Jerusalem: The Israeli military has been criticised for appointing a rabbi who has disparaged female soldiers and once appeared to justify the rape of non-Jewish enemies.
The military says it summoned Rabbi Col. Eyal Karim on Wednesday over his past remarks after an outcry from lawmakers. In a 2002 post on a Jewish website, Karim responded to a user asking whether Jewish law permits Israeli soldiers to rape enemy women. Karim said the Torah allowed soldiers to satisfy "evil inclinations" during wartime.
Karim later said he was not advocating rape, and the military said today that he denied ever saying that a "soldier is authorised to sexually harm a woman during war. "Opposition lawmaker Tzipi Livni told Channel 2 TV that Karim's views meant that "he cannot be the military rabbi."
