RO: Palestinian jailed for being Palestinian

The BBQ Pit
61

Oh dear.

There are two separate issues involved here that we would probably do well to keep separate. The first is whether what this guy did can or cannot constitute rape. The second is whether he was convicted of it because of racism or ethnocentrism. I’m not touching the latter. I will leave that to… others.

As to the first question, though, a lot of people seem to be saying that the idea that lying to accomplish sex could ever be rape is absurd, and I think it’s a lot more complicated than that. As has been mentioned a couple of times, there are laws of similar construction in place in plenty of jurisdictions, including most American ones. I also think that there are quite a few posters who aren’t considering fully the ramifications of their responses to this particular case.

This is a good example. First, the nonsense about how she opened her legs is disgusting, and casts the rest of the argument in a terrible light. She can have sex with whoever she wants, and ‘virtue’ has no place in the discussion. It’s very tiresome that a discussion of a sexual assault has to follow this blueprint. Can we cut that out?

Second, are you comfortable with the position that there is no lie a person can tell to another person which can result in a consent problem? Is that the approach you take with respect to, for instance, financial fraud? If I tell you I’m an authorized dealer of Rolexes, or whatever, and you consent to give me money for my Rolex, haven’t you “chosen” your course of action in precisely the same way this woman “chose” to have sex with this cat?

I certainly understand that not all lies are created equal. I’m not trying to argue with anybody that there should be a hard line drawn, and everybody who says something that isn’t true during a courtship should be thrown in jail. But rape is sex without consent. Consent is something that lives in each person’s mind individually. If telling her that he’s Jewish is a reasonable deciding factor for her in continuing the interactions then it is necessarily true that he accomplished her consent by fraud (and whether or not you think it makes for a good society, I think we all agree that reasonable people sometimes decide who to have sex with based on less significant things than culture or religion). And accomplishing consent by fraud is a crime, same as it’s a crime to accomplish possession of somebody’s property by lying to them. There are going to be gray areas, obviously, and it’s a complicated and difficult thing to sort out. I’m just not sure if people are really comfortable with the idea that this never rises to the level of rape.

Those of you who think this is stupid, how do you feel about a guy who says he’s a famous person? A guy who pretends to be a woman’s boyfriend? A guy who lies about his connections in a particular industry and promises some kind of reward for sex that he can’t make good on? Are any of those sufficient to invalidate consent?

And again, I know this is a heated discussion, and I’m not taking any position on whether the actual prosecution was appropriate or not. I’m only responding to the argument about the letter of the law as written.

62

They make him a sleaze – they do not make him a rapist.

Turn the tables – how would you feel about a woman who did the same?

63

Well, I wasn’t talking about how I feel. But the same rule applies either way, obviously.

64

I know that talking to an “Expert” about basic logic is wasted when he’s getting his hate on, but the point is that you find the information first and then make the accusation, not make the accusation and say you believe it because you’re so bigoted against the group in question and it’s just unfortunate that you don’t have any actual proof to back up your hate.

Seriously, what part of “under the law in question, dishonesty used to convince someone to have sex is rape by deception” is confusing you?
You do know that other nations actually have their own laws, right?

Yah… you’re making that up.

It’s interesting just how easily you, repeatedly, manage to ‘forgot’ inconvenient facts. Like how you repeated something like a half dozen times how the UN created Israel and one of the ways you knew this to be true was that the Arab armies attacked on the very day that the Partition was supposed to go into effect. But then it was pointed out that, no, those events were months apart. So you repeated your fiction, several times in fact. Each time changing it just a bit. You knew you were right, because the Arabs attacked the day before the Partition went into effect? No? Months before? Okay then, you knew you were right because they attacked the day after the Partition was supposed to into effect? No? Months before. Okay, then you knew you were right because…

No, of course, after you admitted to instintually filtering any and all information through your standard anti-Israel mindset (also known as “bigotry”) and that you had to fight to actually analyze the facts and not just fit them into reasons why you hated Israel (for which you blamed me, naturally), you’ve totally forgotten it. What luck!

Here, let me remind you.

Naturally, you’re bigoted against Israel, and it’s all my fault. That’s right up there with “Sure I don’t have a natural revulsion to black people, but it’s their fault, a bunch of black kids once robbed me!”

Yah, you’re making that up too. Dio decides that Isreal simply must be horrible because no court in Israel would prosecute and no part of the justice system would bring suit if it was a Jewish man who tricked an Arab woman into having sex, and he knows this because, well, he just knows that the Israelis are bad, bad people. And his hate is enough for him.

And you, habitually taking all new informationand finding ways to work it into your anti-Israel worldview, why, your’re shocked, shocked you say at why someone might call you a bigot. Why, if you and Dio are bigots, then everybody who criticizes Israel must be! Of course, I’ve criticized Israel, Jack’s criticized Israel, Malthus has criticized Israel, Captain Amazing has criticized Israel, DSeid has… and none of them are bigots.
Funny, aint it?

65

This case certainly shocks me. This guy says he met a woman, introduced himself as “Dudu”, and later they had sex. She discovers that despite his being called Dudu he is not Jewish, so goes to the cops. The guy then spends two years behind bars based on her claim that his family and friends calling him Dudu led her to think he was Jewish? How is anyone defending this shit?

66

… you do realize that’s his claim, not necessarily the gospel truth? And that the woman involved had a different claim? She claimed that he introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor (he’s Muslim, and married), and that he was seeking a serious relationship. The court believed her, and found that would qualify as deception used to get sex, which is a crime.

It’s fine to object to the law, but at least keep the facts straight.

67

That’s the problem though, this is a classic he said she said situation. What basis did the court have to believe her version of events? Whatever that might have been I would hope that it was hella compelling to cost a man two years behind bars.

68

She honestly believed that a guy she had sex with right after meeting was seeking a serious longterm relationship? I’m not saying people who have immediate sex are bad people, but that’s not exactly a sure fire recipe for a long lasting relationship.

69

“Funny, he didn’t shtupp Jewish…”

70

Must you be so anal?

Read the example Jimmy Chitwood gave again. It wasn’t about this particular case. He asked, “what if THIS happened?” Just because the law in Israel considers getting someone to have sex with you by lying is rape doesn’t mean it actually is.

At one point, there was no law against spousal rape. Did that mean that mean there was no such thing?

This is Israeli law is completely unjust and makes a mockery of true rape victims. Is the man a sleaze ball? Yes. Is he a rapist? No, not according to the actual definition of rape. (YES, I KNOW WHAT THE LAW SAYS. I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE GODDAMNED LAW.)

:rolleyes:

71

The actual definition of rape is in the goddamned law, so what are you talking about if you’re not talking about the goddamned law?

72

Sometimes cases are decided based on one person’s word against another’s. Especially if it’s a case of someone having allegedly said something in order to defraud someone into a particular set of actions.

If it’ll save you from getting all in a tizzy, think of it as “the crime that is known as not obtaining accurate consent by willfully misrepresenting facts such that your potential sexual partner is not allowed to make an honest appraisal and by which you defraud them into agreeing to sex.”

You don’t know what the you’re talking about except you’re prepared to be difficult. The ‘actual definition of rape’ is:

[

](http://east.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rape)

In the situation we’re talking about, unlawful sexual activity includes, by statute, lying in order to trick someone into having sex with you. What you really mean to say is that “rape by fraud isn’t the same thing as beating the shit out of someone and forcing them to have sex!” And you’d be right. But it’s also a non sequitur.

73

Whether or not the law is a just one, it’s pretty clear it’s not a racist one.

74

It’s the application that that’s racist.

75

Which is why there’s a judicial process.

76

Except that of course I did not say that, and was responding to Damuri’s “Why not compare what is happening to this guy to what would happen to a Jew that conned a muslim girl into having sex by claiming he was muslim”.

Do you even bother to read the posts you pretend to refute, or do you just do a quick scan for excuses to spout your biases?

77

Dio, one, a Palestinian paper would have covered it. Two, given the attention this case has gotten, the woman would be going to the media now, don’t you think? So, yeah, you are full of shit. I might as well be bringing up what I would imagine would happen if a Jew in an Arab country did this to a Muslim woman (other than that the Muslim woman wouldn’t bring it up because of what would happen to her); our imaginings and speculations reveal only our extant biases and nothing more. And yours are particularly ugly and presumptuous.

The law should be blind to the alleged law-breaker or victims religion, race, ethnicity, etc. The courts have convicted Jewish Israelis of this crime; to not convict solely because the lie involved a Palestinian lieing religious identity instead of job status (as it had in the past) when he is clearly guilty of the crime as the law is written, would be ugly.

78

“Trust me, ma’am, speculum is just a fancy word for penis.”

79

Guin “rape” means a sex with a lack of meaningful consent. Nothing more and nothing less. That includes sex by force or threat of force, sex with someone who is passed out and unable to consent or object and who may not even remember it occurred, sex with someone who is too young to meaningfully give consent, and in this case, sex in which consent was fraudulently obtained.

They are not all equal but one does not make a mockery of the other.

An intelligent conversation could be had over whether this law is good, well-intended but poorly written, or completely dumb even in concept. BUT neither the law nor its application in this case is racist, or Jim Crow, or apartheid, and portraying it as such reveals more about those who claim it than it does about Israel.

80

Good to see nothing changes with our man FinnAgain.

“YOU LIE!”