The Guardian reports that a 30-year-old Arab man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for rape after he had consensual sex with a woman who believed him to be a fellow Jew:
According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where [Sabbar] 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 before Kashur left.
When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.
Tzvi Segal, one of three judges who tried the case, said that while the case was not “a classical rape by force”, the court had a duty 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”.
According to Haaretz, several Israeli legal experts have criticised the verdict, which follows a similar conviction of a Jewish man in 2008 for rape by deception, after he posed as a housing officer and promised women he would procure them apartments in return for sex.
But this new verdict is likely to cause further controversy in Israel, where Arabs make up around 20 per cent of the population, and where the country’s parliament is considering a law requiring prospective citizens to swear alleigance to a “Jewish, democratic state”.
As the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy commented:
I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman? Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not.
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