Alwaght- Female members of Israeli regime’s Knesset slammed the appointment of a new chief rabbi by the regime's army who once said that rape is permissible during wartime as a way to boost morale.
Colonel Eyal Karim made the comments on a website in 2002 after a person asked online if the Torah allowed for soldiers to commit rape during conflict, according to Times of Israel.
The Israeli daily cited the Israeli rabbi as saying that soldiers in wartime can "“Although intercourse with a female gentile is very grave, it was permitted during wartime out of consideration for the soldiers’ difficulties,”
"And since our concern is the success of the collective in the war, the Torah permitted [soldiers] to satisfy the evil urge under the conditions it stipulated for the sake of the collective’s success,” he added.
Karim also once said that women are not fit to serve in the military.
"Because the damage to modesty that is liable to be caused to girls and the nation is critical, the sages of our generation and the chief rabbinate have ruled that drafting girls into the IDF is absolutely forbidden,” he said.
Women’s empowerment organizations and female members of Israel’s Knesset strongly condemned the appointment of extremist rabbi.
Meretz party leader Zehava Galon said that Karim is not “suitable to be the rabbinic authority of the army, in which tens of thousands of women serve, and is not suitable to represent Jewish morality in any form.” She also condemned “his frightening, racist, and inflammatory statement” regarding wartime rape.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid urged Karim to disavow his remarks about women’s enlistment, saying that without a public statement to that effect “he cannot be the military chief rabbi.”
“Regarding the reports that he said that beautiful gentile women can be raped during wartime, it appears this is not his opinion,” Lapid continued. “But if he thinks this, not only may he not be the chief military rabbi, he can’t even be a rabbi.”
In addition to Karim, Eisenkot nominated another 12 colonels for promotion to brigadier general, pending the approval of Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.
