Opinion

Israel Hayom

The Palestinian incitement to rape

In pre-state Israel, Palestinian Arabs would rape Jewish women, including minors, in the name of “national liberation” and the legacy of Islam.

Arafat Irfaiya, 29, who confessed to the terrorist rape and murder of 19-year-old Tekoa resident Ori Ansbacher on Feb. 7, 2019 in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Photo Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
Arafat Irfaiya, 29, who confessed to the terrorist rape and murder of 19-year-old Tekoa resident Ori Ansbacher on Feb. 7, 2019 in the outskirts of Jerusalem. Photo Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.
(Israeli American Council)
Reuven Berko
Dr. Reuven Berko was the adviser on Arab affairs to the Jerusalem district police and a writer for Israel Hayom.

In response to the horrifying rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher by a Palestinian terrorist, Knesset member Aida Touma-Sliman, chairwoman of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, claimed that “the crime should be called what it is: The rape and murder of Ori Ansbacher is a gender-based crime. The criminal being Palestinian doesn’t make the crime less horrifying, and it cannot be part of the struggle for [Palestinian] national liberation.”

The Palestinians Knesset member and Israeli citizens, like her friends in the various Palestinian terrorist organizations, were prepared for a public-relations battle to characterize the rape and murder of Ori as another woman (one all of 19 years old)  being murdered. In other words, some nameless killer with a knife just raped her for the heck of it on a chilly morning, just because she was a woman—not because she was Jewish. But why did the Palestinian criminal arm himself with a knife, cross the security barrier, rape and fatally stab Ori, rather than some random Palestinian woman?

Arafat Irfaiya, 29, was charged with the murder of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher on Feb. 11, 2019. He was captured in Ramallah after Israeli security forces investigated the scene where the young woman was found raped and dead on Feb. 7 on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Photo Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

The reason is simple: Every Palestinian who is exposed to incitement in some mosque, on social media or in speeches by Palestinian leaders knows that the enemy’s blood can be shed. But if he rapes a Palestinian woman (a gender crime) or even secretly has his way with her in private, he’ll be slaughtered and his immediate family members will follow him to hell.

After all, Muslims have honor, and they are permitted to commit murder to uphold it. So who are they allowed to rape and murder on the basis of their gender? Jews and Christians, who are defined as weak and out of bounds of the Arab code of vengeance.

Islamic tradition allows captive women to be used as sex slaves, as they are considered spoils of war. The acts of rape and murder the Muslims perpetrated against captive women (including Jews) are familiar to us in the form of the horrors committed by the Islamic State group and during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, where these terrible crimes were carried out as a primitive expression of victory and the forcible impregnation of the enemy’s women.

That is the fate of the weak, who are not protected by “tribal law.” MK Aida Touma-Sliman knows that most of the Christian residents of Bethlehem and Beit Jala fled for their lives because their daughters were being raped by Muslims from Hebron and Bedouin of the Taamra tribe. That is what happens when Arabs and Muslims see you as weak.

There might be normative moral laws that mostly apply to regular citizens in functioning countries, but in the incitement-ridden Palestinian territories, the victims, like Ori, are never the Arab or Muslim neighbors’ daughters, but rather Jews or other minorities.

Generally, characteristic acts of Palestinian terrorism include murdering Jewish children in their schools and in their beds, slaughtering civilians in a hotel on the eve of a holiday, and killing bus passengers and innocent civilians who are just shopping or going about their business.

MK Touma-Sliman isn’t trying to condemn a despicable ethno-religious act, but rather downplay it merely because of the PR damage it might do to the “Palestinian struggle,” which the world is sick of anyway.

In her idiotic attempt to obscure the fact that the awful crime was prompted by Palestinian incitement and by allowing violence against Jews (and Christians), Touma-Sliman is betraying her role as a Knesset member who is leading the fight against violence perpetrated on women. She is hurting all the “weak” women whom the inciters among her own people define as killable and expendable.

The rape of Ori Ansbacher is nothing new for the Palestinians. Back in pre-state Israel, Palestinian Arabs would rape Jewish women, including minors, in the name of “national liberation” and the legacy of Islam. Then Jewish activism sent the Arab community a clear, powerful message that got around, and it stopped.

But the rapist-murderer who was captured this week was photographed grinning from ear to ear. Perhaps he and his friends should have things “explained” to them using the old methods?

Dr. Reuven Berko was the adviser on Arab affairs to the Jerusalem district police and a writer for Israel Hayom.

The opinions and facts presented in this article are those of the author, and neither JNS nor its partners assume any responsibility for them.
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