Israel: Conviction of “rape by deceit”
An Arab resident of Jerusalem has been convicted of rape after posing as a Jew to seduce a woman.
According to media reports, Sabbar Kashur introduced himself to a Jewish woman as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The couple then went to a nearby building and had consensual sexual intercourse, after which Kashur left the building.
When the woman realised Kashur was an Arab, she filed a complaint against him.
While the judge conceded it was not a “classic act of rape”, it was nevertheless stated that “the Court must protect the public interest against sophisticated criminals with a smooth tongue and sweet talking, who can lead astray innocent victims at the unbearable price of the sanctity of their bodies and souls.”
And added “If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated” (full details can be seen here [HE] and here [EN])
Sabar Kashur was sentenced to 18 months in prison under charges of rape by deception.
The judge's decision has caused a stir amongst the region's blogosphere. Many are outraged by the conviction.
An Israeli-American blogger at Hybrid States writes:
Did he force himself on his “victim”? No.
Was she incapacitated through substance abuse and he took advantage of her? No.
Was she underage, a minor who was taken advantage of by someone of greater size/age/authority? No.
Did the girl want to have sex with him? Yes.
Did she get so horrified when she learned that she just had consensual sex with an Arab that she decided to charge him with rape? Yes.
Was an Arab convicted for the crime of pretending he was a Jew? Yes.
Unbelievable! I cannot even believe I have to write this.
And others on Twitter echo this sentiment:
Some are even cynical as to the woman's claim she was in search of a relationship:
While at xymphora the sentiment is the following:
The ‘victim’ thought she was having sex with a human being, but she was really having sex with an Arab. There is no possible way to make rational sense of this decision without understanding that the court, and thus Israeli society, is profoundly racist.
Others echo this feeling of racism as can be seen here:
and in the title of Promised Land blog‘s post regarding the matter:
Apartheid justice: Brown man impersonates white overlord in name of romance, gets convicted of rape.
A commenter on Promsied Land’s above post states:
If the law were being applied equally to all persons, you could sort of make the case that lying for the purpose of obtaining “sexual favors” is a criminal offense.
However, knowing what the dating scene in Israel was like a decade and a bit ago, I don’t think you could make that case.
Also, and this has been bugging me since I first read the article: how exactly will the man’s “rehabilitation” be measurable? The only answer I see (no more sex with Jewish women) is almost the worst part of this whole story.
While the post itself concludes:
Many men lie to get sex. Now we know which lies are forbidden in Israel.
However, there are some that argue the conviction is merited. A guest commenter at Palestinian Pundit states:
Zarathustra, I don't care if the guy is Hindu, Atheist, Sufi or Brazilian. Sabbar Kashur sounds like one hell of a jerk.
Not defending the woman, but this Kashar needs a good kick in the butt. Just imagine if that woman were your/our sister
While Elizabeth, commenting at Promised Land clarifies that the judges were merely applying the legal principle:
ALL lies to women to get sex are illegal in Israel. Please look at Israel’s Criminal Code Paragraph 345(a)(2) that defines rape:
הבועל אשה –
בהסכמת האשה, שהושגה במרמה לגבי מיהות העושה או מהות המעשה;
(My translation): “A male who has sex with a woman with her consent, which was elicited with deceit about the essence of the perpetrator or essence of the act”.
And Noam W, commenting on the same post brings up some interesting points, that are certainly food for thought:
This is a bit more complex. I agree that there are of course disgusting racial undertones, but the prohibition against rape in Israel (and in many other places) includes getting a woman to have sex by deceit.
So, for me, this is what you might call a hard case.I don’t know if half the men in Israel lie to have sex. I don’t what lies they tell and either way I don’t know if that is alright. What I am worried about is the development of discourse regarding rape similar to the discourse regarding sexual harassment – remember “everybody does it”
and “now we won’t be able to say anything without worrying about offending somebody”.
I don’t want to be come out all moralist on this, but I want to think about the criminal prohibition – lying in order to achieve sex – and see if it is so off-putting that this man should not have been found guilty even if there were no racial overtones.
In light of the above comments, is the issue more complicated than it originally appears? What are your thoughts on the matter? Make them heard here!
25 comments
Cheeseburger,
“It doesn’t state, or acknowledge any sort of prior relationship.”
They first met in the street, talked, then went to an empty building. It seems to smack of “buyer’s remorse” rather than rape, but the prosecutor may have felt s/he would be criticised by Israeli feminist groups if he ignored a complainant whose case clearly fell under the existing law.
The law relating to rape is essentially the same around the world — the offence consists of ‘non-consensual sexual intercourse’ by a man with a woman. However, there are variations in the definition of the offence owing to legislative policy. Consent given to sexual intercourse is not valid if the consenting female (it is essentially a crime against a woman) was a minor and the ‘age of consent’ in such cases may vary from country to country. Also, the ‘use of force’ to obtain consent or a ‘reasonable apprehension of the same’ in the mind of the woman is only one aspect of rape as an offence. If the consent by the victim was given under a ‘mistake’, or rather, a ‘misconception of fact’ as to the identity of the offender induced by him (as in the darkness of the night if another person pretends to be her husband), then also it is invalid. Further, if the ‘misconception of fact’ relates to the ‘nature of the act’ consented to (viz., sexual intercourse, as in the case of some innocent patients, for instance), then also the consent so obtained is invalid. Moreover, under a liberal interpretation of ‘mistake’ or ‘misconception of fact’, where the offender deceives a woman as to his ‘racial identity’ (as in the case referred to in this article), the consent given may again be vitiated. In India, we have cases of ‘misconception of fact’ as to the future ‘intention of the offender’ as when he promises to marry the victim, but in the end ditches her (‘breach of promise to marry’ cases involving ‘long term sexual relationship’ in some cases), then also some State High Courts in India have construed such cases of plain ‘cheating’ as amounting to ‘rape’ under the revised definition of the offence, while some other State High Courts have refused to do so. All such liberal interpretations are generally aimed at deterring offenders in the area of sexual relationship who are ‘more cunning than aggressive’ and the victims very innocent about the ways of the world apparently.
The blatant racism to one side, the court’s verdict is patently ridiculous if only because it trivialises the terrible crime of rape.
What next? Can the male lotharios of Israel now be convicted of that same offence for exaggerating their sexual prowess or failing to disclose that their full head of hair is in fact a toupee?
Those are surely as much a case of “false pretences” as pretending to a Jewish bachelor when in reality you’re actually married and Palestinian, and as such potential grounds for claims of rape by the disgruntled.
And why stop there? If Israeli courts truly are interested in “protect[ing] the public interest from the sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims” what about the poor defenceless male of the species?
After all, when it comes to deception and “false pretences” the human male is a small-time practitioner. The big-time players are the ones who spend small fortunes each week on makeup, hair-stylists, and plastic surgeons. Such persons are not spending that kind of money or going to those kind of lengths simply for the heck of it. Nor do they give disclaimers to every guy who tries to chat them up (let alone gets them into his boudoir) that all might not be as it appears to the roving male eye.
Which raises a question: If Israeli women can now take a guy to court for getting her into bed under false pretences where does that put an Israeli guy who takes a supposedly single 25-year-old blonde babe to bed only to find out the next morning that she was actually a married 35-year-old brunette with two breast implants, a nose job, and three kids?
Shock, horror!
She deceived him! She lied to him! She got him into bed under false pretences.
But would any of that be it grounds for filing a compliant with the police, putting the wily temptress under house arrest for two years (to keep the men of Israel safe while the wheels of Israeli justice got down to work), and finally getting a judge to throw her in the clink for a few more months?
If such a thing ever did happen, then I think it would be fair to say that the word most people would probably use to describe the case would be “over-reaction”–a word that pretty much also describes the Kashur case, from that of the plaintiff to that of the judges.
That whole case should never have gone to court. The fact that it did, and got the verdict that it did, marks a sad day for the standards of Israeli justice.
I have to agree with most everyone who spoke prior to me. This is absolutely ridiculous! I definitely think that luring a woman to bed under false pretences speaks to this creep’s character. However, having sex with a man, not ever 24 hours after meeting him, definitely speaks to her character. Just because you regret your one-night stand, doesn’t make it ok to scream rape. Honestly, HE is the victim in this case.
And, I’ll add that had this man been a Christian, I don’t think this particular blog would have existed.
As a Jewish Israeli citizen who live the conflict for 27 years, I recognize the problematic aroma from the court’s decision. Nevertheless, before one criticize, one must separate how much of the decision was influenced by the political context and who much by unbiased Justice. I do not have the answer, but if the law in Israel condemned in the past a Jewish person for a similar circumstances only instead of lying about his religion he lied about other thing like financial status or being single, then the proclamation about \Apartheid Justice\ is significantly weekend.
Please look at the facts and let us know.
Had a Jewish man been condemned and accused of rape for not being honest about his financial status or any other scheme to get a women in bed, I’d still be outraged by the fact that such a “crime” means spending 18 months in jail! Just because it’s law, doesn’t make it right. If this were the law in the States, our jails would be even more over-burdened then they already are. This seems to me like a law that is enforced selectively, depending on what kind of example they are trying to make to the general public. Reform or specification is obviously warranted here. Apparently miscegenation is frowned upon and it doesn’t surprise me. I’m sorry, but they both participated in a one night stand so they should both have to live with the guilt. It’s not fair that the woman can turn right back around and deny her guilt by labeling an innocent man as a rapist. Although this may wash her sins away, it obviously doesn’t change the way MOST people feel about the actions SHE undertook. Shame on her.
The comments made by Jennifer Mc Cleary above makes me want to add some further comments in this regard. It is all very well on her part to say that having participated in an apparently immoral ‘one-night stand’ with the accused, it is not fair on the part of the woman to cry ‘rape’ when she found out that he was an Arab and and not a ‘Jew’. But as the Judge observed: would she have participated in the deed voluntarily had she known that he was an ‘Arab’ and not a ‘Jew’ as he misled her to believe? May be in the U.S.A., in many states, they would have allowed such an offender to go free after having warned him not to indulge in such acts of deception again. May be again in the U.K. the lawmakers, having due regard to the purity of expression and the public interest in protecting victims, would have created an entirely new statutory offence of ‘obtaining consent to sexual intercourse through deception’ and included in it through ‘case-law interpretation’ over a period any deception as to the racial identity of the offender. Certainly, in the absence of criminal law, such an act would not amount to a ‘crime’. But once the criminal law prohibits such type of behaviour, it has its own moral authority and to engage in such type of behaviour becomes immoral even though previously it would not have been. The question to ask is: Will it do any good? Given the political climate in Israel, apparently it would help the victims of ‘miscegenation’ as described here by some commentators.
A law that allows men to be punished for rape by deceit undermines a woman’s responsibility for her own actions.
What’s missing in this discussion is God’s Law. Considering that this discussion is centered around religion, I find it hard to believe that it hasn’t been brought up already. If you’re a pious person, you would follow God’s Laws above any others. As far as I knew, sex is something you share with someone you love and care for… someone you know deeply, like your spouse, not someone you just met on the street. If she would have followed God’s Law and gotten to know this man before she just jumped into bed with him, then she would’ve had the time to figure out that this guy was not who he claimed to be. I have NO sympathy for her. She break’s God’s Law and then uses man’s laws to “make right” the wrongs that both of them undertook with their “night of passion.”
As Megglin said, this “undermines [her] responsibility for her own actions.” She needs to take responsibility for her part in this. To condemn a man for conning a woman into bed is a moot point when she allowed herself to be fooled by a man she knew for less than 24 hours. Her actions were just as immoral as his. Who’s more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?
I’ll go back to what I said before: Just because it’s law, doesn’t make it right. I don’t let my government tell me what’s right and what’s wrong! Is the government infallible? Nope. Spending 18 months in jail for “rape” by deception is ludicrous! Had the man been Jewish and married, would he have gotten the same sentence? Something tells me no.
At the outset, the query raised by Jennifer Mc Cleary as to who is foolish deserves a clear answer. It seems to me that people commenting on this article look a bit foolish when they fail to accept a ‘positive law’ as it is, that is, a ‘law in action’ and instead, talk knowingly about, say, the ‘natural law’ or ‘God’s own Laws’! The latter begs the question “whose God’s Laws” that she is referring to — the Jewish God, the Christian God or the Islamic God? How is anyone to be sure that there is only one God around and not a plurality of Gods? Say, one for each religion? For e.g.,Hindus,there are plenty! And in a secular world like the United States, do they not ‘go on a date’ after meeting with someone casually in the bar, then ‘hit the sack’ at the first opportunity and thereafter cry ‘date rape’ when the guy sticks his ‘neck’ (sorry for an euphemism here) way out? Are they just warning the offender “don’t do it again and letting him go scot free? How many American mothers, or even their daughters, are that forgiving? May be, they will pass a sentence of ‘imprisonment’ for a period of (___) and then place the offender on ‘probation’ for that period, or an extended period, and when the guy is at it again, enforce the sentence of imprisonment for a lesser period and then go on to reduce it all over again to an ‘insignificant period’ just because their prisons are already overcrowded! Perhaps even blog about ‘rough justice’ elsewhere in the world and want to change the world to suit themselves! Look within!