Sabbar Kashur, an Israeli man, has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for having consensual sex with a woman who was presumably fine with the encounter until she discovered that he was not Jewish, as he had claimed, but Arab.  She charged “rape by deceit” and on Monday the court agreed.  In this clip at Al Jazeera, the commentator asks if the case would have come to the courts had Kashur been Jewish and the woman Muslim or if the man had lied about being Italian but was actually French.

And what are the implications of the precedent set by this ruling?  What if Kashur were married and said he was single?  Or had AIDS and didn’t use a condom?  Or what if the woman had said she were using birth control but wasn’t and got pregnant?  Or maybe the man was black but was passing as white? In other words, what exactly is rape and does basing the definition of “consensual sex” on honesty of both parties (say, “I’ll marry you and love you til the end of time”) protect women or make them more vulnerable?

(h/t Adam H. Becker)