Israel is in the midst of a growing controversy over the replacement of chief rabbi, Brig. Gen. Rafi Peretz, of the Israeli Defense Forces. His replacement will be Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim, who has been denounced for suggesting that Israeli soldiers are morally justified in raping Muslim women during wartime as well as other misogynistic statements.
Karim is the head of the Rabbinate Department in the Military Rabbinate and an alumnus of the Bnei Akiva Nachalim and the Ateret Cohanim yeshivas. He is also a former paratrooper and commander of the elite reconnaissance unit.
In 2012, Karim made his statement as part of the religious website KIPA. He was asked, given certain biblical passages, if IDF soldiers were permitted to commit rape during wartime. He responded:
“Although intercourse with a female gentile is very grave, it was permitted during wartime (under the conditions it stipulated) out of consideration for the soldiers’ difficulties. And since our concern is the success of the collective in the war, the Torah permitted [soldiers] to satisfy the evil urge under the conditions it stipulated for the sake of the collective’s success.”
What is astonishing is that Karim also previously opposed the inclusion of women in the military as morally indefensible to protect the “modesty” of Jewish women:
“In a situation such as the one during the War of Independence, in which there was a real pikuah nefesh [matter of life or death] of the Jewish people, women also participated in the defense of the nation and country, even though the situation was not so modest,” he wrote. “But in our era, we do not live with a real threat to our survival. . . . And because of the liable damage to the modesty of the girl and the nation, the great rabbis and the Chief Rabbinate have ruled that the enlistment of girls to the IDF is entirely forbidden.”
The head of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, MK Aida Touma-Sliman, denounced the appointment. Likewise, the chairperson of Na’amat Movement of Working Women & Volunteers, Galia Wolloch, called for the withdrawal of the appointment for a man “who thinks that rape is okay as a morale-booster for soldiers.” Meretz party leader Zehava Galon has condemned Karim for “his frightening, racist, and inflammatory statement” regarding wartime rape.
The IDF has stood by its nominee and issued a statement from Karim that he now “wishes to clarify that his words were only uttered in response to a theoretical hermeneutical question, certainly not to a practical halachic question.” Ok, what exactly does that mean? The above quote seems more than a hermeneutical discussion. More importantly, it may be difficult to explain to the rape victim that her assault was more hermeneutical than actual.
This man’s disgusting views simply prove that when a nation engages in war, it necessarily engages in barbarism which inevitably leads to justifying atrocities as though war makes it okay. Our nation is guilty of it and clearly Israel is now too.
Horuss – since this is now supposedly the solution to a ‘thought problem’ I am not sure what stand I should take.
@RalphA
I just contacted Lanny Davis, and told him what you said about Bill Clinton. He said to tell you that Gen. Eisenhower was having a sexual relationship with female British soldier during WWII, sooo Republicans are just as bad and probably worse, and whatever Bill Clinton did was just peachy, and that you are just trying to score partisan political points.
And. . . if I just made this statement up and if I really didn’t talk to Lanny Davis, you can still bet your bottom dollar that Democratic Party shills will say something similar to that and say this is all part of a vast right wing conspiracy. But I didn’t make up. Honest Injun! I really did talk to someone who said he was Lanny Davis, or was it my cat???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Wow, this guy says something dumb some 15 years ago and this is top news. But the Clintons are on the cusp of gaining control of the Executive branch in one of the most powerful nations in the world, and Jon Turley and his fellow leftists are rooting for them, even though the Clintons have a long and sordid history of actual rapes and sexual assaults and cover-ups to their “credit.” Such hypocrites. But this goes without saying. All leftists are hypocrites.
Here’s a little “history,” but don’t worry, there will be more to come, I’m sure.
* In 1972, a 22-year-old woman told campus police at Yale University that she was sexually assaulted by Clinton, a law student at the college. No charges were filed, but retired campus policemen contacted by Capitol Hill Blue confirmed the incident.
* In 1974, a female student at the University of Arkansas complained that then-law school instructor Bill Clinton tried to prevent her from leaving his office during a conference. She said he groped her and forced his hand inside her blouse. She complained to her faculty adviser who confronted Clinton, but Clinton claimed the student ”came on” to him. The student left the school shortly after the incident. Reached at her home in Texas, the former student confirmed the incident, but declined to go on the record with her account. Several former students at the University have confirmed the incident in confidential interviews and said there were other reports of Clinton attempting to force himself on female students;
*Broaddrick, a volunteer in Clinton’s gubernatorial campaign, said he raped her in 1978. Mrs. Broaddrick suffered a bruised and torn lip, which she said she suffered when Clinton bit her during the rape;
* From 1978-1980, during Clinton’s first term as governor of Arkansas, state troopers assigned to protect the governor were aware of at least seven complaints from women who said Clinton forced, or attempted to force, himself on them sexually. One retired state trooper said in an interview that the common joke among those assigned to protect Clinton was “who’s next?” One former state trooper said other troopers would often escort women to the governor’s hotel room after political events, often more than one an evening;
* Carolyn Moffet, a legal secretary in Little Rock in 1979, said she met then-governor Clinton at a political fundraiser and shortly thereafter received an invitation to meet the governor in his hotel room. “I was escorted there by a state trooper. When I went in, he was sitting on a couch, wearing only an undershirt. He pointed at his penis and told me to suck it. I told him I didn’t even do that for my boyfriend and he got mad, grabbed my head and shoved it into his lap. I pulled away from him and ran out of the room.”
* Elizabeth Ward, the Miss Arkansas who won the Miss America crown in 1982, told friends she was forced by Clinton to have sex with him shortly after she won her state crown. Last year, Ward, who is now married with the last name of Gracen (from her first marriage), told an interviewer she did have sex with Clinton but said it was consensual. Close friends of Ward, however, say she still maintains privately that Clinton forced himself on her.
* Paula Corbin, an Arkansas state worker, filed a sexual harassment case against Clinton after an encounter in a Little Rock hotel room where the then-governor exposed himself and demanded oral sex. Clinton settled the case with Jones recently with an $850,000 cash payment.
* Sandra Allen James, a former Washington, DC, political fundraiser says Presidential candidate-to-be Clinton invited her to his hotel room during a political trip to the nation’s capital in 1991, pinned her against the wall and stuck his hand up her dress. She says she screamed loud enough for the Arkansas State Trooper stationed outside the hotel suite to bang on the door and ask if everything was all right, at which point Clinton released her and she fled the room. When she reported the incident to her boss, he advised her to keep her mouth shut if she wanted to keep working. Miss James has since married and left Washington. Reached at her home last week, the former Miss James said she later learned that other women suffered the same fate at Clinton’s hands when he was in Washington during his Presidential run.
* Christy Zercher, a flight attendant on Clinton’s leased campaign plane in 1992, says Presidential candidate Clinton exposed himself to her, grabbed her breasts and made explicit remarks about oral sex. A video shot on board the plane by ABC News shows an obviously inebriated Clinton with his hand between another young flight attendant’s legs. Zercher said later in an interview that White House attorney Bruce Lindsey tried to pressure her into not going public about the assault.
* Kathleen Willey, a White House volunteer, reported that Clinton grabbed her, fondled her breast and pressed her hand against his genitals during an Oval Office meeting in November, 1993. Willey, who told her story in a 60 Minutes interview, became a target of a White House-directed smear campaign after she went public.
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/every-clinton-sex-assault-victim/#ixzz4EP0VjSl7
This isn’t only misogynist, it’s illegal as Jack of Trades citations clearly shows. Since he’s ordering rape he should be put under arrest and given a trial.
Of course, there are many war criminals who should be arrested and put on trial. As they are running the show, this isn’t likely to happen. However, I do wish more of the Israeli population would stand up to this, just as I wish more US citizens would stand up against our past and sitting war criminals.
I notice that power just isn’t power to the oligarchy unless they are able to rape other people, men women and children. Apparently, the ability to rape, torture and murder is what makes them feel the most powerful. I would suggest that protecting the weak and doing good in the world would be a far more satisfying definition of power.
God won’t let em get away with it. There’s always some sort of justice. What a j@ck@ss.
So, Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim is a partier, all right> Just make sure you’re circumcised before penetration otherwise you’re a gentile. Don’t you just love religion?
So the word “reportedly” in the headline raised a red flag with me. The question becomes, did he or did he not give Jewish soldiers permission to rape Muslim women? And if you read the entire article, he did not say that. Mr. Turley, can’t you find some real news to write about?