Liz and Ofra have contacted us with a very important correction regarding this story. It seems that all the stories on the “rape by deception” conviction left out quite a lot of important facts and also contained some key falsehoods. Most importantly, this was *not* sex in which the woman said ‘yes’ on the basis of false information.
The report shows, that the victim, B., was raped by her father since she was six-years-old, and was later forced into prostitution by him. At the time of the rape, B. was staying in a women’s shelter after another sexual assault by her father. According to B.’s testimony, first revealed in the Haaretz report, after Kashur claimed that he was a Jewish bachelor, he enticed her to come into a stairwell in a Jerusalem building, where he brutally raped her. B. was left bleeding, beaten up and half naked by Kashur.
Following the rape, B. was hospitalized in a mental institution, where she was investigated by the police. The Prosecutor’s office decided to charge Kashur with rape and sexual assault based on B.’s testimony and other evidence. When B. later appeared in Court to give her testimony, which was confused and contradictory at times, she was confronted by the Defense attorney with her past occupation as a prostitute and her father’s abuse and rape from an early age. The court appearance left B. severely traumatized. When the Defense learned that B. previously filed 14 complaints against her father and other men for sexual assault, it asked to cross-examine B. once again about the past complaints, while focusing on a number of them that didn’t result in an indictment and convictions due to contradictions in her story. The Defense planned to use B.’s past complaints to shatter her credibility. Wanting to avoid another traumatizing event, the Prosecution formulated a plea bargain with the Defense that reduced the charges to “rape by deception”. Essentially, using the threat of once again subjecting a vulnerable rape victim to a traumatizing interrogation, the Defense was able to reach a plea agreement with greatly reduced charges, which didn’t correspond with the facts of the incident.
For more, go here.
What a disturbing plea bargain. Something about this whole business really gets my hackles up. The kindest *maybe* I could throw out for the lawyers on this site to discuss is *maybe* the woman’s credibility was damaged by her history and the 14 other rape complaints, but the prosecutors didn’t want this story to have a “little boy who cried wolf” kind of ending?
Still, some of the comments posted on other sites make me wonder if there IS some nasty racist state coercion going on here. The “official” story has just changed too many times. It sounds like back pedalling to me.
Btw, if Jeremy’s still reading, I went over to Twisty McRadfem’s Gripefest and told them off for being so rude to you. I don’t always agree with your position, but your arguments are well reasoned, polite, and supportive. I enjoy the debates we have here. Don’t let those harpies scare you away. If I may be so bold as to speak for the other commenters on feministphilosophers, you’re still welcome here.
Thank you for your concern, but I wish you hadn’t done that. Twisty and the blametariat, while harsh, were correct about me. While I am not so dense as to think that her criticisms were intended for my benefit (she does not care to teach men feminism), I am grateful for them nonetheless.
Oh, you’re a sub? Well, I’ll step off and let you and the site hosts decide how appropriate it is for you to be commenting on posts about rape.
I’d rather you not malign me by speculating groundlessly on my sexuality.
As a person who attempts to act ethically, I value criticism of my actions as useful to my improvement. That is why I am grateful to Twisty — not because I get off on being debased.
This is indeed bizarre (I’m referring to the case, not to the dialogue between Xena and Jeremy). I’m hesitant to comment on anything related to this case now, as I’m not convinced we know the full story on any aspect of it, let alone the situation around B’s prior sexual assault complaints or how she comes off as a witness. Weird plea bargains do occur – for example, in my home state it is standard for courts to allow a speeder to plead to “Impeding Traffic” of all things to pay a larger fine and avoid points. However, arranging this particular plea bargain, where the victim stipulated that sex was consensual, in a rape case seems like a really bad idea.
Sorry for letting the Xena-Jeremy dialogue go too long. You’re both welcome here, but Xena– do refrain from speculations about people’s sexual preferences.
Care to re-phrase, Xena?
How do you mean, Jender?
‘Radfem harpies’ is a term of abuse. And please, let’s just keep thoughts about Jeremy’s sex life out of this.
Xena, I know who you directed the abusive term at. Can you re-write without it? I also know that you’re defending Jeremy. Can you re-write without re-hashing the accusations that they made over at Twisty’s? Jeremy has asked that we keep his sex life out of this, and I’d like us to do that– even though, as you say, you were not the one who made these speculations.
I really do know that your heart’s in the right place. But we’ve got our policies.
Sorry, Jender, those went up at the same time. I wasn’t sure if you’d be responding today, first week of school and all. I wasn’t trying to belittle anybody that frequents this site, and I was only annoyed with a couple of the people on the other site.
I guess that’s why feministphilosophers doesn’t allow the sort of commentary that’s become the backbone of Twisty’s site.
Enough about that. It’s starting to sound like a bad episode of Three’s Company.
I agree with J-Bro (not the radfems) on the rape case. The details keep changing, the media keeps jumping on it. Citizen journalism and he said-she said are probably at least partly responsible for the confusion, and the whole ugly powder keg of regional politics slants everybody’s view on the matter. Some Palesteinian commenters on other blogs are swearing that the Israeli gvt. is forcing women to holler rape to prevent mixed marriages. No, I don’t believe that, I’m just using that example to demonstrate that the “truth” seems to be harder to get at in this case. We’ll probably be discussing this again when more info is available.
I got deleted again? Ok, forget about what I said about dropping it. This is important. It’s kind of hard to defend somebody against an accusation when he’s obviously been reading too quickly to grasp what the accusation was. I won’t repeat it, but it was VICIOUS! With somebody who said something like that about me, I’d be hardpressed to find anything to agree about at all. Forget about agreeing with the accusation. In my world, people maim and kill each other over accusations like that.
I can only surmise that Twisty and her crew are actually the sort of privileged white ladies they like to gripe about. Any TRULY marginalized person in Canada, the US or the UK knows that you don’t make accusations like that unless they’re true, because the police, the social workers and the courts have an appalling track record for defending our “type”. Just like rape, the accusations those women directed at Jeremy are cause for vigilante justice in my world. (That’s probably one of the biggest reasons my so-called “type” rarely gets to participate in rich white lady quilting bees).
Maybe our little group of radfems should add some Bell Hooks to their mandatory reading list.
I’m sorry to drag this out longer, but I find myself forced to shove my foot in my mouth yet again.
Xena,
In my original response to you, I meant to state that I accepted what I believe to be Twisty’s points and the main gist of the commentators– namely that I am a jerk and a suck-up, and should not have bothered Twisty so that I could sound smart on the internet, and that my trying to do so was an exercise in male presumption.
I should, of course, have written something like “I largely agree,” rather than the unconditional statement I did write. It’s no good excuse, but I thought saying that would make it seem as though I were trying to weasel out of Twisty’s charges. Turns out not saying that made me seem like a masochist.
I’m sorry that I misunderstood your comment, taking it as a simple insult, and responded the way I did. I wish I could take back the troubles I’ve caused you.
That’s ok, Jeremy. My maverick stance on various philosophical positions gets me into trouble in ethics classes too. Yet another reason I picked my online name. (Geek out to the box sets some time if that comment requires further clarification.) It’s no real trouble to get told off for a little ettiquette breach. Jender’s very good at handling misunderstandings respectfully, by teaching without belittling.
I’ll be “troubled” if Twisty decides to post my email address for her gaggle to cackle at as punishment for referring to Mill and fairness when I defended you. I suspect they hate liberals almost as much as they hate men over there :-(
Comment on #1 from Xena.
There was no “official” story. The file was sealed by the court in order to protect the rape victim. All information for the original media reports came from the rapist.
It took some effort to request the court to unseal the file in order to get to the truth of the matter.