Israel Matzav

'Rape by deception' turns out not to have been consensual

In July, Israel was castigated in the international media for convicting an 'Israeli Arab' of 'rape by deception.' In a nutshell, the story claimed that a man and a woman had consensual sex, that the woman had withdrawn her consent when she discovered that the man was actually an 'Israeli Arab' and that the man was therefore convicted of rape.

The media - including Leftist bloggers like Andrew Sullivan and Daily Kos - had a field day castigating Israel for 'racism.'

I didn't cover the story at the time, because the local crime blotter is not my thing. But here's a relatively unbiased description of what happened.

Let's go to the videotape.



It now turns out that the victim was vulnerable and had been sexually abused as a child. It also turns out that the sex was anything but consensual - she was brutally raped in the stairwell of a Jerusalem building (link in Hebrew). Elizabeth has translated the full Haaretz story into English (the fact that Haaretz had not translated a Friday magazine story like this by Monday night ought to tell you volumes about their agenda - which is the same as al-Guardian's) and sent me the link. Here's something to get you started.

The report shows, that the victim, B., was raped by her father since she was six-years-old, and was later forced into prostitution by him. At the time of the rape, B. was staying in a women’s shelter after another sexual assault by her father. According to B.’s testimony, first revealed in the Haaretz report, after Kashur claimed that he was a Jewish bachelor, he enticed her to come into a stairwell in a Jerusalem building, where he brutally raped her. B. was left bleeding, beaten up and half naked by Kashur.

Following the rape, B. was hospitalized in a mental institution, where she was investigated by the police. The Prosecutor’s office decided to charge Kashur with rape and sexual assault based on B.’s testimony and other evidence. When B. later appeared in Court to give her testimony, which was confused and contradictory at times, she was confronted by the Defense attorney with her past occupation as a prostitute and her father’s abuse and rape from an early age. The court appearance left B. severely traumatized. When the Defense learned that B. previously filed 14 complaints against her father and other men for sexual assault, it asked to cross-examine B. once again about the past complaints, while focusing on a number of them that didn’t result in an indictment and convictions due to contradictions in her story. The Defense planned to use B.’s past complaints to shatter her credibility. Wanting to avoid another traumatizing event, the Prosecution formulated a plea bargain with the Defense that reduced the charges to “rape by deception”. Essentially, using the threat of once again subjecting a vulnerable rape victim to a traumatizing interrogation, the Defense was able to reach a plea agreement with greatly reduced charges, which didn’t correspond with the facts of the incident.

The Israeli media has failed to thoroughly investigate this matter, resulting in widespread victimization of a rapist and mockery of the “gullible” woman. B. was victimized and abused by her surrounding from an early age, and unfortunately, the Israeli and foreign media, pundits and the blogosphere, victimized her once again.

Read the whole thing.

Admitting to different facts in support of a plea bargain is common in many countries. It certainly sounds like in this case the woman was raped.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:24 AM