Israeli public is right to express outrage over Eilat rape

The police have set up a special investigation team to probe the severe allegations, which came to light after the teenager returned to her home in Ashkelon and decided to file an official complaint.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
Israelis take part in a demonstration in support of the 16-year-old victim of a gang rape in Eilat, Tel Aviv. August 22, 2020 (photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)
Israelis take part in a demonstration in support of the 16-year-old victim of a gang rape in Eilat, Tel Aviv. August 22, 2020
(photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)
Last week, Israel was shocked to learn of a police investigation into allegations that 30 men had gang raped a 16-year-old girl vacationing in Eilat. The rape allegedly took place in an Eilat hotel and two suspects are already in police custody.
The police have set up a special investigation team to probe the severe allegations, which came to light after the teenager returned to her home in Ashkelon and decided to file an official complaint.
While rumors swirl throughout the country, what really happened and whether she had given consent or not – she is 16 so consent is not a real defense – there is a question that needs to be asked: How could something like this even happen? How could a group of men wait in line in a hallway – if that is what happened – to rape, one after another, a young teenage girl? Was there not one decent man willing to say something? Was not one capable of questioning what was really going on?
The Eilat story comes exactly a year after last summer’s alleged rape in Ayia Napa, Cyprus by 12 Israeli men. While in the end, the Israeli men were let off – the 19-year-old British woman apparently had a relationship with one and then consensually agreed to have sex with the others – many Israelis still wondered how it was possible that a dozen men would take advantage of a woman.
While the group of Israelis was vindicated of gang rape, it does not make them heroes of any sort as it seemed they were upon their release from jail and return to Israel. What they did still lacked moral decency and showed a severe shortage in the values and ethics they were supposed to get from their homes, their schools and their society.
While the exact details of what happened in Eilat still need to be determined, the same questions that came out of the Cyprus affair are relevant today. Where was human decency? What were these men thinking? Where were the values that should have taught them that what they were doing was wrong and where was the education system that they apparently went through but failed to prepare them to discern between right and wrong?
On Thursday night, thousands of Israelis came out to over 30 protest locations to cry out against the brutal crime, yelling, “I believe you” and “You are not alone.”
Israel’s political leadership also spoke out strongly following the news.
“It is shocking – there is no other word,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the alleged crime. “It is not only a crime against the girl, it is a crime against humanity itself that deserves all condemnation – and those responsible must be brought to justice.”
President Reuven Rivlin wrote “an open letter to Israel’s youth” in response to the event. “When we lose our boundaries, and the thought [of that] is satisfying,” he wrote. “That’s what freedom is all about, we mistakenly conclude. But trust me, some of our biggest challenges start when we lose control and give up boundaries.”

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Rivlin concluded, “Sexual assault, rape and sexual violence are stains that cannot be removed. These are incidents of a complete loss of boundaries that can’t be forgiven, and they ruin us as a society. As a people.”
Rivlin is right. This does ruin us. One of the ways to prevent attacks like this from happening is through education, teaching youth values, what is right and wrong, how to treat the other and more.
The education system plays an important role in society far beyond the general knowledge – math, science, history – that it provides students. It can help prepare Israeli teenagers for the challenges they will face going through life and how to conduct themselves in situations like Aiya Napa or Eilat.
The government has yet to decide when Israel’s schools will open or how they will open – before Sukkot or after and for all grades or just until 3rd grade. But one issue should be clear: Israel’s schools need to hold discussions on what is happening among our youth. Eilat and Aiya Napa cannot be allowed to become the new norm.


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