Despite reams of detailed evidence from the alleged rape victim (some of which I have seen), the Israeli prosecutor has dropped its case against Channel 2 reporter Yoav Even. The state declared it was doing so “for lack of evidence.” When a prosecutor finds a woman’s claim that she was sodomized against her will by a man to be insufficient to bring a charge against him, then you know something is likely wrong. Of course, the gag order imposed by the judge helped tamp down both public interest and awareness of the case making it much easier to drop the charges and allow the media celebrity to go free.
In the meantime, Yoav Even and his colleagues at Channel 2 are celebrating his imminent return to work. Here they celebrate at a club his freedom. Maariv notes rather coyly that Even has been “absent from the scene” for some time. It breathlessly and tastelessly adds:
To all those yearning, he’s [Even] expected to return to work soon.
An Israeli writes to me (and I can’t tell whether this is perverse humor or true) that now he can sit down and pen that book he’s been meaning to write: “How to Screw Israeli Girls.” One wonders whether a brush with a rape charge will increase his allure in the eyes of some or will they stand clear. From the looks of this picture, it doesn’t appear to be happening in Even’s case.
A man with his apparent sexual proclivities is liable to try something like this in the future. The first time he got off just by the skin of his teeth. Next time (if/when there is one), he won’t be so lucky. Of course, this is very small consolation to the alleged victim in this case.
In this day and age, when powerful French politicians find their aberrant sexual habits topple their careers and wives of ex-California governors are dumping them for fathering children out-of-wedlock, the seeming cavalierness with which such serious charges are treated in Israel appears thankfully to be an anomaly.
“When a prosecutor finds a woman’s claim that she was sodomized against her will by a man to be insufficient to bring a charge against him, then you know something is likely wrong.”
Totally disagree. I haven’t followed the case, but if the only evidence is the word of the woman involved, charges wouldn’t be brought here in the UK either.
Rape is a very difficult crime to prosecute. Conviction rates here are in single digit percentages.
Gag orders are a two edged sword. If a man is falsely accused, his reputation will be forever tarnished, but if he is legitimately accused, other victims might come forward.
Do we prioritise the rights of a man who is innocent until proven guilty? I don’t have the answer, but it’s a question we should ask.
I didn’t say that was the only evidence against him. YOU made that assumption. But the evidence I read was absolutely convincing and the arguments advanced by the defense seemed far-fetched, artificial & deeply sexist.
I’m not sure if I misunderstood your post.
“When a prosecutor finds a woman’s claim that she was sodomized against her will by a man to be insufficient to bring a charge against him, then you know something is likely wrong.”
You seem to be quite clear in saying that a woman’s claim should be sufficient to bring charges. I don’t agree that it should.
You didn’t bother to read the five or more other posts I wrote about this case in which I outlined far more evidence. My statement was meant as a shorthand summary of all that I’d written previously about the case. All you had to do was a Google search to find the other posts.
Don’t be ridiculously defensive, Richard.
Tim read your phrase the way any reasonable reader would do.
You mean YOU and Tim are reasonable readers. The rest of us are the unreasonable readers who didn’t read it that way.
Richard, I give up a significant chunk of my time in advocating for the rights of Palestinians. And also the rule of law within Israel and occupied Palestine, something that would have been abundantly clear if you had bothered to click on my name or read anything I’d written on MondoWeiss.
As well, I might add, of doing what I could to help publicise the case of Abu Sisi.
If you can’t write clearly, don’t expect readers to spend their time researching to try to understand your meaning. And don’t jump down their throat when they disagree with you.
And I need to congratulate you for being the first person ever to accuse me of being an Arab-hater.
I write perfectly clearly. It is you who is too lazy to actually read what I’ve written. It is you who doesn’t understand that when I write about an important issue like sexual violence against Israel women and this particular case that I write one than one sentence summarizing an entire case. It is you who are the one acting in bad faith in judging a single sentence & presuming it is the only thing I’ve said on the matter. And yes, research is something I expect from intelligent readers. If you can’t be bothered to comment in good faith and do what an intelligent, well-informed reader does, then you may find the other site you mentioned as more congenial to you.
“When a prosecutor finds a woman’s claim that she was sodomized against her will by a man to be insufficient to bring a charge against him, then you know something is likely wrong.”
Followed by…
“I write perfectly clearly.”
Then you are stating, as you say, perfectly clearly, that a woman’s claim of rape should be sufficient to bring charges, and I disagree.
And…
“When the state refuses to prosecute someone for rape that does not mean they didn’t commmit rape.”
If we accept the presumption of innocence, then it means that he is, by definition, innocent of the crime until convicted.
I’m not a judge or lawyer. For the purposes of the law & as far as the state is concerned he is innocent. But I’m neither the law nor the state & so am allowed to have my own informed opinions. I’m a blogger who has seen more evidence from this case than you ever will unless/until I publish it myself & who until now was prevented by requests of my source from publishing it. I believe the state chose not to prosecute this case because it simply prefers not to prosecute rape charges unless there are a slam dunk (& even then it shies from doing so). Fr. the sound of things, you aren’t aware of the social dynamics at work in Israeli gender relations, the level of violence against women, & the police/state nexus which harbors strong aversion to protecting women through use of law or justice.
So what the dropping of charges proves is NOT that Even is innocent, but that the state refused to prosecute him. That is far different than saying he is innocent which I will never do.
“But I’m neither the law nor the state & so am allowed to have my own informed opinions.”
By “informed”, do you mean you have interviewed both the alleged victim and the alleged perpetrator, interviewed witnesses and independently verified forensic evidence? Or do you mean you talked to the woman in question?
If it’s the latter, then you are choosing to believe out of conviction and are holding an uninformed opinion, not an informed opinion.
“Fr. the sound of things, you aren’t aware of the social dynamics at work in Israeli gender relations”
Whether I am or whether I’m not doesn’t alter the facts of the case, nor does it alter the degree to which your opinions are formulated by fact or prejudice.
“That is far different than saying he is innocent which I will never do.”
hmmm, I’ll let you reflect on that one yourself.
You’ll see what I mean soon enough. When that happens, I doubt you’ll have the guts to admit you were wrong since you don’t seem like that type of person. But you are. Believing in the innocence of a man like Even marks you as ignorant or gullible or perhaps having an otherwise unknown agenda.
I have to confess to being absolutely at a loss, Richard. I don’t know this man Even, the first time I saw anything of him it was on your blog. I don’t know his alleged victim either – I have precisely zero stake or interest in this case.
I disagreed with your crystal clear assertion that an allegation from a woman should be sufficient to bring charges against a man.
In response, you let loose a series of convoluted, threadbare arguments and ad hominem attacks, including accusing me of being an Arab-hater.
Yesterday morning I would have described you as a principled blogger. Today I would have to describe you as a prejudiced, intellectual fraud.
Today, I would describe you as in terms that are unprintable. Please go back to Mondoweiss. You deserve each other.
Wonder if this is a model for the release of Mr. IMF by the USA? Perhaps the difference is that Mr. IMF’s a politician and someone (likely) wants to see him removed from the political scene.
In this day and age, when an Israeli president is deposed and convicted of rape, all the other countries of the world can only learn…
Yeah, the Light Upon the Nations ….
Don’t start, I have 22 Arab countries to quote here.
Hasbara, ya hasbara.
You wrote ‘all the other countries in the world’. Do you think the Scandinavian countries, just as an example, have anything to learn from Israel ?
“Mirror, mirror on the wall. who’s the most beautiful woman of them all !”
Someone should really adapt the Greek myth of Narcissus to present-day Israeli self-absorption
First, don’t label me. I don’t call every Palestinian supported here with names, so don’t call me. Using such methods only reflect on your true nature.
Now to the subject, do you think the Scandinavian countries have nothing to learn from Israel ? Let’s take Sweden for example. It made tons of money from selling iron to the Germans in WW2, take a look where it started after that war and take a look at Israel, starting from a bunch of refugees and almost no economy and where the two states are right now. Everybody can see that Israel made 10 times the advancement of Sweden, while dealing with things that Sweden has never dealt with.
In the beginning of the 50’s, where people of Israel had hardly enough to eat, about a million refugees from Arab countries came to Israel. Did Sweden ever handle such a thing ?
I can go on for many other aspects.
Yes. I think many countries can learn from Israel. Israel can also learn from many other countries.
OFF TOPIC!!
The topic was sexism.
My first comment was right on topic.
Why don’t you tell DY he took it off-topic ?
@ Freeman)
My first answer was “A light upon the Nations”.
My second was about the Scandinavian countries who have nothing to learn from Israel. What’s off topic ? You started talking about coal-mining or whatever, my allusion to the Scandinavian countries were based on the topic here, that is sexism. And having grown partly up in Scandinavia, I guarantee you: you have absolutely nothing to teach them concerning gender equality. You’re decades behind !
PS. I’m a ‘she’.
They’re falling like flies. Tunisia, Egypt all in the democratic camp. Syria, Yemen, Bahrain might go anytime. Then who will you have to kick around?
Quoting you:
“OFF TOPIC!!”
But I’ll be glad to answer you when you start such a thread.
You would be suprised and hopefully will be one day.
Hope we don’t have to wait too long.
And Israel also imprisoned a man a few months ago for shagging while Arab. So don’t get carried away.
Right! I had to think of that case too!
This is a bit of disgusting racism and the case was a field day for Arab haters (like you). Read my comment rules before commenting again. If you spout racism here you will lose yr comment privileges.
1) The charge was reduced to rape by deception as part of a plea bargain.
2) According to 2008 ruling that was not made with an ethnic dimension in mind, a charge of rape could be made in a situation where a man lies about personal details that are important to a woman, and in light of the misrepresentation, “consensual” sexual relations occurred.
It was a ridiculous ruling based on tortured logic. Just plain stupid. By the logic of this ruling, if I told a woman I was French & assumed a French accent because I knew she liked Frenchmen, then she could charge me with rape because I misrepresented my nationality. What sheer lunacy & stupidity.
I’m in favor of transparency in sexual relations. But jailing a man because he lied about his ethnicity is ridiculous beyond words. At most this should be a matter of a civil lawsuit in which she should sue him for misleading her & causing her embarrassment & humiliation (if those are the terms she wishes to use).
If a Jewish man had been sent to prison for impersonating an Arab to get a woman into bed, we would have no problem labelling it anti-Semitism.
The complaint claimed that the deception was two-fold, that the guy claimed to be Jewish and single and thus a potential husband to the woman who agreed to have sex with him about an hour after meeting him.
The woman had the nerve to claim that she was defrauded by relying on this misrepresentation.
Kind of odd that you can deny the ethnic quotient.
Commenters here have already tried that one. It’s a good bit of hasbara, I admit. Israeli president laid low proving no Israeli is above the law and their is due process for all. Not so fast, Katzav, whose case btw did NOT have a gag which in turn allowed the public to understand what was going on in it, actually almost did get off. Except there was an outcry fr. Israeli women which forced the prosecutor to reinstate the case. Even then, Katzav could’ve gotten off w/o a rape charge if he’d agreed to the plea offered him, which he refused. So sorry but the Katsav case only reinforced my claim.
Some amendments to what you wrote here:
The was no gag order on the fact he was charged. However there was a gag order on the trial itself. No part of the hearings and the process of the trial was public or reported during the proceedings.
Only after it ended.
There WAS a gag order in the Even case concerning his name & the charges against him. The Katsav case was, as I wrote, entirely different & allowed the full Israeli public to understand the implications of not charging him with rape or letting him off scot free.
The Hasbaristas have to abandon the Katsav-case for the time being:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/no-jail-time-for-katsav-before-outcome-of-appeal-against-rape-conviction-1.362536
richard
are you planing to a apologize for the damage you caused even?
When the state refuses to prosecute someone for rape that does not mean they didn’t commmit rape. It may mean he didn’t or it may mean the prosecutor thinks he did but that he doesn’t feel beyond the shadow of a doubt that he can prove it & win a conviction. Given the gag order which prevented public outcry about the case, I choose to believe the latter is the case. Public pressure would’ve brought a charge & trial I am convinced.
I won’t apologize to Yoav Even. Let’s see how he proceeds with his life from here on. If he can keep his nose clean and his member in his pants, then perhaps he will deserve a clean bill of health. But the jury’s out on that one.
Deïr Yassin says:
May 20, 2011 at 9:08 AM
The Hasbaristas have to abandon the Katsav-case for the time being:
Yes DS you are, unfortunately for Israeli justice, very right.
“Jerusalem Judges” he called them after their ruling.
….and after everything the prosecution did to avoid “Jerusalem Judges” in his trial.
The Don believes that he may yet avoid prison!….scary how hard it is to put someone like him behind bars!.
As for Mr. Even, I do not know enough to comment,so I am technically off topic!
@ Daniel)
I haven’t commented on the Israeli judicial system as far as gender bias is concerned but I don’t think it’s worse than many other countries among the Western democracies on that topic. The anti-Palestinian bias, yes, I’m sure. I’ve followed the Sabar Kashour-case very closely (the ‘rape by deceit’-case) and some cases that I know personally.
I live in France, and France has absolutely nothing to brag about: the machismo, the difference of treatment between the social classes is probably worse that in Israel.
The Dominique Strauss-Kahn-case that shakes the French Establishment right now is a classic exemple: everybody knew this guy was harassing female journalists, female co-workers (and a case of rape attemp never filed) etc, and see him being taken off a plane to be brought to court could NEVER happen in France. I’m amazed by the American system on this one.