Sabbar Kashur was convicted of rape last week. His crime? He had consensual sex with a Jewish woman after posing as a Jewish bachelor, when in fact he is a married Arab. Kashur plans to appeal his 18-month jail sentence to the Supreme Court.
The ruling handed down quickly sparked numerous responses and interpretations. It is making waves in foreign media, too. If there was a chance that from now on, anyone who lied about being single and fooled someone would be tried in court, then perhaps we could entertain the possibility that racism was not involved. But does anyone - male or female - actually think this is the case?
After all, alongside "They'll take our jobs," the utterance "They'll sleep with our women" is one of the most emblematic claims of racists. What a natural partnership that exists between racism and male chauvinism; how they thrive together.
Discrimination against Arabs is not a rare phenomenon in Israel today, yet the intersection seen in this case - of nationality, gender, power relations between men and women, and the definition of rape - is unique.
The story brought to mind, among others, an earlier case involving sexual offenses through deception. In 2003 Hen Alkobi was convicted of the attempted rape of two female minors, after she represented herself to them as a man and became romantically and sexually involved with them. Alkobi received a six-month sentence which was later reduced to community service.
In a similar case in the United States in 1995 (discussed by Dr. Aeyal Gross in an article entitled "Impersonation as Another Person: Imitation and Gender Insubordination in the Trial of Hen Alkobi" ) Sean O'Neill, who was born female but lived as a male, was charged with rape for having sex with four young women. He received 90 days in jail.
The Alkobi case lacks the nationalist angle, so what do Alkobi and Kashur have in common? Each of them lied to improve their social standing. Alkobi, a woman, pretended to be a man; Kashur, an Arab, pretended to be a Jew. Each one crossed a line that in today's Israel it is forbidden to cross. Alkobi crossed the gender line, and Kashur the national separation fence. Kashur, the "enemy," posed as a lover - not that this particular liar arouses our sympathy. In an interview with the Guardian following the incident, he claimed "Any person in my shoes would have done the same thing." Let's hope he's wrong.
Nevertheless, countless men lie about their marital status, profession, income and age - as do many women. But about nationality or gender? That's going too far, society says. At any moment the entire nationalist-patriarchal system could come crashing down; may God help us.
Consenting to sexual relations is a complex matter, there is no question, and rape is not only defined as a violent attack in a dark alley. Still, Kashur's conviction, in light of the circumstances that have been made public, is likely to harm the critical struggle to convict and punish rapists to the full extent of the law. For the act of rape, it is worth keeping in mind, is not sex; it is sexual violence. The problem with the Kashur case - on top of the issues of racism - is the blurring of this significant border.
Rape serves as a weapon in innumerable national clashes around the world. Men fight and the winning side rapes the women on the losing side, to put it bluntly. This terrible custom, we must recognize, is rooted in civilization as we know it. And as long as this is the case, it's impossible to deny that something in the very foundations of our civilization is very rotten. Attention to all of you who don't understand what nudniky feminists are after.
Who's all the action for?
In a quite amusing clip, the site www.feministfrequency.com measures testosterone levels in Hollywood. The Bechdel test - named after the American artist Alison Bechdel, who created the syndicated comic strip "dykestowatchoutfor" - examines films according to three criteria: 1. Does the movie contain at least two women and do they have names?
2. Do the women talk to each other?
3. Do they talk to each other about anything other than men?
After the hostess presents the questions, posters for films that do not pass the test begin to whiz by on the screen beside her. To emphasize just how many there are, she stares at the screen, looks at her watch, walks away, returns, sits down, eats an apple, finishes eating and continues watching the screen.
And there are many. The long list includes, among others: "Greenberg," "The A-Team," "Green Zone," "Toy Story" (the new one and its predecessors ), "Shutter Island," "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider," "Catch Me If You Can," "Insomnia," "The Big Lebowski," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "The Prince of Egypt," "Good Will Hunting," the Batman films, "Pulp Fiction," "What Women Want," "Aladdin," "Glengarry Glen Ross," the Back to the Future films, "Home Alone" and "Stand By Me"; prominent 1970s' films include "Saturday Night Fever," "Star Wars," "Manhattan," "All that Jazz" and "Tommy." The list goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. Two chick flicks from different periods stand out: "Sex and the City" from 2008 and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from 1961, even though they include more than two women who even talk to each other - but only about men, according to the survey.
The hostess explains that the test does not measure how feminist certain films are, or if they deal with women or are thought to be good films. It is simply a test that serves to clarify whether women have a minimal presence. The results, she says, prove that the film industry creates movies by men about men. Next time you go to a movie, ask yourself these three questions, she suggests.
