, saying that the book includes statements that "have no place in human intelligence."

A handful of settler rabbis echoed Goldberg's censure, including Shlomo Aviner, chief rabbi of Beit El and head of Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim, who said he had "no patience" to read the book, and spoke out against it to his students.

Previously, Israel has arrested settler rabbis who publish commentaries supporting the killing of non-Jews. In addition to Ginsburgh, the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva head, in 1994, the government jailed Rabbi Ido Elba of Hebron for writing a 26-page article proclaiming it a "mitzva to kill every non-Jew from the nation that is fighting the Jew, even women and children."

"The atmosphere has changed," said Yair Sheleg, senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, who specializes in issues of religion and state. Previous governments took a tougher stance against such publications, he said, but "paradoxically, because the tension between the general settler population and the Israeli judicial system is high now, the attorney general is careful not to heighten the tension."

It is not uncommon for some settler rabbis, in the unique conditions of West Bank settlement life, to issue religious decrees, or psakim, that diverge from normative Jewish practice. In 2008, Avi Gisser, considered a moderate rabbi from the settlement of Ofra, ruled that Jews may violate Sabbath laws and hire non-Jews to build hilltop settlements. And In 2002, Yediot Aharanot reported that former Israeli Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu sanctioned Jewish harvesting of Palestinian-owned olive trees.

Israeli rabbis to Olmert:It doesn’t matter even if you kill one million Palestinians

The Palestinian Information Center reports: A report issued by the Saudi Al-Watan news paper revealed Saturday that Jewish rabbis in the Zionist entity have issued a religious edict allowing the killing of Palestinian women and children and exonerating every Jew doing such horrible thing.

According to the paper, the rabbis opined that the Israeli massacres in Gaza Strip falls in line with Jewish teachings that consider such killing as "mass punishment to the enemies".

The paper also added that one of the rabbis opined that there would be no problem at all in exterminating the Palestinian people even if one million or more of them were killed at the hands of the occupation troops.

Citing verses from the Book of Geneses, Jewish rabbi Mordachi Elyaho, who is the religious reference of the popular religious current in the Zionist entity sent outgoing Israeli premier Ehud Olmert a weekly leaflet containing articles allowing the Jews to carryout the idea of massive punishment against the enemies in accordance with the ethics of war in the Torah, the paper pointed out.

"This standard could also be applied to the case of Gaza as all Gaza inhabitants bear the responsibility because they didn’t do anything to stop the firing of Qassam Brigades" said Elyaho in his letter to Olmert, urging him to continue the military aggression on the Palestinians because "harming innocent Palestinians was a legitimate matter."

Yesrael Rozin, another fanatic rabbi, was also quoted as saying that law of the Torah stipulates the killing of men, children, women, elderly, infants, and animals [of the enemy], the paper furthermore added.

For his part, Safad rabbi Sholomo Elyaho underlined, "If we kill 100 of them but they refuse to halt this [firing of rockets] them we should kill 1000; and if we kill 1000 of them but they didn’t stop, then we should kill 10000 of them, and we must continue killing them even if they reach one million and despite the time spent in killing them".

"The Psalms says "I should continue chasing my enemies and arrest them, and I won't cease till I finish them completely", the rabbi said according to the report.