Defense Ministry recognizes Tel Aviv rape as nationalistic attack

The victim of the rape will now receive benefits afforded to terrorism victims.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Updated: DECEMBER 4, 2015 05:05
Sexual harassment victim [Illustrative] (photo credit: INIMAGE)
Sexual harassment victim [Illustrative]
(photo credit: INIMAGE)
The Defense Ministry on Thursday recognized the 2012 rape of an Israeli teenage girl by a Palestinian man in Tel Aviv as a nationalistically-motivated attack, enabling her to receive benefits afforded to terrorism victims.
The Ministry’s Authorization Authority conducted a lengthy investigation over the course of several months and consulted with law enforcement officials, before concluding that the rape and sexual assault carried out by Ahmed Jaber on an Israeli girl and her boyfriend in a bathroom in the parking lot of Tel Aviv’s Gan Ha’ir complex was a nationalistic incident.
The attack, in which Jaber, from a village near Nablus, held the girl and her partner at knife-point, was described by the court that sentenced Jaber to 30 years in prison as one of the most shocking sexual assaults in legal history.
Jaber followed the couple to the bathroom, seized their cell phones and assaulted them over the course of an hour, while beating them.
The Defense Ministry took into account Jaber’s background of past security offenses, the severity of his attack and statements he made after being arrested, which indicated a nationalistic motive.
During police questioning, Jaber talked about the difference between his “respectable sister” and Jewish girls “who wander the streets.” He told his interrogators that they are “not sons of this land,” and called them “foreign residents,” adding that before 1948 there was no State of Israel.
The agency concluded that Jaber carried out a violent attack aimed at “harming a person due to her being a member of the Jewish people, as part of the Israeli-Arab conflict,” and conveyed hope that “the victim of this shocking act will be able to rehabilitate herself and find relief for her pain.”
The decision has been sent to Israel’s National Insurance Institute, which will make the full range of benefits for terrorism victims.