Thursday, January 8, 2009

Israeli Soldiers Don't Rape Arab Women, Sociologists Baffled

I googled to see if could find a pdf version of an "award-winning" research report that's discussed at Israel National News. Doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan argues that the absence of systemic rape by IDF soldiers is another way for the Israeli war machine to achieve its military goals by "dehumanizing" Arab women "in the soldiers' eyes." According to the article:

In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it can be seen that the lack of military rape merely strengthens the ethnic boundaries and clarifies the inter-ethnic differences - just as organized military rape would have done.
Also:

The paper was published by the Hebrew University's Shaine Center, based on the recommendation of a Hebrew University professors' committee headed by Dr. Zali Gurevitch.

"I do not have the entire text in front of me," Gurevitch said, when contacted by Arutz-7, "and I don't think we can jump to conclusions based on partial sentences, but I can say the following: This was a very serious paper that asked two important questions: Is the relative lack of IDF rapes a noteworthy phenomenon, and if so, why is it that there are so few IDF rapes when in similar situations around the world, rape is much more common?"
I'd have to look at the research, but Dr. Gurevitch basically asserts that a comparative research design could unpack the causal relationships explaining the presence or absence of systematic military rape across national cases.

Of course, considering the postmodern absurdity of this research, we simply could use common sense like Maggie at
Wake Up America:

The article says that the paper's author, Tal Nitzan, "did not consider Jewish tradition as an explanation, ... " Does this mean that no credence was given to the fact that the soldiers may have grown up in homes that gave them a moral compass? Scriptures that condemn it, ... a military that condemns it? That you may face court martial if you rape, ... the disgust of your family and friends, and worse?

6 comments:

Norm said...

Well, when you are fighting a war in which your mom or wife is just a few miles away, and in the same telephone number area code it sort of discourages bad behavior.

AmPowerBlog said...

Norm: But can you believe that this passes for acceptable scholarship?

Norm said...

No, but after this and Professor Walt's hypothetical I feel I should go back to school for a PHD. I could write a thesis about why girls like to wear bikinis (thank goodness). I just can't wait for the personal interviews.

Norm said...

I just showed my wife this post and she is astounded. In other words, raping or not raping reaches the same military goal. Hebrew U. should be ashamed.

AmPowerBlog said...

Norm: Your wife should be reading American Power too! Make it your start-up page on your pc! Ha!

The Vegas Art Guy said...

WTF? Are they serious?