Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew

A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.

Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.

When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.

Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.

Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not "a classical rape by force," the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish.

The sex therefore was obtained under false pretences, the judges said. "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated," they added.

The court ruled that Kashur should receive a jail term and rejected the option of a six-month community service order. He was said to be seeking to appeal.

Segal said: "The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price – the sanctity of their bodies and souls. When the very basis of trust between human beings drops, especially when the matters at hand are so intimate, sensitive and fateful, the court is required to stand firmly at the side of the victims – actual and potential – to protect their wellbeing. Otherwise, they will be used, manipulated and misled, while paying only a tolerable and symbolic price."

Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator, was quoted as saying: "I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?

"Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not."

Arabs constitute about 20% of Israel's population, but relationships between Jews and Arabs are rare. There are few mixed neighbourhoods or towns, and Arabs suffer routine discrimination.

Israeli MPs are considering a law requiring prospective Israeli citizens to declare loyalty to Israel as a "Jewish, democratic state". Many Arabs would balk at swearing allegiance to a state which they see as explicitly excluding or marginalising them.

Dan Meridor, a deputy prime minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government, is opposed to the proposal. "Why does every bill need the word 'Jewish' in it – to show the Arab citizens that it doesn't belong to them? Then we're all shocked when they radicalise their stance.

"The majority doesn't need to remind the minority that it is in fact a minority all the time," he added.

Jo Adetunji and Harriet Sherwood @'The Guardian'

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'We need to talk to the Taliban'

Rolling Stone writer denied embed permission

The author of the Rolling Stone article that ended the military career of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, has been denied permission to join U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Defense Department spokesman Col. David Lapan told reporters that freelance writer Michael Hastings was rebuffed when he asked to accompany, or “embed,” with American forces next month.

The rejection came as the Pentagon ramped up an internal investigation into the circumstances behind some of the most salacious material Hastings used in his article in Rolling Stone. The Army inspector general is interviewing current and former McChrystal aides, the Associated Press has learned.

The inspector general’s review began shortly after Rolling Stone published the article that torpedoed McChrystal’s three-decade Army career.

The inspector general is considering whether officers were insubordinate and how far up the chain of command responsibility for decisions involving the Hastings interviews extended, officials said. Defense officials outlined the investigation on condition of anonymity because it is ongoing and has reached no conclusions.

Hastings quoted McChrystal and his aides criticizing and mocking Obama administration officials, including Vice President Biden. McChrystal was recalled to Washington and fired.

Lapan acknowledged that it’s “fairly rare” for the military to turn way a reporter who wants to embed with front-line troops.

“There is no right to embed,” Lapan said. “It is a choice made between units and individual reporters, and a key element of an embed is having trust that the individuals are going to abide by the ground rules. So in that instance the command in Afghanistan decided there wasn’t the trust requisite and denied this request.”

Lapan did not say what unit Hastings had asked to accompany or whether he had spelled out his assignment. He is a freelance reporter currently working on a story about helicopters in Afghanistan, but also has signed a book contract that grew out of the McChrystal story.

Hastings did not immediately reply to requests for comment Tuesday. He has said he did nothing wrong in chronicling the banter, profanity and jocular insults among McChrystal’s inner circle. In Twitter tweet late Tuesday, Hastings said he refused to participate in the army's IG investigation. Later, he tweeted: "the embed had already been approved for september. now it has been disapproved."

McChrystal, a four-star general, retired July 23 in a ceremony at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

In his 18-minute farewell to arms, delivered to a crowd of VIPs, McChrystal made light of the episode. He warned his comrades in arms: “I have stories on all of you, photos of many, and I know a Rolling Stone reporter.”

 Anne Gearan @'Military Times'

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Mexico: 28,000 killed in drug violence since 2006

President Felipe Calderon said he would consider a debate on legalizing drugs Tuesday as his government announced that more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006.

Intelligence agency director Guillermo Valdes also said authorities have confiscated about 84,000 weapons and made total cash seizures of $411 million in U.S. currency and $26 million worth in pesos (330 million pesos).

Valdes released the statistics during a meeting with Calderon and representatives of business and civic groups, where attendees exploring ways to improve Mexico's anti-drug strategy called on the government to open a debate on legalization.

Calderon said he has taken note of the idea of legally regulating drugs in the past.

"It's a fundamental debate in which I think, first of all, you must allow a democratic plurality (of opinions)," he said. "You have to analyze carefully the pros and cons and the key arguments on both sides."

Three former presidents — Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Cardoso of Brazil — urged Latin American countries last year to consider legalizing marijuana to undermine a major source of income for cartels. And Mexico's congress also has debated the issue.

But Calderon has long said he is opposed to the idea, and his office issued a statement hours after the meeting saying that while the president was open to debate on the issue, he remains "against the legalization of drugs."

In proposing the debate Tuesday, analyst and writer Hector Aguilar Camin said, "I'm not talking just about marijuana ... rather all drugs in general."

The most recent official toll of the drug war dead came in mid-June, when the attorney general said 24,800 had died. Valdes did not specify a time frame for the new statistics.

The government does not regularly break down murder statistics, but leading newspapers who kept their own counts say last month was the deadliest yet under Calderon: According to national daily Milenio, 1,234 were killed in July.

The Mexican government says most victims were involved in the drug trade.

Some attendees criticized the government for lacking consistent statistics on the drug war and an effective way to communicate its successes. They also said the government needs to do more to combat the financial arm of organized crime.

"There's no systematic policy for investigating or seizing the assets of organized crime," said Jose Luis Pineyro of Mexico's Autonomous Metropolitan University, "nor a system of locating the properties of organized crime."

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Scores injured in explosions, Israeli attacks on Gaza

A Palestinian man carries a wounded girl into Gaza City's Shifa hospital following Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip, 30 July 2010. (AFP Photo)

Israeli airstikes killed a Palestinian resistance activist and wounded another early Wednesday morning 4 August, east of Khan Younis in the occupied Gaza Strip, reports Reuters, citing Palestinian medical sources. This latest attack comes on the heels of five days of Israeli missile strikes, Palestinian rocket fire and other explosions that have injured dozens and killed one leader of the armed wing of Hamas.

Tens of Palestinians were injured in a massive explosion on Monday, 2 August in the refugee camp of Deir al-Balah in the south of the occupied Gaza Strip. The Electronic Intifada originally stated, using reports from Ma'an news agency in the West Bank which referred to Palestinian medical sources, that the blast was caused by Israeli missile strikes. However recent reports by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) indicate that "there are reasons to suspect that the explosion was coming from inside the house and occurred for no apparent reason ... Internal explosions occurred in the past in houses amidst densely populated areas, because of mistakes in manufacturing, bad storage of bombs or other reasons, which caused many fatalities among civilians and destroyed houses" ("PCHR Calls for Investigations into Injury of 58 Palestinians ...").
Al-Jazeera reported that medical rescue crews dug through rubble to locate injured civilians ("Gaza blast wounds Palestinians," 2 August 2010). The building rocked by the explosion belongs to Senior Hamas official Alaa al-Danaf, who wasn't killed in the explosion. Hamas sources told Al-Jazeera that the home was hit by an Israeli missile, but the Israeli military has denied responsibility, saying that there were no aerial operations at that time. PCHR says it is launching a full investigation into the incident, and will publish the results of their findings.
However Monday's massive explosions followed three consecutive days of Israeli military air strikes, as US-made Israeli warplanes hit multiple areas in the occupied Gaza Strip over the weekend, inciting panic in and inflicting trauma onto a population still reeling from the 2008-09 bombings and invasions. During those three weeks of attacks, which the Israeli government dubbed "Operation Cast Lead," more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed and thousands of homes leveled.
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz on Monday, at least five rockets were fired at the southern Israeli port city of Eilat, where no casualties were reported. One of the rockets landed in the Jordanian town of Aqaba, where one Jordanian civilian was killed and four wounded. The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that although Israel blamed the Hamas government in Gaza for the rocket attacks, Jordanian security services stated that the rockets were fired from either Egypt's Sinai or southern Jordan, not from Gaza. Hamas, which has no history of carrying out operations from outside Palestine, also strongly denied any involvement.
Hamas' armed wing has maintained a renewed unilateral ceasefire policy since 19 January 2009 following Israel's invasions. Hamas also respected a six-month ceasefire brokered by Cairo in June 2008 even though Israel did not fulfill its obligations to ease the crippling embargo it imposed on Gaza following the election of the Hamas government in 2006. The ceasefire was broken when Israel extrajudicially executed Hamas activists in November 2008 and Operation Cast Lead soon followed.
But Palestinian resistance factions inside the Gaza Strip -- unaffiliated with Hamas -- claimed responsibility for rocket fire beginning on Friday, and continuing throughout the weekend as Israeli aerial and ground attacks escalated.
A Grad-type rocket was fired from Gaza on Friday afternoon, hitting an area near a residential building in the nearby Israeli town of Ashkelon, just north of the Gaza boundary. Hours later, rockets landed in the Negev desert. Haaretz reported on 1 August that no one was injured in either of the rocket strikes.
In response to the rocket firings, at 11:30pm on Friday, 30 July, 19 Palestinians were injured when Israeli warplanes attacked an area near the presidential compound in Gaza City, firing two missiles on an area designated for civilian police and security vehicles. The late-night explosions hit the Arafat Police College and wounded 16 police officers, as well as two women and a child who were walking near the area when the missiles hit, reported the Palestinian Ma'an news agency. The injured were treated at Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
"Traumatic reminder"
According to Adie Mormech, a British volunteer in Gaza working with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Palestinians close to the bombings were in shock.
"For many in Gaza, [Friday night's] attack was a traumatic reminder of the onslaught during Operation Cast Lead when three hundred F-16 bomb attacks took place during the first two minutes of the campaign," an ISM press release on the strikes stated ("Israel bombs central Gaza City," 31 July 2010).
"The blast caused buildings far from the epicenter of the explosion to shake, and windows were smashed," reported Mormech. "When we arrived at Shifa hospital, the scene was chaos."
According to the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), during the air strikes in Gaza City, the Israeli air force simultaneously attacked a tunnel area at the Gaza-Egypt border ("A Series of Israeli Attacks Wound Many Civilians ...," 1 August 2010).
Tunnels, which have become a lifeline for Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians who remain under a siege of collective punishment, are often the only way people can receive basic supplies and fuel, as well as livestock, luxuries and other consumer goods.
Approximately one hour after the strikes on the presidential compound and the tunnels, just past midnight on 31 July, Israeli warplanes fired missiles into an open area in the Nuseirat refugee camp west of Gaza City, extrajudicially killing Issa Abdul Hadi al-Batran, a member of the armed resistance wing of the elected Hamas party. Ten Palestinians were injured in the early-morning missile attacks.
Al-Batran was the target of several assassination attempts by the Israeli military, the latest of which occurred during Israel's 2008-09 attacks; on 16 January 2009, al-Batran's wife and five young children were killed when Israeli forces bombed their home ("22nd Day of Continuous IOF Attacks on the Gaza Strip," PCHR, 17 January 2009).
After the assassination of al-Batran and the air strikes against the police compound, the Israeli government released a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, which said "Israel takes the firing on Ashkelon very seriously."
Israeli ground snipers shot three industrial workers near the northern Erez crossing a few hours later that morning, injuring the laborers who were collecting raw materials from nearby piles of rubble. The Israeli military has declared a vast 67 square kilometers of agricultural areas near the border as "no-go zones," and regularly shoot Palestinians who tend their farms or collect materials near these areas.
Later that same day on 31 July, the Israeli air force resumed missile strikes over Gaza City, damaging a six-story business center. Several offices of nongovernmental organizations and the office of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Gaza were wrecked.
Palestinian armed resistance groups affiliated with the Salafi movement in Gaza fired another rocket into the western Negev on Saturday evening, saying it was "in retaliation to the ongoing Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people," according to Ma'an mews. The projectile hit a public building, damaging the second story which was used as a daycare center for people with disabilities.
On Sunday, 1 August, Israeli warplanes launched missiles at open agricultural areas east of Khan Younis and again at tunnel areas at the Gaza-Egypt border.
Direct talks with Israel "waste of time"
After last weekend's air strikes, the Hamas government announced that it is holding the Arab League and Mahmoud Abbas' West Bank-based Palestinian Authority responsible for Israel's escalating assaults against Palestinians in Gaza, reported Ma'an. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on 1 August that the Arab League's decision to endorse direct talks with the Netanyahu administration -- while Israel's human rights violations continue -- "endangers Palestinian interests and inalienable rights."
"Our people in Gaza are paying a toll for the huge error and political sin committed by the Arab Peace Initiative's follow-up committee against the Palestinian people," Barhoum stated. "The committee has given the Israeli occupation the pretext and coverage they needed to attack our people and continue with settlement activities and displacement" ("Hamas: Gaza paying for Arab 'political sin'," 1 August 2010).
Direct talks between Israel and the West Bank's Palestinian Authority were canceled in December 2008 when Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip. According to Al-Jazeera, the Arab League last week sought help from the United States to pressure Israel into signing pre-conditional guarantees that settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem would stop before direct talks could resume. On August, the Obama administration in Washington announced that "the time is right" for direct talks.
Barhoum added that waiting for substantial support for Palestinian rights from US President Barack Obama would be "a waste of time."
Meanwhile, on 2 August the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza called on the international community "to intervene and to ensure that civilians and their property are protected in the occupied Palestinian territories." Warning of a military escalation, Al Mezan added that the international community's silence over the last four days of lethal Israeli attacks on Gaza only encourages Israel "to violate international law and human rights with impunity" ("Series of IOF Aerial Attacks Hit Gaza ...").

@'Electronic Intifada'

China 2013