[WCUSP] Sexual Violence in Israel

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

Sexual Violence in Israel      
 
A soul-searching mission
Arthur Neslen
October 19, 2006 10:01 AM 
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/arthur_neslen/2006/10/arthur_neslen_1.html
 
As court officials began drafting the _indictment_ 
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1923868,00.html)   of Israel's president Moshe Katsav 
on charges of rape, sexual harassment and  misconduct, Israelis seemed 
preoccupied with the reputation of the country and  the image of its highest office. 
Writing in the _Ha'aretz_ (http://www.haaretz.com/)  newspaper, Ze'ev Segal 
called on  Katsav to resign "to save his presidency's honour, his own health and 
the  public's faith in the institution of the presidency". 
On one level, it was gratifying to see the country talking about sexual  
violence against women, however indirectly. The issue has long been confined to  
women's groups and the inside pages of Ha'aretz. But if Israel was sitting down 
 to search its soul, it seemed to be deliberately missing the gory bits. For 
the  Katsav allegations are only the latest in a string of violent sex 
scandals over  the summer.  
The recently resigned justice minister and Kadima MK, Haim Ramon, also went  
on_ trial_ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6058998.stm)  this  
week accused of sexual harassing a female soldier on 12 July, the day that  
Hizbullah seized two Israeli soldiers and the recent war began. 

On 29  September, _Colonel  Atef Zahar_ 
(http://www.wethewomen.org/entry/col-atef-zahar-an-idf-officer-gets-6-years-for-rape/)  was sentenced to six years 
in prison for raping a female soldier  who had served under his command. 
Earlier that same month, the officer of the  military advocate general announced 
that no suspects would face criminal charges  for the alleged gang rape of a 
12-year-old girl living on the Israel Air Force's  Nevatim base.  
Instead, a military tribunal will now try 30 soldiers who allegedly had sex  
with the girl on charges of conduct unbecoming. When first informed of the 
case  by the social welfare ministry - two and a half years before the case came 
to  court - the army had said that it was "not its concern". The girl has 
since been  hospitalised for psychiatric treatment. 

Feminist groups in Israel, such  as New Profile, have warned for years that 
the militarisation of Israeli society  was disfiguring its home front. They 
said that the occupation of the West Bank  and Gaza was spilling back across the 
Green Line onto a home front ill-prepared  to cope with it. Now that its 
effects appear to be lapping at the door of even  the president's residence, the 
effort to clean up the mess seems to be organised  around several large 
elephants in the hallway. 

Elephant number one:  domestic violence. Between 2000 and 2005, there was an 
almost 300% increase in  the number of Israeli women murdered by firearms, 
almost half of whom were  killed by partners who were soldiers, security guards 
or policemen.  

Conflicts that pit young soldiers against guerrillas operating in  civilian 
populations from which they are indistinguishable, often cause forms of  
traumatic illness, and so do suicide bombings. Both probably contributed to the  
results of a survey in 2002 which indicated that nearly one in 10 Israelis were  
suffering from some degree of PTSD. It may be PTSD of a wholly different order 
 than that experienced by Palestinians, but it is a social problem 
nonetheless.  

Elephant number two: sexual violence in the military. Katsav may not  have 
been a soldier but Israel as a society has only lived one year without a  state 
of national emergency - and that was 1966. The army is still revered as an  
exemplar of the nation at its finest, the draft is still seen as a great  
leveller, and military leaders go on to become political leaders. As a result,  the 
army sets standards that percolate downwards. 

This is worrying  because in 2003, research from the Israel Defence Force 
showed that one-fifth of  female soldiers had experienced sexual harassment 
within the army. The figures  rose to 81% and 69% respectively when specific 
examples of harassment, such as  humiliating innuendo or unwanted sexual proposals, 
were included. 

In  2004, Hilla Kernel-Soliman, the then director of the Association of Rape 
Crisis  Centres in Jerusalem told me there was "an atmosphere to humiliate 
women in the  army". She said her organisation was "constantly" receiving calls 
about sexual  harassment.

Elephant number three: sexual violence against Arabs. This is  one of the 
most difficult areas to investigate due to the stigma attached to  such crimes in 
Palestinian and other communities. In December 2004, the  allegation by the 
Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani that he had been  raped while in 
Israeli custody at least prized open the lid on the issue.  

But stories abound from former Israeli soldiers and Palestinian NGOs of  
incidents that were never properly investigated, or were covered up, or  sometimes 
were never investigated at all. Kernel-Soliman also related several  
incidents of alleged sexual harassment by Israeli soldiers of Palestinian women  at 
checkpoints. 

Allegations, of course, should never be taken as  evidence of guilt. Figures 
showing rises in sexual harassment can illustrate an  increased awareness of 
the issue among women, a greater confidence to complain  about infractions, 
even an increased confidence in the legal system's ability to  dispense justice. 

But there does seem to be more than one survey that  links rising sexual 
violence and the Intifada years. Between 1999 and 2005, for  example, the 
Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel reported an increase  in the number of 
calls to their rape crisis hotline of more than 100% - from  16,682 to 33,424 - 
and that is considered just the tip of the iceberg. 

A  dominatrix sex worker I interviewed for my book, Occupied Minds: A journey 
 through the Israeli psyche, said that Israeli soldiers returning from the  
occupied territories frequently wanted to be tied up, yelled at, slapped in the 
 face and have guns or sharp objects pointed at them. By contrast, the most  
common request that Israeli Arabs made of Jewish sex workers was that they 
dress  up in IDF uniforms before sex. 

For all the gravity of the charges  against him, Katsav is a symbol of a 
wider malaise in Israeli society. To some,  his reported allegation that he was 
the victim of a plot by dark political  forces seemed typical of a persecutory 
mindset. Yet despite his Likudnik  background, it has to be pointed out that 
behind the scenes, Katsav has also  been an advocate of talks with Hamas and 
Hizbullah to free the captured Israeli  soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon and secure 
co-existence for Israel in, as he sees  it, an Islamic Middle East. 

Guilty or innocent, his indictment will not  cure the military brutalisation 
that Israeli society has undergone in the last  six years. Nor will it heal 
the social wounds exacerbated by an accelerated  neo-liberal economic programme 
that has removed many of the few remaining safety  nets for Israel's poor. 
Indeed, his arraignment offers the possibility of a fake  national purging that 
leaves Israel's self-image and reputation abroad as a  liberal democracy 
enhanced. 

And this brings us to perhaps the largest of  the elephants skulking around 
the Israeli living room, and the place where we  came in - Israeli identity. 
The founders of Zionism saw the country as an  outpost of secular European 
modernity. In 1896, Theodore Herzl famously  envisioned the country as "a vanguard 
of culture against barbarianism". Just  over a century later, Ehud Barak 
trumpeted Israel as "a villa in the jungle".  

Only last weekend, the country's ambassador to Australia, Naftali Tamir,  
_talked_ 
(http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1159193438167&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull)   of the two countries being "sisters in Asia" because, 
"we don't have yellow skin  and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race 
... we are basically the  white race." 

In a country where 88% of upper income Israelis are  Ashkenazim (or 
Europeans) and 60% of lower income Israelis are Mizrahim (or  "Orientals"), it is worth 
pointing out that Moshe Katsav, an Iranian Jew, is not  part of the white 
race either. 

Israel's soul searching about sexual  violence should start with his 
indictment. But if it ends there, it will have  found little more than a  scapegoat.




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