We take a break for a rare political post. (Update: Link now included.)
Update: Israel Satire Laboratory's take on it--it's almost too easy.
The newspaper Makor Rishon writes about a recent study by researcher Tal Nitzan and published by the Hebrew University's Shein Center for Social Studies. According to the study, the reason Israeli soldiers refrain from raping Palestinian women in the occupied territories is not because the soldiers are more humane. In fact the opposite is true--Nitzan claims Israeli soldiers don't rape because they have been taught to dehumanize Palestinian women. Nitzan also maintains that soldiers don't want the Arab population to increase through pregnancies as a result; according to Nitzan that would be considered an ason leumi--a national tragedy.
The Israeli Sociology Association awarded the report a mark of excellence.
Here's a quote from the study:
As Israelis/Jews, who view themselves as moral, the soldiers find it difficult to commit military rapes. It seems that (in Bosnia) men identified themselves as Serbians through committing public group rapes of Bosnian women; Jews identify themselves as non-rapists, non-assimilationists, as a nation unique in the embrace of God. Rape and non-rape are two sides of the same coin, which in different situations the use of either one can lead to the same results. [emphasis and translation mine]Nitzan notes that the Israeli army is the only one not to commit mass rapes when it occupies another country.
Somehow I doubt that Nitzan would praise Israeli soldiers if they were in the habit of raping Palestinian women.
New blog posts can be found at A Mother in Israel.
Subscribe to AMotherInIsrael.com in a reader
|