israel sentences arab to 18months for consentual sex
Pepe Silvia
Posts: 3,758
what a backwards country! i see why the us state dept says they are an intolerant society and apparently racist, though no one really needed this article to prove that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... al-sex-jew
Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew
A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.
Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.
When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.
Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.
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.
The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated," they added.
The court ruled that Kashur should receive a jail term and rejected the option of a six-month community service order. He was said to be seeking to appeal.
Segal said: "The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls. When the very basis of trust between human beings drops, especially when the matters at hand are so intimate, sensitive and fateful, the court is required to stand firmly at the side of the victims – actual and potential – to protect their wellbeing. Otherwise, they will be used, manipulated and misled, while paying only a tolerable and symbolic price."
Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator, was quoted as saying: "I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?
"Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not."
Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel's population, but relationships between Jews and Arabs are rare. There are few mixed neighbourhoods or towns, and Arabs suffer routine discrimination.
Israeli MPs are considering a law requiring prospective Israeli citizens to declare loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish, democratic state". Many Arabs would balk at swearing allegiance to a state which they see as explicitly excluding or marginalising them.
Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government, is opposed to the proposal. "Why does every bill need the word 'Jewish' in it – to show the Arab citizens that it doesn't belong to them? Then we're all shocked when they radicalise their stance.
"The majority doesn't need to remind the minority that it is in fact a minority all the time," he added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... al-sex-jew
Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew
A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.
Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.
When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.
Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.
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.
The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated," they added.
The court ruled that Kashur should receive a jail term and rejected the option of a six-month community service order. He was said to be seeking to appeal.
Segal said: "The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls. When the very basis of trust between human beings drops, especially when the matters at hand are so intimate, sensitive and fateful, the court is required to stand firmly at the side of the victims – actual and potential – to protect their wellbeing. Otherwise, they will be used, manipulated and misled, while paying only a tolerable and symbolic price."
Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator, was quoted as saying: "I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?
"Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not."
Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel's population, but relationships between Jews and Arabs are rare. There are few mixed neighbourhoods or towns, and Arabs suffer routine discrimination.
Israeli MPs are considering a law requiring prospective Israeli citizens to declare loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish, democratic state". Many Arabs would balk at swearing allegiance to a state which they see as explicitly excluding or marginalising them.
Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government, is opposed to the proposal. "Why does every bill need the word 'Jewish' in it – to show the Arab citizens that it doesn't belong to them? Then we're all shocked when they radicalise their stance.
"The majority doesn't need to remind the minority that it is in fact a minority all the time," he added.
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
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Comments
2010: 9/7/10 - Bilbao
2012: 26-27/6/12 - Amsterdam ~~ 29/6/12 - Werchter ~~ 4-5/7/12 - Berlin
2014: 25/6/14 - Vienna ~~ 26/6/14 - Berlin
Israel bids to stop interracial dating
By Jonathan Cook, Middle-East Online – 25 Sept 2009
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=34559
Israel sets up special team to identify young Jewish women dating Arab men to stop them
NAZARETH, Israel
A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counsellors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and “rescue” them.
The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate – and little discussed – initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.
In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls.
Hostility to intimate relationships developing across Israel’s ethnic divide is shared by many Israeli Jews, who regard such behaviour as a threat to the state’s Jewishness. One of the few polls on the subject, in 2007, found that more than half of Israeli Jews believed intermarriage should be equated with “national treason”.
Since the state’s founding in 1948, analysts have noted, a series of legal and administrative measures have been taken by Israel to limit the possibilities of close links developing between Jewish and Arab citizens, the latter comprising a fifth of the population.
Largely segregated communities and separate education systems mean that there are few opportunities for young Arabs and Jews to become familiarised with each other. Even in the handful of “mixed cities”, Arab residents are usually confined to separate neighbourhoods.
In addition, civil marriage is banned in Israel, meaning that in the small number of cases where Jews and Arabs want to wed, they can do so only by leaving the country for a ceremony abroad. The marriage is recognised on the couple’s return.
Dr Yuval Yonay, a sociologist at Haifa University, said the number of interracial marriages was “too small to be studied”. “Separation between Jews and Arabs is so ingrained in Israeli society, it is surprising that anyone manages to escape these central controls.”
The team in Petah Tikva, a Jewish city of 200,000 residents, was created in direct response to news that two Jewish girls, aged 17 and 19, were accompanying a group of young Arab men when they allegedly beat a Jewish man, Leonard Karp, to death last month on a Tel Aviv beach. The older girl was from Petah Tikva.
The girls’ involvement with the Arab youths has revived general concern that a once-firm taboo against interracial dating is beginning to erode among some young people.
In sentiments widely shared, Hezi Hakak, a spokesman for Petah Tikva municipality, said “Russian girls”, young Jewish women whose parents arrived in Israel over the past two decades, since the former Soviet Union collapsed, were particularly vulnerable to the attention of Arab men.
Dr Yonay said Russian women were less closed to the idea of relationships with Arab men because they “did not undergo the religious and Zionist education” to which more established Israeli Jews were subject.
Mr Hakak said the municipality had created a hotline that parents and friends of the Jewish women could use to inform on them.
“We can’t tell the girls what to do but we can send a psychologist to their home to offer them and their parents advice,” he said.
Motti Zaft, the deputy mayor, told the Ynet website that the municipality was also cracking down on city homeowners who illegally subdivide apartments to rent them cheaply to single Arab men looking for work in the Tel Aviv area. He estimated that several hundred Arab men had moved into the city as a result.
Petah Tikva’s hostility to Arab men mixing with local Jewish women is shared by other communities.
In Pisgat Zeev, a settlement of 40,000 Jews, some 35 Jewish men are reported to belong to a patrol known as “Fire for Judaism” that tries to stop interracial dating.
Unusually for a settlement, Pisgat Zeev has attracted a tiny but growing population of Arab families, both from East Jerusalem and from inside Israel. Because Pisgat Zeev sits within Jerusalem’s municipal borders, Arabs with Israeli residency rights can live there as long as Jewish settlers are willing to rent to them.
One member, who identified himself as Moshe to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, said: “Our goal is to be in contact with these girls and try to explain to them the dangers of what they’re getting themselves into. In the last 10 years, 60 girls from Pisgat Zeev have gone into [Palestinian] villages [in the West Bank]. And most of them aren’t heard from after that.”
He denied that violence or threats were used against Arab men.
Last year, the municipality of Kiryat Gat, a town of 50,000 Jews in southern Israel, launched a programme in schools to warn Jewish girls of the dangers of dating local Bedouin men. The girls were shown a video titled Sleeping with the Enemy, which describes mixed couples as an “unnatural phenomenon”.
Haim Shalom, head of the municipality’s welfare department, is filmed saying: “The girls, in their innocence, go with the exploitative Arab.”
In 2004, posters sprang up all over the northern town of Safed warning Jewish women that dating Arab men would lead to “beatings, hard drugs, prostitution and crime”.
Safed’s chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, told a local newspaper that the “seducing” of Jewish girls was “another form of war” by Arab men.
Both Kiryat Gat and Safed’s campaigns were supported by a religious organisation called Yad L’achim, which runs an anti-assimilation team publicly dedicated to “saving” Jewish women.
According to its website, the organisation receives more than 100 calls a month about Jewish women living with Arab men, both in Israel and the West Bank. It launches “military-like rescues [of the women] from hostile Arab villages” in co-ordination with the police and army.
“The Jewish soul is a precious, all-too-rare resource, and we are not prepared to give up on even a single one,” says the website.
For the record I don't agree with the result of the thread topic. However they should not complain until they themselves ensure equality.
it's amazing how people get away with so much blatant racism.
really, i cant.
What makes this kindof funny though, is that you apparently really can't tell arabs and jews apart. She had to ask if he was a jew, meaning there's no way to see the difference either in many cases.
A man lied and got consentual sex in return. The woman feels cheated, I get that, but a rape charge? This is more in the line of which rape sentences was used before, to restore the family's and woman's honour after indiscreet activities with disliked individuals of a certain group. She should just take it on the chin, and check passports or whatever in the future if she's such a racist.
Peacë
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
Dems v GOP, Liberal v Labor, Tory v Labor, Gay v Straight, Arab v Jew v Black v Latino v White v Asian, 'Football v Football, 'Terror' v 'Freedom', Rich v Poor,, Wall St v Main St, FoxNews v Sanity...
Fuck, I just hope it never get to Man v Woman: As Joe Jackson sang 'If there's war between the sexes then there'll be no people left...'
Real Men - Joe Jackson (1982)
Take your mind back
I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
Boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you
What's a man now
What's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Cultural and clean?
Now it's all changed
It's got to change more
We think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
See the nice boys
Dancing in pairs
Golden earring, golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight
Straight as a line
All the guys are macho
See their leather shine
You don't want to sound dumb
Don't want to offend
So don't call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall, handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
Time to get scared
Time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Don't know how to be a man
Time to admit
What you call defeat
'cause there's women running past you now
And you just drag your feet
Man makes a gun
Man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore
Kill all the blacks
Kill all the reds
If there's war between the sexes
Then there will be no people left
And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are
Oh please it isn't anything like that and you know it. In many countries that culture treats women like pieces of meat and nothing more.
I did think about this and I will amend my original comment and say that they do of course have the right to complain. However I also believe women have a very long way to go in terms of equality.
I actually live in Petach Tikva and never heard of this initiative before I started coming to the moving train. Just goes to show you how serious it actually was.
2010: 9/7/10 - Bilbao
2012: 26-27/6/12 - Amsterdam ~~ 29/6/12 - Werchter ~~ 4-5/7/12 - Berlin
2014: 25/6/14 - Vienna ~~ 26/6/14 - Berlin
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
2010: 9/7/10 - Bilbao
2012: 26-27/6/12 - Amsterdam ~~ 29/6/12 - Werchter ~~ 4-5/7/12 - Berlin
2014: 25/6/14 - Vienna ~~ 26/6/14 - Berlin
i'm from the hasbara department of the Israeli foreign ministry.
love
rafie.
Do you really find it so hard to believe that people have different ideas and thoughts than you? I have continually tried to answer your posts and questions to me in a polite, direct and informative manner, little did I know I was dealing with an immature troll. Have a good weekend, I'm done with you.
2010: 9/7/10 - Bilbao
2012: 26-27/6/12 - Amsterdam ~~ 29/6/12 - Werchter ~~ 4-5/7/12 - Berlin
2014: 25/6/14 - Vienna ~~ 26/6/14 - Berlin
i also have no problem with you ignoring me. i've learned with people like you, that no amount of reasoned argument or intellectual maturity has any effect. the fact that you ignored unsungs racist comment, which by the way is one of the worst things i've ever seen written on these forums, and then proceeded to attempt to deflect criticism away from the judges, shows just how much of an apologist you are. lets defend the judges, but screw the racist comment aimed at all arabs right?
you don't want reasoned debate. all that matters to you is that you sabotage all criticism of Israel. If you had ever bothered to read any of my posts over the time here, you will see that i am not just critical of Israel. i have talked plenty about my displeasure also towards the US, Hamas and Egypt.
there's over 500,000 children in the occupied territories who have lived under siege all of their lives. you can keep playing semantics and arguing with pepe over the word "despite," and the word "occupied" with me. i don't give a shit. whatever turns you on. if that's more important to you than the welfare of those ordinary Palestinians who Israel is subjecting to cruel, illegal and inhumane treament every single day, well, you're not someone i would ever want anything to do with anyway.
The point is there should not have been any plea bargaining because this man should not have been arrested. The judges could have just let him go - but of course they wouldn't.
2010: 9/7/10 - Bilbao
2012: 26-27/6/12 - Amsterdam ~~ 29/6/12 - Werchter ~~ 4-5/7/12 - Berlin
2014: 25/6/14 - Vienna ~~ 26/6/14 - Berlin
Saber Kushour, an Arab convicted of 'rape by deception' of a Jewish woman, gives his side of the story in an exclusive interview
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... ion-charge
Saber Kushour apologises as he asks his guests to move the plastic chairs on his breeze-block balcony a little closer to the door to his house. If he were to sit where they are now, he explains, the electronic tag attached to his ankle would set off an alarm.
Kushour's edginess is understandable – he is recalling a 15-minute encounter almost two years ago which he says "has destroyed my life".
Last week the married father of two from east Jerusalem was sentenced to 18 months in jail for the "rape by deception" of a Jewish woman who claimed she would not have had sex with him had she known he was an Arab. What might have been a tawdry episode – casting neither Kushour nor the woman in a favourable light – exploded into a debate in Israel about racism, sexual mores and justice.
"I am paying the price for a mistake that she made," Kushour, 30, told the Observer. "I was shocked at the sentence – it shows a very vivid and clear racism." The message from the judge, he says, was that "because you are an Arab and you didn't make that clear, we are going to punish you".
In his verdict, Judge Zvi Segal conceded that it was not "a classical rape by force". He added: "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated. The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls."
At his home in Sharafat, where he is confined while awaiting an appeal, Kushour tells a different story. The woman has not been identified and has not gone public with her account.
Kushour was buying cigarettes in September 2008 when an unexpected opportunity presented itself for a casual sexual encounter. "Any person in my shoes would have done the same thing," he says.
A woman in her 20s struck up a conversation as he left the shop to return to his job delivering legal papers around Jerusalem by scooter. "She said 'you have a nice bike' and other things which I don't remember." Within minutes, he says, he realised that her interest was not confined to small talk.
Kushour speaks fluent, unaccented Hebrew, as do many Palestinians living and working in Jerusalem. The woman asked his name and Kushour replied "Dudu" – a common Israeli name. "Since I was a kid everyone calls me Dudu – even my wife calls me Dudu. It's a nickname." At no point, he says, did the woman – who gave her name as Maya – ask if he was Jewish, although he has acknowledged that he said he was single.
The pair went to a small roof area in a nearby office block. "When we were having sex, she was worried that someone would see us, but she never told me to stop. She was more than willing – she initiated it."
It has been suggested that Kushour presented himself as a bachelor interested in a long-term relationship. If that had been Maya's concern, Kushour points out, she might have asked him more about his background. After the brief encounter, Kushour tapped Maya's mobile number into his phone and left. "I didn't treat her like garbage – this is what she wanted."
Unknown to him, Maya contacted the police after the encounter to lodge a complaint. Kushour says he doesn't know how or when she realised he was not Jewish. The woman was given a medical examination, presented in court, which showed, according to Kushour, no signs of force or injury.
Six weeks later Kushour was idly flicking through numbers in his mobile's address book. "I saw 'Maya' and I thought 'who is Maya?' I had already forgotten about her. I rang the number to see who it was, and then I realised it was the girl. I said 'Can I see you?' and we arranged to meet."
Maya didn't show up and didn't respond to Kushour's calls and texts. But, crucially, she now had a vital piece of information for the pursuit of her complaint – his contact details.
Three days later Kushour received a phone call from the police. "They told me I had a problem and to come to the police station." He was interrogated for five to six hours, without a lawyer.
In the final hour of questioning, the police began to mention a rape claim. Eventually Kushour was handcuffed and taken to a cell. Over three days the questioning continued. "This was the hardest moment of my entire life," says Kushour. "I didn't have a clue what they were going to do." On the third day, Kushour was taken to court – by this time represented by a lawyer found by his brother – and charged with rape. He spent the next two months in prison and since then has been electronically tagged and confined to his home. The case came to court last week. His lawyer has told him that, because of the publicity surrounding the case, the appeal may be expedited. In the meantime, says Kushour, "I can't leave the house, I can't work, I can't feed my children."
Kushour's conviction has transfixed Israel. Some see echoes of a primeval – and racist – instinct to protect "our" women against outside marauders. Others are outraged at what they see as a blatant injustice, pointing to a backdrop of widespread, systematic and – some say – growing discrimination against Arabs who make up 20% of Israel's population.
"This is a most amazing decision by the court," says Tamar Hermann of the Israel Democracy Institute. "Deception is one thing – but to be convicted of rape?" It has, she says, "struck a sensitive chord in the Israeli mainstream of Arabs pretending to be Jews."
The issue of identity is paramount in a land where both communities regard each other with suspicion and hostility.
Yuval Yonay, a sociology professor at Haifa University, in one of Israel's few mixed cities, says Kushour's behaviour "might be improper but it is not rape".
He says that in 16 years of teaching at a university where 20-25% of the student population is Arab, he has "never even heard of a mixed relationship". Discrimination against Arabs is, he says, evident at all levels.
Some have defended the verdict. "We all have different characteristics, and it is a person's right to have sexual relations with a person knowing the facts about those characteristics," Dana Pugach of the Noga Centre for Victims of Crime told the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Kushour says he has had a lot of support over the past week from Israeli Jews. "The problem is not with the people themselves, but those in power," he says. "I just want justice."
Whatever the outcome of his appeal, his brief encounter with Maya has turned his life upside down. His relationship with his wife has been severely tested. "I asked her last night to forgive me. She said yes, but I can see the pain and hurt in her eyes."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Ok, this guy certainly doesn't deserve a punishment for the crime they say he committed.
But, man is he a slimeball. I'd say that the majority of people in his position would have certainly NOT done the same thing.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ju ... ion-charge
Saber Kushour: 'My conviction for "rape by deception" has ruined my life'
Saber Kushour, an Arab convicted of 'rape by deception' of a Jewish woman, gives his side of the story in an exclusive interview
Saber Kushour apologises as he asks his guests to move the plastic chairs on his breeze-block balcony a little closer to the door to his house. If he were to sit where they are now, he explains, the electronic tag attached to his ankle would set off an alarm.
Kushour's edginess is understandable – he is recalling a 15-minute encounter almost two years ago which he says "has destroyed my life".
Last week the married father of two from east Jerusalem was sentenced to 18 months in jail for the "rape by deception" of a Jewish woman who claimed she would not have had sex with him had she known he was an Arab. What might have been a tawdry episode – casting neither Kushour nor the woman in a favourable light – exploded into a debate in Israel about racism, sexual mores and justice.
"I am paying the price for a mistake that she made," Kushour, 30, told the Observer. "I was shocked at the sentence – it shows a very vivid and clear racism." The message from the judge, he says, was that "because you are an Arab and you didn't make that clear, we are going to punish you".
In his verdict, Judge Zvi Segal conceded that it was not "a classical rape by force". He added: "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated. The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls."
At his home in Sharafat, where he is confined while awaiting an appeal, Kushour tells a different story. The woman has not been identified and has not gone public with her account.
Kushour was buying cigarettes in September 2008 when an unexpected opportunity presented itself for a casual sexual encounter. "Any person in my shoes would have done the same thing," he says.
A woman in her 20s struck up a conversation as he left the shop to return to his job delivering legal papers around Jerusalem by scooter. "She said 'you have a nice bike' and other things which I don't remember." Within minutes, he says, he realised that her interest was not confined to small talk.
Kushour speaks fluent, unaccented Hebrew, as do many Palestinians living and working in Jerusalem. The woman asked his name and Kushour replied "Dudu" – a common Israeli name. "Since I was a kid everyone calls me Dudu – even my wife calls me Dudu. It's a nickname." At no point, he says, did the woman – who gave her name as Maya – ask if he was Jewish, although he has acknowledged that he said he was single.
The pair went to a small roof area in a nearby office block. "When we were having sex, she was worried that someone would see us, but she never told me to stop. She was more than willing – she initiated it."
It has been suggested that Kushour presented himself as a bachelor interested in a long-term relationship. If that had been Maya's concern, Kushour points out, she might have asked him more about his background. After the brief encounter, Kushour tapped Maya's mobile number into his phone and left. "I didn't treat her like garbage – this is what she wanted."
Unknown to him, Maya contacted the police after the encounter to lodge a complaint. Kushour says he doesn't know how or when she realised he was not Jewish. The woman was given a medical examination, presented in court, which showed, according to Kushour, no signs of force or injury.
Six weeks later Kushour was idly flicking through numbers in his mobile's address book. "I saw 'Maya' and I thought 'who is Maya?' I had already forgotten about her. I rang the number to see who it was, and then I realised it was the girl. I said 'Can I see you?' and we arranged to meet."
Maya didn't show up and didn't respond to Kushour's calls and texts. But, crucially, she now had a vital piece of information for the pursuit of her complaint – his contact details.
Three days later Kushour received a phone call from the police. "They told me I had a problem and to come to the police station." He was interrogated for five to six hours, without a lawyer.
In the final hour of questioning, the police began to mention a rape claim. Eventually Kushour was handcuffed and taken to a cell. Over three days the questioning continued. "This was the hardest moment of my entire life," says Kushour. "I didn't have a clue what they were going to do." On the third day, Kushour was taken to court – by this time represented by a lawyer found by his brother – and charged with rape. He spent the next two months in prison and since then has been electronically tagged and confined to his home. The case came to court last week. His lawyer has told him that, because of the publicity surrounding the case, the appeal may be expedited. In the meantime, says Kushour, "I can't leave the house, I can't work, I can't feed my children."
Kushour's conviction has transfixed Israel. Some see echoes of a primeval – and racist – instinct to protect "our" women against outside marauders. Others are outraged at what they see as a blatant injustice, pointing to a backdrop of widespread, systematic and – some say – growing discrimination against Arabs who make up 20% of Israel's population.
"This is a most amazing decision by the court," says Tamar Hermann of the Israel Democracy Institute. "Deception is one thing – but to be convicted of rape?" It has, she says, "struck a sensitive chord in the Israeli mainstream of Arabs pretending to be Jews."
The issue of identity is paramount in a land where both communities regard each other with suspicion and hostility.
Yuval Yonay, a sociology professor at Haifa University, in one of Israel's few mixed cities, says Kushour's behaviour "might be improper but it is not rape".
He says that in 16 years of teaching at a university where 20-25% of the student population is Arab, he has "never even heard of a mixed relationship". Discrimination against Arabs is, he says, evident at all levels.
Some have defended the verdict. "We all have different characteristics, and it is a person's right to have sexual relations with a person knowing the facts about those characteristics," Dana Pugach of the Noga Centre for Victims of Crime told the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Kushour says he has had a lot of support over the past week from Israeli Jews. "The problem is not with the people themselves, but those in power," he says. "I just want justice."
Whatever the outcome of his appeal, his brief encounter with Maya has turned his life upside down. His relationship with his wife has been severely tested. "I asked her last night to forgive me. She said yes, but I can see the pain and hurt in her eyes."
• This article was corrected on Sunday 25 July 2010. We referred to Saber Kushour as an Arab Israeli but Kushour is Palestinian. This has been corrected.
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
...Which just goes to show you once again how making assumptions makes an ass out of u and me.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
i just want to see if you deliberately left out the part where, according to Deputy Prosecutor Danny Wittman, the woman had made numerous allegations of sexual assault in the past, with some resulting in confessions and convictions and others not.
i wonder if they were worried this allegation of rape may again, not result in a conviciton? Wittman also said, they wanted to keep the case from going to trial where she’d be forced to relive "another" traumatic experience.
considering she had made numerous allegations of sexual assualt in the past, i wonder why they decided one more would be 'too traumatic"?
and a justice system that backs up that mentality....racist..bottom line.
from the initial media release...
"If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated," the judges said in their ruling.
as for racist sentiment Yosi, there's plenty of proof of that already. Jews are legally forbidden to intermarry in Israel. Israel, has obstructed intermarriage between its Jewish and Arab citizens by refusing to recognise such marriages unless they are performed abroad.
why's that again?
like why do people sometimes have to convert to judaism before they can marry a jew?
its like they aren't good enough unless they are jewish too.
'
religion is so stupid. talking about things that happened (maybe) 2ooo years ago like it has some relevance on your life today.
"we were persecuted"
no actually you weren't. you were off on your iphone updating your pointless twitter account, THEY were persecuted.