The woman says that the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building. When she later found out that he was an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint of rape and indecent assault.
Kashur pleaded guilty to a charge of rape by deception. Judge Tzvi Segal (part of a three judge panel) acknowledged that this was not a “classical rape by force” but insisted that the woman clearly would not have had sex with an Arab. That seems true but that does not mean it is rape as opposed to a tort lawsuit. Pick up lines are notoriously embellished if not outright false. It is the danger that comes with one-night stands where the rule is caveat emptor, or “buyer beware.”
Notably, the panel insisted on jail time as a sentence when probation was possible. Segal added:
The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls. When the very basis of trust between human beings drops, especially when the matters at hand are so intimate, sensitive and fateful, the court is required to stand firmly at the side of the victims – actual and potential – to protect their wellbeing. Otherwise, they will be used, manipulated and misled, while paying only a tolerable and symbolic price.
That reads uncomfortably close to old miscegenation cases where judges sought to protect women from “smooth-taking” black men.
Even in cases where women have been falsely told that a lover does not carry an STD, the matter is addressed in the United States as a matter of civil not criminal battery. Does this mean that any false fact used in a one-night stand is now a criminal matter deserving of jail or it is only Arab status that gets that level of punishment? For example, if a Israeli man says he is unmarried and looking for a lasting relationship, can he be jailed? If so, the Israeli jail would be stuffed to over-capacity.
We have been following a crackdown on Israeli women dating Arab men recently.
Source: Guardian.