Thursday, July 14, 2016

Israeli Military’s New Chief Rabbi Has Implied Soldiers Can Rape in War

Salon reports:

The man chosen as the Israeli military’s new chief rabbi has previously implied that soldiers would be permitted to rape women in war...

Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim was nominated for the top religious position in the Israel Defense Forces, of IDF, by the chief of staff on Monday.

Karim was at the center of a media controversy in Israel in 2012, when it was revealed that, in 2003, he suggested on a religious website that soldiers were permitted to commit acts of rape during wartime.

“One of the important and crucial values in war is maintaining the fighting preparedness of the army … and the needs and emotions of the individual are pushed aside for the success of the nation at war,” he wrote in his response to a question about soldiers raping civilians in war.

“Just as in war, the fence of risk-taking is breached on behalf of others, so are the fences of modesty and kashrut breached… Although fraternizing with a non-Jewess is a very bad thing, it is allowable in war out of consideration for the difficulties of the fighters,” Karim continued, according to a translation in the Israeli media.

“Because the success of the collective is what mostly concerns us in war, the Torah allows the individual to satisfy his lust in the permitted conditions for the sake of the general success,” he concluded.

In 2012, when this statement was widely publicized, Karim insisted it was misunderstood and had been taken out of context. He said he did not condone rape.

4 comments:

  1. Leave it to Salon to rabble rouse for no purpose. For a more realistic assessment of this much-ado-about-nothing:

    https://thejewishlibertarian.com/2016/07/13/questions-for-hagaon-rabeinu-eyal-karim-shlita-on-raping-theoretical-women-in-theoretical-wartime/

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  2. I read it as saying he meant going to brothels full of gentile women, for instance. At least that is what I gathered from the word 'fraternizing' which I don't see how it can be taken as meaning 'rape'.

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  3. Bob - I have posted on this. He was interpreting one possible reading of a biblical passage, not recommending military policy. He's an idiot, not a condoner of serial rape. See here. He has said in the past that rape is completely forbidden. https://thejewishlibertarian.com/2016/07/13/questions-for-hagaon-rabeinu-eyal-karim-shlita-on-raping-theoretical-women-in-theoretical-wartime/

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  4. From a commentor on the Salon Article:
    "[A]sked about the verses in Deuteronomy that describe how a soldier should act if he sees a beautiful woman among the enemy during wartime and wants to rape her, Karim responded, "Although fraternizing with a non-Jewess is a very bad thing, it is allowable in war out of consideration for the difficulties of the fighters. And because the success of the collective is what mostly concerns us in war, the Torah allows the individual to satisfy his lust in the permitted conditions for the sake of the general success."
    http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.730557"

    It's not just Salon.

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