Israel makes unfounded, discriminatory rape conviction

The definition of rape has run amok recently.

Whether one considers Roman Polanski’s success in evading an American extradition request on child-rape charges or Bill Donahue’s assertion that the Catholic Church’s pedophile dilemma is truly a homosexual crisis, it is clear that rape is in the headlines — and its definition has grown less and less clear.

The latest and most vile re-interpretation of rape’s definition comes from Israel, with its conviction of Sabar Kashur for “rape by deception.”

Kashur, a Palestinian man, was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison for the “rape by deception” of a Jewish woman, who claimed she would not have had sex with him had she known he was Arab.Their encounter happened two years ago and lasted about 15 minutes.

Kashur was shopping for cigarettes in a store in Jerusalem when a 20-something woman, the complainant, struck up a conversation with him, saying Kashur had a nice bike.

The two carried on a conversation in fluent Hebrew for a few minutes, exchanging names and small talk. Not long after, they made their way onto a nearby rooftop. They then had sex, which Kashur said the woman initiated.

Kashur then got up and left the building without waiting for the woman to get dressed. Somehow, the woman figured out that Kashur was not Jewish and filed a complaint with the police. She was later given a medical examination that showed no signs of force or injury.

Having gotten her phone number during their brief exchange, Kashur didn’t remember whose number it was until six weeks later when he was looking through his contacts. He called her, and once he remembered who she was, he asked to see her again.

Though she agreed, she neither met him nor responded to any more of his calls or texts.

Three days later, the police called him to their station, where he was interrogated before being charged with rape and indecent assault. Having being convicted, he is under house arrest while awaiting appeal.

The judges who presided over his case determined that, although this wasn’t “a classical rape by force” and the sex was consensual, the consent itself was obtained through deception and under false pretenses.

This was not rape by any stretch of the imagination. The complainant, who is no real victim of sexual assault, merely had a change of heart after having consensual sex with Kashur.

Sure, she might not have had sex with him had she known he was Arab, but hindsight is always 20/20.

Yet the Israeli judges lent credibility to this petty, discriminatory claim of rape with their conviction.

I sincerely doubt charges would have been pursued if Kashur had been the complainant, because he is a male and an Arab.

This case not only reflects on the sad state of ethnic relations in Israel but denigrates the severity of real sexual assault and rape as well.

Imagine if similarly unfounded charges could be filed as easily in America.

Countless scorned lovers could have one another brought up on rape charges because they didn’t know some minute, insignificant background detail about a partner.

On college campuses, drunken bros could have women brought up on rape charges for misleading them with push-up bras and makeup. Women could have the bros charged for being too drunk to get it up. It would be pure bedlam.

As a serious crime with possible life-long emotional and physical injuries, rape must be charged only when appropriate.

Otherwise, its misuse cheapens rape’s harshness and dishonors its survivors, who show tremendous courage in coming forward to face their attackers.

Rape is terrible and wrong — and a bad hookup is just a bad, shake-your-head-the-next-morning lay. Let’s keep that in mind and hope that the Israeli court gets its act together and, with its deepest apologies, lets Kashur go.


E-mail: yzchaudh@indiana.edu