The Knesset on Monday passed a far right-wing-backed law that makes “terrorist motivations” an aggravating factor in crimes of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Aggravating factors come into play during criminal sentencing and are a consideration that can push judges toward issuing a sentence closer to the legal maximum.

Sponsored by a group of lawmakers led by MK Limor Son Har Melech, from the racist coalition faction Otzma Yehudit, and MK Yulia Malinovsky from right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beytenu, the new law marked a rare case of cross-Knesset alignment and passed 39 to 7 on its final reading.

Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Sliman, the former head of the Knesset’s Women’s Status Committee, during a debate at the plenum, July 20, 2023 (Footage: Knesset Channel)

Sharp criticism of the law quickly came in from Hadash-Ta’al lawmakers and Israel’s rape crisis center umbrella organization, with both alleging the law improperly creates a ranking of the severity of such crimes. Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Sliman, a former head of the Knesset’s Women’s Status Committee, told the Knesset: “Do not punish according to hierarchies and classifications.” “Shame on these laws,” she continued, tweeting after the law passed, “Don’t promote racism on the backs of victims!”

Touma-Sliman told the plenum that sexual assailants are despicable and should be judged based on the crime, not their identity. “I don’t care if a sexual offender is Jewish or Arab, or whether the victim is Jewish or Arab,” she said, stopping short of saying that the law might be disproportionately applied to Arab attackers of Jewish victims.

“This law will not prosecute Israeli officials harassing Palestinian women at checkpoints, nor Shin Bet interrogators who harass them during interrogations. It’s custom-made only to be used against Arabs,” Touma-Suleiman told Middle East Eye. “Every sexual offender is despicable, filthy and should rot behind bars, regardless of the identity of their victim – whether she is Arab, Jew, of the left or right,” she added. “Shame on this government for exploiting the pain and suffering of sexual assaults victims to incite against Arabs.”

Orit Soliciano, who heads the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, an umbrella organization of nine support providers, told The Times of Israel that her organization also opposed the law. “We think there is an epidemic of sexual violence in Israel; many women, girls and boys suffer. The perpetrators should be harshly punished, and it doesn’t always happen in Israel. But to declare one rape is more horrible than another rape — we do not support [this],” she said. “We don’t want survivors to feel that their experience is less important,” once rapes are ‘rated’ according to their circumstances,” she said. “We think it’s very dangerous to create this kind of rating.”

During the committee process to prepare the bill for final votes, as well as in explanatory notes accompanying the bill, backers alleged that Israel is facing increased incidents of nationally motivated sexual assault. Soliciano said that the Association of Rape Crisis Centers “do not see any such phenomenon in our data — of rape as a form of terror.”