Judging by the reactions to the latest court rulings dealing with a woman's right to her body, it appears that Israeli society is undergoing a change in its attitude toward equality between the sexes. In fact, there is a change, and it stems at least partly from the law on sexual harassment. The change is particularly noticeable in the army and the labor courts. Every complaint in either venue that ends in punishment serves to strengthen the status of women.
But there is still a considerable gap between application of the law's civilian aspect and that of its criminal aspect. At the Bar Association conference in Eilat last summer, the difficulties of implementing the law were discussed, and Deputy State Prosecutor Yehoshua Lemberger noted that the law is hardly ever used in criminal proceedings.
People who engage in sexual abuse are hardly ever brought to trial; most cases are closed before reaching the court. As many as 70 percent of files dealing with sexual harassment are closed; by comparison, the rate of all files closed is between 35 and 40 percent. The percentage of those who are acquitted is also higher than average.
This is a worrisome failure that necessitates a reexamination. But with the current public mood tending toward fiery populism, there is no chance of holding a reasonable discussion of the law and its implications for society. In an atmosphere like this, it is not surprising that even the courts take sides, in a way that is not always beneficial to society.
An example of such partisanship was provided last week by the Supreme Court, which was discussing an appeal by the state of a verdict handed down by the Nazareth District Court. In the middle of intercourse, a certain woman asked a certain man to stop. But he, under the influence of hashish and being very much aroused (according to his own testimony), disregarded her request and continued until he was satisfied.
This all happened within minutes, between a couple that had been involved romantically for a long time. The district court took into account the changes in both of their testimonies and the complexity of their relationship and convicted the man of an indecent act, gave him a six-month suspended sentence and ordered him to pay her compensation. The ruling was based on the liberal worldview, which holds that a woman has an absolute right to her body, that even a husband can be accused of raping his wife, and that since the sexual act includes penetration, the woman must be defended.
But the court's far-reaching interpretation of this principle did not satisfy the state; it appealed the verdict and the leniency of the sentence. The result was that the Supreme Court found the man guilty of rape, but left the sentence in place, and thereby created a strange ruling that expresses a worrisome worldview.
Justice Salim Joubran, who authored the decision, admittedly expressed concern that the desire to preserve the woman's honor and freedom of choice might lead to "expanding the criteria for conviction on such a severe charge" and thereby cause "the dynamic and stormy nature" of intimate relations between a couple to be misunderstood. But he himself, unaware, used the kind of rhetoric that measures a woman's right to her body and dignity in purely material terms.
In the ruling, Joubran deliberated over the question of whether this was an ongoing offense, as in the case of a person who puts a coin in a parking meter and then returns after an hour to add another, lest he be accused of a parking violation. In the end, he concluded that it was an "offense involving many details" rather than an ongoing one. However, in the spirit of the parking meter problem, he sought the exact location and timing of the offense, as if one could put a measurement device in a sexual organ. This is a very enlightened ruling, on the face of it, but it raises very difficult questions about the detrimental expansion of the legalization of life in Israel.
The extreme liberal discourse about rights, which ignores social and cultural factors, represents almost inhuman individualism and may jeopardize women themselves. Is it good for a woman who goes to bed with a man to be considered a parking meter? Does a sane society want sexuality, one of the most complex elements that drives it, to change from a gentle dance (sometimes indeed painful and cruel) to a dry mechanical act that can be measured with a stopwatch? And does this verdict, which has nothing to do with the defense of weak women, not contain a depressing return to the bourgeois negotiations of the century before last?
