arab man guilty of rape after saying he was jewish so he could have sex with jewish woman (NOTE: this was misrepresented by the news)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/21/arab-guilty-rape-consensual-sex-jew

amazing decision from the judge.
i wonder where they draw the line.
imagine if you got sentenced for lying to have sex in general.
'he said he earned more than he really does'
'give him 6 months'

I've often thought obtaining sex under false pretences shd have some kind of criminal punishment attached.

There was some discussion of this on the Israel: why are they so bad and hated thread.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ xpost

yeah outside of the israel thing that's sorta an interesting argument

oof

so many icky things going on in this story

it's like a law school hypothetical from hell

Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not "a classical rape by force," the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish.

I wonder if the guy knew this for sure before they had sex, or whether he just assumed it might be the case. It's a dick move for sure but I'm not exactly brimming over with sympathy for the "I would never have had sex with you if I'd known you were an Arab" line either.

approx where i'm at one this one, yeah

Fully agree but deception is deception? What about the "I would never have had sex with you if I'd known you were crap" argument?

'wouldn't have consented' is a troubling concept.

besides the whole racist aspect, this decision really trivializes actual rape

see, that's a really gross, and really important, subtext---if this guy had lied about being ~rich~ then this would have never, ever gone to court. but since he lied about being muslim that makes this a prosecutable offense?

wait this jewess had sex out of wedlock? shouldn't the state of israel file a civil suit against her?

yeah I am not sure this should be rape, but it's certainly exploitation - by lying to her he's shown he doesn't respect her or regard her as a person

there is a racial element, of course. OH WORLD

i can understand her feeling violated about it though, even if that feeling is based on her own racism/whatever.

isn't she entitled not to have sex with members of a certain race, if that's her judgement?

tho i suppose the onus should probably be on her to check that shit out first if she's all that into it.

British law makes no sense to me

by lying to her he's shown he doesn't respect her or regard her as a person

yes this is what he did. also- got laid, quickly.

by lying to her he's shown he doesn't respect her or regard her as a person

http://991.com/newGallery/Happy-Mondays-Call-The-Cops-205341.jpg

what else could you lie about to get laid and be considered morally sorta-ok? wealth?

...or be held criminally liable?? HIV status? current criminal obligations (you're going to prison in a week or sth).

xps

"besides the whole racist aspect, this decision really trivializes actual rape"

right. she wasnt forced. just lied to. not nearly the same.

see, that's a really gross, and really important, subtext---if this guy had lied about being ~rich~ then this would have never, ever gone to court. but since he lied about being muslim that makes this a prosecutable offense?

I think the more interesting discussion comes from if he could get in legal trouble for lying about being rich too

current criminal obligations (you're going to prison in a week or sth).

could this be prosecutable? why?

hiv status would definitely get you done for s.thing. maybe not rape?

for "held criminally liable" sub in "a true shitbag"

xps i just mean, what would it be really awful to lie about to get laid, is all.

if "being an arab" is the line for criminal liability...

"Last night was fantastic, but I feel like I should admit that I lied when we were talking at the bar. I absolutely hate Pavement."

"You're going to jail buddy!"

having trouble believing that her decision to have sex with this guy was based entirely on his self-identification as a jew and not first and foremost her physical attraction to him

^ I am in public and just cracked up way too loud xp

where is a serious girl, who really aims sex in nearby building

Rape is not just a matter of "Oh, I wouldn't have done that if I had known." There's obviously a much more horrible, immediate and scarring trauma involved. Maybe there should be some kind of more minor criminal offense or civil cause of action for obtaining sex by fraud, but it's not rape.

I mean yeah it's not exactly cool what this guy did but come on.

hiv status would definitely get you done for s.thing. maybe not rape?

― I’ll put you in a f *ckin Weingarten you c*nt! (history mayne), 21

something to do with communicable diseases, i'm sure. it's illegal to use public transport with some shit, iirc

yeah guys but why is "saying he's jewish" somehow more exploitative then "saying s/he'll call next week" or "saying s/he is genuinely interested in yr feelings or w/e"?

despicable ppl of both sexes manipulate other ppl to have sex with them ~all the time~. it's gross and rape-y but to say that this guy is a rapist who deserves criminal punishment sets some creepy precedent i'm just not comfortable with. and that's before you even get to the racist part!

many xps prob irrelevant now

lying about HIV is 100% illegal as far as i know, but the reasons for its illegality should be fucking ~obvious~

I think everyone here can agree it's not rape?

it's definitely not rape-rape

GBH in UK, a seperate offence in other countries

In many countries, the intentional or reckless infection of a person with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is considered to be a crime. People who do so can be charged with criminal transmission of HIV, murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, or assault. Some states have enacted laws expressly to criminalize HIV transmission, as in the United States, while others charge under the existing laws, as in the United Kingdom.

He also said he was seeking a serious relationship when presumably he wasn't, which is also obtaining sex by false pretences and pretty shitty in its own right. I'd imagine that's something that Israeli men and women do all the time without being locked up for rape. You can't separate this from the racial aspect.

(Feeling slightly weird about the lack of women on this thread right now)

^^^^ditto

lying about HIV is 100% illegal as far as i know, but the reasons for its illegality should be fucking ~obvious~

― be told and get high on coconut (gbx), Wednesday, July 21, 2010 12:11 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

There was a ridiculous clusterfuck about this sometime in the last year or so, btw.

isn't she entitled not to have sex with members of a certain race, if that's her judgement?

On what planet are Muslims and Jews different races?

Holy fucking fuck you've got to be kidding me. Guy's a sleaze, but "rape" shouldn't even enter into this.

Also, what's on his iPod?

Having sex if you are HIV+ iirc

also considered here:

Rolling Metal Thread 2009

isn't she entitled not to have sex with members of a certain race, if that's her judgement?

On what planet are Muslims and Jews different races?

― Phil D., 21 July 2010 16:18 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

on the planet where i'm typing btwn phone calls and stuff, feel absolutely free to ignore that.

xp classy

ugh this story

i wonder how clear she was beforehand that she wouldn't have sex with an arab (or maybe - whether she wouldn't have sex/a relationship with anyone other than a fellow jew). and what her reasons were.

article i read said that dude introduced himself as "daniel" and that that was the extent of the "i'm jewish" deception.

my god

think epic sexism in the police is a part of the picture, certainly in the UK

actually mordy what I was calling for was prosecuting rape

there are a lot of complexities involved but in the end it's a pretty straightforward proposition

yeah i think the prosecutio side are allowed go in with a verdict in mind

i think it's really terrible (and i feel really pointless and impotent for only being able to say "i think it's really terrible") that a case that was going to fail based on the institutional contempt for women was salvaged by relying on the institutional contempt for palestinians.

"what can you do, I guess there are just certain rape victims where we don't give as much of a shit, it's just the way of the world and you can't expect the judicial system, of all things, to actually do anything about it"

that's sententious shit really. there are instances where hateful sentiments towards prosititutes/immigrants/outcasts etc cause prosecutorial complacency. a lot of the other failings - inability to manage testimony from a vulnerable complainant, character assaults from the defendant, jury prejudice - are not directly related to this. there can certainly be improvements in these areas but if the legal framework is inadequate there's not a lot an individual prosecutor or judge can do, as this case shows a misguided attempt to get ~some~ conviction just fucks things up further.

the prosecutors accepted a grotesquely fucked-up compromise, one that seems to indict the victim and all but forgive the rapist, but the fact that they accepted some kind of plea bargain isn't all that surprising in itself, right? if we accept the "vulnerability" of the victim (however we interpret that word) and leave open the possibility that conviction might not have seemed guaranteed for other reasons, then their willingness to accept his pleading guilty to a lesser charge seems like the sort of thing that happens every day all over the world, even in countries with model justice systems.

a case that was going to fail based on the institutional contempt for women

not inclined to make this assumption, myself

shaky witnesses & victims tends to be a much bigger and fatal problem to prosecuting rapes than with other crimes. like, as soon as that starts to rear its head, they won't even go forward. and yeah, i think that rests on generalized misogyny.

as this case shows a misguided attempt to get ~some~ conviction just fucks things up further.

depend on what you mean by "fucks things up further." he was convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. she was spared a trial she might not have been able to endure (i dunno that of course, just going on the claims of vulnerability). seems a better result that pursuing an unwinnable case and perhaps further traumatizing the case. if, of course, the case really was unwinnable to begin with. can't say...

yeah, i think that rests on generalized misogyny.

in general, yeah, i'd accept that. but not knowing the actual details of what went on in the prosecutor's office here, i'm refraining from assumption.

tbf i'm not sure there's any disagreement as such, but saying 'this is how it is, it's shit' isn't necessarily fatalism or lack of concern. just that more politically stable countries than israel are failing to convict rapists in cases less open to prejudice than this one.

i think it's really terrible (and i feel really pointless and impotent for only being able to say "i think it's really terrible") that a case that was going to fail based on the institutional contempt for women was salvaged by relying on the institutional contempt for palestinians.

this is totally bogus btw. it was a plea bargain. it wasn't "salvaged" by relying on contempt for palestinians. the prosecution said, "do you want to plea to rape by misrepresentation posing as a [Jewish] bachelor?" (mind u, he claims the Jewish/Arab part was important. we have no idea what prosecution actually offered) and he said, "sure beats going to trial for rape. absolutely."

it does seem quite imperfect tho, mords, come on.

im abt as cap'n save-a-israel as it gets, and i think this story blew up partly because people want to think the worst of it. and i doubt israel is worse than most other developed countries on this -- in the UK rape-in-marriage was p much legal within living memory iirc -- but, duh, everyone could do better.

mordy i dunno how that contradicts me -- very few countries have this other option of a racialized 'rape by deception' to go for in a shaky case like this! if he wasn't palestinian, it would not have been applicable, right?

you're a moron, goole.

depend on what you mean by "fucks things up further." he was convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. she was spared a trial she might not have been able to endure (i dunno that of course, just going on the claims of vulnerability). seems a better result that pursuing an unwinnable case and perhaps further traumatizing the case. if, of course, the case really was unwinnable to begin with. can't say...

― having taken an actual journalism class (contenderizer), Tuesday, 7 September 2010 22:56 (47 seconds ago)

that's what i was suggesting to nabisco. we can't say, but if the prosecutors thought there was no chance of properly convicting this person, it's understandable why they would have tried for this charge. they fucked up because (neglecting the political element entirely) it's now recorded in law that a victim of rape consented to sex (while misinformed) when there was no consent at all.

sorry, that was unfair -- maybe you're just not really following the case at all. the precedence for this 'rape by deception' is two JEWISH men who were previously convicted with it.

and to hm: if the guy raped her, perfect would be his conviction for rape. if he's innocent, perfect would be his being totally acquitted. in a world where we either don't know for sure, or can't prove for sure in a place of law, we make compromises to try and do our best. i don't see how this has to do with israel. this is every legal system in the world (and we've discussed that lots of legal systems actually have deception laws)

the racial element is a bit of a nonsequitur wrt the plea bargain, though doubtless there is racism in the israeli legal system. read the case i copied above about the 'neurosurgeon'. you can of course argue that lying about being a neurosurgeon is different to lying about being jewish.

the prosecution never mentioned it was about lying about being jewish. they said it was lying about being a bachelor. he said it was about being jewish

many many xposts, but -- we're not talking people getting acquitted in fair trials, as Mordy implied upthread. We're talking about prosecutors going "fine, let's just say she consented." (Literally, in this case.) And a pretty widespread pattern of prosecutors making decisions that basically say, you know, "oh, but she was a prostitute/homeless/mentally ill, so let's not even push this, it's too hard" -- based in part on expecting the same mentality from jurors, witnesses, etc. -- all of which eventually adds up to a failure to protect the exact people who are most vulnerable to rape in the first place.

Now obviously there are a lot of legal and cultural complexities and blame to go around for why this happens. Does anyone here seriously think anyone else here isn't aware of that? The standards of the legal system, its resources, the culture and mentality of jurors, a billion factors involved. But let's not get so jaded, cynical, or "practical" that we can't admit the results are pretty shitty and jacked up! Just because you can offer a complex explanation for why something is jacked up doesn't mean it's not jacked up.

And I'm working on the assumption that everyone here agrees that this "special difficulty" of prosecuting someone who rapes a woman in a vulnerable position is a really bad thing.

all right, well, moron that i am, based on what i've read, his race was part of the verdict:

http://972mag.com/a-rapist-who-dodged-jail-or-a-man-unjustly-accused-because-he-was-palestinian/

according to the verdict, he presented himself as a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious relationship, when he was in fact a married Muslim Arab looking for a quickie.

very few countries have this other option of a racialized 'rape by deception' to go for in a shaky case like this! if he wasn't palestinian, it would not have been applicable, right?

the precedence for this 'rape by deception' is two JEWISH men who were previously convicted with it.

ok, sure, what was the nature of the deception in those cases? in the case of sabbar kashur, it was race. unless it really is being wholly mischaracterized, and it was entirely about marital status, the "believable story" the prosecution came up with was racial in nature.

mordy I think by "racialized" he means the deception in this case was, umm, racial -- I'm assuming the Jewish men were not convicted of lying about being Jewish, because they were already Jewish

Did the prosecution ever say this was about race or was that the defendant's claim? From what I read it was entirely about misrepresenting himself as a bachelor.

I'm sorry, I should say "the evidently fictional deception in this case," which fictional deception we are now unpacking in the spirit of Foucauldian literary criticism

And I'm working on the assumption that everyone here agrees that this "special difficulty" of prosecuting someone who rapes a woman in a vulnerable position is a really bad thing.

― oɔsıqɐu (nabisco), Tuesday, September 7, 2010 3:12 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, agreed entirely. in general. i'm just tend to believe that when it comes to any given specific case, the crucial factors are less the big, general, demographic truths, and more the particulars at hand. i.e., yes there is a general and institutionally sexist/misogynist "failure to protect the exact people who are most vulnerable to rape in the first place," but a decent plea bargain might nevertheless be a prosecutor's best option even in the best of all possible worlds.

not that this was a "decent plea bargain" by any stretch of the imagination...

uh, "i'm just tend to believe..." = I just tend to beleive...

jayzis

except fucking spelled right

i need an assistant. pls submit resumes to fuckingbraindama✧✧✧@a✧✧.c✧✧

well yeah then my whole line of thinking hinges on whether lying about being married was the plea bargain, and lying about being palestinian was given to the press later, or whether both were part of the bargain to begin with.

it's not a problem that there are 'rape by deception' laws (note: no, i'm not saying these laws are as-written about race). fooling someone into consenting ought to be a crime. it is akin to drugging someone, morally.

it's not even a problem that prosecutors go for lesser crimes if conviction for the real ones is unlikely, that's life (even though rape has its own serious prosecutorial problems in legal systems, everywhere)

but it is a problem, it seems to me, that this particular story of racial deception was deemed a good possibility, and ended up being possible, as a legal avenue. it seems as though that is an example of unequal justice.

were the other two rape-by-deception cases about being (un)married?

Considering that this is a dude who was accused of actual rape, got a plea bargain for 'rape by deception,' and then had the chutzpah to go to the press and complain that this was about race and not about the fact that they felt strongly he had actually raped her and just couldn't convict because the victim was too traumatized to testify... I wouldn't trust him about anything.

well of course, my assumption is that press accounts are working from publicly available court documents, and not what this guy has said. but, who knows. they did get the whole thing wrong.

did something recently get unsealed? why is this a story again, now, totally different?

(sorry i'm reading halfway thru these articles as the thread goes on...)

yeah, C, I think we can acknowledge that lots of prosecutors are doing the best they can with the tools available, and still say that 18 months on a "consensual sex by deception" plea might demonstrate some level of general complacency, you know? not that I know a ton about what other sentencing is like in Israel, or the likelihood of getting convictions, but I don't think it's unreasonable to view that as an awfully compromised result. and whether you get that kind of result in an individual case has a lot to do with people's feelings "in general" -- i.e., if you happened to live in a culture that viewed the rape of homeless prostitutes as an unremarkable fact of life, that would bear quite heavily on the dynamics of every individual case thereof, you know? and a lot of our various cultures have big old strains of that mentality.

here's the pertinent bit from the original article:

In the new indictment filed to the court on July 14, 2009, the charges where changed to: “The defendant, who is married, falsely presented himself as a Jewish bachelor to the plaintiff, and presented himself as interested in a meaningful romantic relationship (hitherto: the misrepresentation) and offered her to escort him to the building. Due to this misrepresentation, the plaintiff agreed to accompany the defendant.” Thus, B.’s version was narrowed down to the almost-innocent affair of impersonating. “Plea bargains never match the original narrative of the plaintiff, because the two sides have to bridge the gap between them and reach an agreement,” explains Wittman, “in this case we gave up on the ‘forcible’ element and agreed to a rewriting of the indictment, according to which the defendant had sex with the woman with her consent that was obtained with deception. This formulation fully corresponds with the demands of the article in the law [Israel’s Criminal Code- E] that defines the alternative ‘rape by deception’”.

is there a full translation somewhere, mordy?

Original: http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1187907.html
Translation: http://www.mideastyouth.com/2010/09/05/israel-rape-by-deception-turns-out-to-be-brutal-rape-of-a-vulnerable-and-abused-woman/

Can't vouch for the quality of the translation -- too tired to try and read the original it atm.

thanks.

Do you still think there is no racial element Mordy?

And a pretty widespread pattern of prosecutors making decisions that basically say, you know, "oh, but she was a prostitute/homeless/mentally ill, so let's not even push this, it's too hard" -- based in part on expecting the same mentality from jurors, witnesses

If a prosecutor thinks 'it's too hard' to get a conviction then that's more likely to be a candid assessment of their own limitations than mere laziness. The only respect in which a jury will think 'it's too hard' is in passing the threshold of reasonable doubt. Their faults lie in their biases.

The insinuation that prosecutors are swayed by the same shitty prejudices as jurors seems wrong. They may share them but surely their desire to get a conviction is more significant. They may think the rape of vulnerable women is a fact of life but they will think this of other crimes too.

That said prosecutors/judges ought to fully appraise themselves of their own unthinking misogynist tendencies and whether they are contributing to a lack of general will. I'd like to think that many already do. This whole area would be more helped by legislative reform, particularly in relation to the procedures of court, the intimidation and defamation of complainants etc.

Do you still think there is no racial element Mordy?

Yeah, gotta say, I definitely don't think there's any racial element in this case.

You notice it says, "The defendant, who is married..." not "The defendant, who is an arab..." or "The defendant, who is a Palestinian..." or even "The defendant, who is a gentile..." (which the last of which is probably the only reason why the Jewish note is relevant). It's all about his presentation of marital availability. If you think that "Jewish bachelor" is a racial category -- I'm not rehashing this argument again.

NB you may be right. I only have english synopses to go on. The impersonation of a bachelor would seem to cover grounds for deception from reading that Ha'aretz article, though it didn't cite any cases of that nature.

I think we can acknowledge that lots of prosecutors are doing the best they can with the tools available, and still say that 18 months on a "consensual sex by deception" plea might demonstrate some level of general complacency, you know?

i'm probably working too hard, in the spirit of open-mindedness, to defend the indefensible. nevertheless, i feel that there just isn't enough hard info here for me to feel comfortable accusing the prosecutors of complacency. reading the translation mordy posted suggests instead that they were legitimately worried about both the welfare and the credibility of the victim, and not without reason. agree entirely that the plea bargain seems unjust and the sentence absurdly lenient, given the severity and nature of the apparent crime.

I don't remember both of the other cases, but one of them was someone claiming to have governmental power that he didn't have, I believe. xp

that last was in response to nabiscothingy, btw

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/16/mark-kennedy-undercover-cop-jemima-kahn

Carole Cadwalladr in the Observer continuing to misrepresent this case, all in the pursuit of glib sneers:

Try that for violated. Or the Israeli woman who had sex with an Israeli man, then got him jailed for rape, after she discovered that he was an Arab Israeli. Hmm. Well, no, not that one obviously. That's just racism. Or, as they call it in Israel, "the law".