Israel faces a perplexing conundrum. How to absorb potentially hostile citizens into the population without a peep of discrimination. Until Arabs give up vowing to eliminate Israel it won’t go away. We face a similarly intractable problem, albeit on a different scale. You may or may not believe that Israel is no more racist than any other country, and very much less than many.
The BBC perpetuates the theme that Israel is a racist state.
Being labelled racist is as bad as being labelled rapist. Another story that has been subjected to the BBC’s selective editing is the ‘rape by deception’ case that is doubly newsworthy as it concerns twin topics at the pinnacle of newsworthiness, race and rape.
An Arab Israeli has been sentenced to 18 months in jail. He was convicted of the curious crime of rape by deception. An Israeli woman discovered that the status of the stranger with whom she had had consensual sex was neither Jew nor eligible bachelor, as he had apparently led her to believe; he was an Arab. So she went to the police, as you do, or in other countries, probably don’t.
The BBC presents this case on the web page insinuating it’s a clear demonstration of Israel’s racism. The very idea of sex with an Arab is tantamount to rape, they imply. Only in Israel could there be a law against rape by deception, only in Israel could there be a jail sentence for pretending to be a Jew, and only an Arab could be convicted of this crime, because if he was a Jew pretending to be an Arab, no-one would care.
In Israel this case has caused a stir too. Many Israelis think this law is ridiculous. That’s a bit like in tolerant racially harmonious Britain, where many Brits find certain laws ridiculous.
However, the story is many faceted. The BBC has spun it their way, and Edward Stourton on the Sunday Programme was taken by surprise when he set out to prove, in best BBC fashion, how racist Israelis are. He bit off more than he could chew when he interviewed Daily Mail’s Jerusalem correspondent Matthew Kalman. Off he goes:
“Let’s be absolutely clear about this Matthew, there’s no question that the sex was consensual, it’s simply because he lied about being Jewish that he is now convicted of rape, is that right?”
“Yes Ed, the Israelis are so disgusted by the thought of having sex with Arabs that they have made a special law that interprets it as rape, the racist bastards” he replied.
Only joking. He didn’t really say that at all. But Ed was in his stride, and continued:
“And in this case it wasn’t that he lied about his wealth or anything of that kind, or indeed the fact that he was married which I think that he was, it was the fact that he lied about being Jewish when he was in fact an Arab.”
Hang on a minute, said Matthew, it wasn’t like that at all. He’s married with two children. That’s what the court emphasised, and that was what led to the conviction. But the law is controversial, and many Israelis, including the mainstream Israeli media sympathised with Mr Kashur the accused, and because of their support he now feels more a part of the country than before.
“Ahh!” said Ed, with a little wounded yelp or two. But undaunted, he persisted with the racist theme and asked Matthew to tell us all about the right-wing racist proposal for an oath of allegiance.
However, Matthew Kalman took the wind out of Ed’s sails a second time, patiently explaining that there is a perennial debate about how to define the rights of non Jewish minorities in Israel, and the new citizenship law might not even contain anything about an oath of allegiance.
There are several other non BBC articles about this case, and the fact that the deception was about the man’s race means it has a racial element. The usual suspects seize upon this and present it as a straightforward case of racial discrimination, but it’s clearly much more complicated. In simplifying this and packaging it to appeal to the audience-it-prepared-earlier, the BBC is only doing what comes naturally. Many aspects of the case are concerning, not least of which was the woman’s odd behaviour. But in this country some feminist ideas about rape have led to situations where a woman can allege rape if she simply regrets what she did last night. It’s a perplexing conundrum altogether.
