Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping

[Aptrgangr]

Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping

by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) A research paper that won a Hebrew University teachers' committee prize finds that the lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.
The abstract of the paper, authored by doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, notes that the paper shows that "the lack of organized military rape is an alternate way of realizing [particular] political goals."
The next sentence delineates the particular goals that are realized in this manner: "In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done."

The paper further theorizes that Arab women in Judea and Samaria are not raped by IDF soldiers because the women are de-humanized in the soldiers' eyes.
The paper was published by the Hebrew University's Shaine Center, based on the recommendation of a Hebrew University professors' committee headed by Dr. Zali Gurevitch.
"I do not have the entire text in front of me," Gurevitch said, when contacted by Arutz-7, "and I don't think we can jump to conclusions based on partial sentences, but I can say the following: This was a very serious paper that asked two important questions: Is the relative lack of IDF rapes a noteworthy phenomenon, and if so, why is it that there are so few IDF rapes when in similar situations around the world, rape is much more common?"

Observers and Academia
Arutz-7: "Can't it just be that Israeli soldiers come from a culture that very much condemns rape? And why not mention the much-touted 'purity of arms,' i.e., the high moral conduct, of the Israeli Army?"
Gurevitch said that observers do not have the right to demand a particular explanation to a given phenomenon. He said that the researcher had done a serious job, based on interviews with 25 soldiers and other accounts, and that the right-wing should not jump to the conclusion that this was simply another "secular, left-wing" generality.
Makor Rishon editor Amnon Lord, who first publicized the story, wrote that not only did researcher Nitzan not consider Jewish tradition as an explanation, but neither did she "raise the possibility that her initial assumption - namely, that the situation in Judea and Samaria is just like any other situation of conquest - may be wrong."

Demographic Fears
Nitzan's paper did, however, give much space to the explanation that the Israeli soldiers refrained from rape out of demographic considerations. She explained at length how fearful the Jewish population is of the growing Arab population, and how in cases of wartime rape, the baby is generally assumed to be of the mother's nationality.
"It is noteworthy," Lord concludes, "that Palestinian propaganda around the world frequently accuses Israelis of murder and rape. Such that this situation is unique: An army is found blameworthy of rape, and is also blameworthy of not raping."

Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping - Politics & Government - Israel News - Arutz Sheva

Racist for not raping Arab women???

Refusing to Rape=Racism if you are an Israeli Soldier, by Phyllis Chesler
Hebrew University has just awarded a research prize to a graduate student’s essay in which she claims that Israeli soldiers are “racists for not raping Arab women.”(See Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping - Politics & Government - Israel News - Arutz Sheva) This is no joke—anyway, who could make this up? The graduate student is a woman named Tal Nitzan. Her anthropological essay has been published by the Hebrew University’s “Shaine Center.”
Nitzan writes that the “lack of IDF rapes of Palestinian women is designed to serve a political purpose.” Since Israel fears the Palestinians demographically, IDF soldiers have been trained not to rape the women in order to avoid creating new Palestinians and little intifaders. (Has Nitzan never heard about Palestinian honor killings in which pregnant-out-of-wedlock or adulterous women are murdered by their families who love them too much?) Nitzan alleges that the “lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences—just as organized military rape would have done.”

Thus, Israeli racism, which “de-humanizes” Palestinian women, suppresses Jewish male lust—which proves that Israeli soldiers are racist oppressors. As the only army that does not, apparently, rape, Nitzan fails to grapple with other reasons for this, including the possibility that Israeli soldiers are acting in an ethical and civilized manner.
According to Israeli Professor Steven Plaut who called this to my attention: ” So essentially Nitzan is saying that the proof that Israeli soldiers are brutal oppressive stormtroopers is the fact that they do NOT mistreat and sexually abuse Palestinian women, not even the Palestinian terrorist women apprehended after trying to murder Jews.”
Plaut bitterly wonders whether if Nitzan “herself were to be raped by Hamas terrorists, I guess this would pretty much prove that they are egalitarian and progressive seekers of peace and justice.”
He suggests that people let the heads of Hebrew University know what they think about awarding a prize to such an essay. He provides the following contact information.
Hebrew University: President of the University Menachem Magidor
Primary Email address: hupres@cc.huji.ac.il
Second Email address (extra): menachem@math.huji.ac.il
Fax. 02-5811023

Right Truth: Racist for not raping Arab women???

[Kernunnos]

Never seen a more byzantine way to tackle issues ... Middle East as the cradle of civilization , yes the cradle of hairsplitting for the sake of doing it.

Also, what is scientific in a study that entails only a base of 25 interviewed subjects?

[Truth-Finder]

Originally Posted by Breha

Never seen a more byzantine way to tackle issues ... Middle East as the cradle of civilization , yes the cradle of hairsplitting for the sake of doing it.

Also, what is scientific in a study that entails only a base of 25 interviewed subjects?

Even if Middle East is the craddle of civilisation, it was the produce of ethnic groups that has disappeared today and with limited connection with modern middle east ethnic groups of today (Arabs, jews) who appeared much more later and who are but facultative products of the sum of all civilisations that raised and died in the Middle East.

[Marulus]

Really strange. Is this a covert incitement to rapes?