Same ol' same ol'

So I was actually reading this article my brother sent me about Hamas when I clicked a link to an article about David Ben-Gurion. Turns out that he was both the first prime minister of Israel a first-class jerk off.

To make the story short, he and his platoon-mates shot an Arab man, took the young girl who was with him, "washed her, cut her hair, raped her and killed her." Nice. The platoon leader denied having sex with her, saying, "Morally speaking, it was impossible to sleep with such a dirty girl." [I don't think anyone mentioned anything about 'sleeping' with her - you raped her you frickin' a-hole.] Anyway, the girl was shot dead in the dunes rather than "waste the petrol" to take her home.

Now, the article does not explicitly say that Ben-Gurion raped or killed the girl, but he did mention it in his diary and must have been (at least) involved in its cover-up. But boys will be boys. And during war, it's ok for boys to be monsters.

But perhaps I'm overreacting. Rape is supposed to be a crime -- hell even the Hauge and the UN know that. But it turns out that your normal guy (or gal) on the street isn't quite so sure. Here are some nauseating facts for you. After reading a short story about a date rape...

37% [of the men] identified with the rapist. 26% said the rapist was justified (presumably because of the perceived insult). 38% said the victim enjoyed being raped, while 47% of the women said the woman enjoyed being raped . . . 8% of the men said the victim could have stopped the rape, while 57% of the women thought she could have stopped it. 36% of the men thought *all women* would enjoy victimization, while 32% of the women thought *all women* would enjoy victimization . . .49% of the men said that the believe that other men would rape if they could get away with it . . . [and] on a scale of 1-5, 1 being most likely, when asked if *THEY* personally would rape if the could get away with it 51% fell between 1 and 2, and 21% fell on 3.

Just to make the math clear, in this study 72% of the men said they would be very likely to moderately likely to rape (3 is the 50/50 point).

Dear God. It's times like this when I'm almost happy I don't have children -- heaven forbid one of them ends up in that 72% or dating someone in that 72%.

But alas, I digress. Back to Ben-Gurion for a moment. So he was involved in some capacity in the rape, torture, and death of a young girl. Maybe that makes him a bad person. Maybe that makes him the Prime Minister. Maybe that makes him just another "human being" who doesn't see people but sees opportunities and obstacles.

You can find these types of people all the world over. We've got some in our military. Such as the lovely US army lads who raped and killed an Iraqi woman. Or the Iraqi woman who had other women raped in order to convince them to become martyrs. Or the US soldiers and colleagues of a female paramedic working for a military contractor in Iraqi who raped her orally and anally and then threatened her if she reported it. [At least she didn't get killed.] And then there's Darfur, DR Congo, South Africa, hell - all of Africa. And the list goes on.