For two weeks I have been drowning in sex scandals, which, thank God, are not mine, but those of others. I am too cowardly to do anything that would make me into a news item, or bring my end, instead of my remaining someone who relays the news and analyzes it. My (academic) interest in the topic began when a Palestinian went to the Israeli Television to expose an official in the Palestinian Authority, accusing him of harassing a woman. I do not know who was guilty of the worse harassment: the official, if the charge is proven, or the person who relied on the enemy. We are backward, even in our scandals. On one day, an American music filmmaker named Aswad Ayinde was accused of raping his five daughters, while a Briton was accused of raping his two daughters and having nine children, or grandchildren, with them. How could I go beyond the Palestinian issue, if it had not coincided with much more important scandals, involving Catholic bishops in Ireland over child molestation, and a high-ranking rabbi in Israel, over the same accusation (I will say molestation, so as not to offend readers, but what is meant is raping altar boys or choir boys, or the equivalent in a synagogue). When the Palestinian scandal erupted, Palestinians were divided, just as they are about every other issue. The accusations reached the Palestinian president, as if Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad and Saeb Erakat should be responsible for the original person accused. I noticed that the simultaneous accusations against Catholic and Jewish clergy were limited to the accused and did not extend to the religion itself or its leaders. For Christians and Jews, as for Muslims, and as in positive law, “No bearer of burdens shall bear another's burden.” I can say with total objectivity that since my original article, new scandals have arisen, both political and religious, and there has been interesting information about previous scandals. There are criminal investigations underway on both sides of the Atlantic; Catholic priests in the United States are facing hundreds of charges from youngsters who were molested, and the same goes for bishops in Ireland, and recently Germany. As for the details, 170 former students at Catholic schools and monasteries in Germany have recently said that they were molested, and along with the police investigation into the charges, the Pope has summoned the German bishops to discuss the matter with them. He did this in the Irish case as well, and his only comment on the affair was that molestation was a horrible crime. The German scandal has reached the family of the Pope himself. He was lenient with a priest who was convicted of molestation, and then his brother, Bishop George Ratzinger, confessed to beating boys from the church choir when he headed a monastery. However, he denied any knowledge of children being molested and said that some of the incidents dated back to the 1950s, or 50 or 60 years ago. The German affair arose a few days after an advisor to the Pope and a member of the Vatican Choir himself was accused of dealing with a male prostitution ring, and then resigned. Do you need any more? At the same time, the Vatican was issuing an order to defrock Bishop Emmanuel Milingo in Zambia, after he had called for allowing priests to marry and held exorcism ceremonies for people in his parish. And also at the same time, Bishop Brendan Murray in Ireland resigned after his involvement in the sex abuse scandal. In Israel, the scandal of Rabbi Mordechai Elon continues to simmer; he was accused of molesting minors a few years ago and was prevented from coming into contact with them for four years, when he withdrew from his work. However, he returned and engaged in molestation. The organization Takana, a religious Zionist group that investigates such abuse cases, has made the accusations, to protect the youngsters. Since then, other minors have come forward, accusing Elon of molestation, and twelve other rabbis have been accused as well. The Israeli police have asked Takana to hand over its information, so that an official investigation can begin. I hope readers will believe that I am writing about information that is available to me and others. Most of it comes to me without my asking, through news sources that I use regularly, as part of my job. I do not want to focus on Christians or Jews. If I had read something similar about Muslims clergymen, I would have noted it. However, in the last two weeks I have not encountered anything of this sort. Perhaps it is because we sweep our scandals under the rug. In any case, I consider the oppression of women in many parts of the Arab world and their being deprived of their rights, along with honor crimes, as sufficiently scandalous. However, I do want to remain with the original topic. When the Palestinian man molested a woman, the scandal was used in a way to condemn all Palestinians, and that this is what half of the Palestinians think about the other half. In other words, they say things about each other that are not said by Israeli war criminals. There were those who escaped the original charges, and talked about corruption worth millions of dollars in the Palestinian Authority while the entire state budget is less than that. This column and tomorrow's have been delayed in order to move ahead with columns on Dr. Ghazi Qosaybi. If the Palestinians want to know how true sexual and political scandals are, I will tell them tomorrow, after what has come up in the US during the last two weeks alone. The Americans are ahead of us in everything, including “super” scandals. [email protected]
