The words “terror” and “terrorist” do not appear even once in the entire thesis. From reading the thesis one would have no idea that Israeli military actions in the “territories” have anything to do with suicide bombers and terrorist murderers. This political bias and open political propagandizing should have been more than enough for the thesis to have been rejected altogether as pseudo-research. Instead, it got a prize.
The possibility that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women because they are simply decent and honorable people, or under effective command by decent and honorable people, is something Nitzan obviously dismisses.
As mentioned above, when reports about the Nitzan thesis began to circulate, the heads of Hebrew University issued a statement. It reads, in part: “IDF soldiers are not involved in raping and other atrocities common to other armies, and Ms. Nitzan examined a number of explanations for this proper behavior. It seems that the source, on which the media reports were based, either did not read the thesis or used sentences that were taken out of context [emphasis in original statement]. Below please find excerpts from her work (both in the original Hebrew and the English translation, side by side), providing possible explanations for the question why the Israeli army is not involved in rapes.”
This was followed by three brief citations from the Nitzan thesis. Sure enough, nothing in the three selections, all taken out of context, is particularly outrageous or anti-Israel. They are almost the only three that are not outrages. Nearly the entire thesis is dedicated to proving that Jews are racists for not raping Arabs.
Not a single feminist organization anywhere has spoken up about this notion that it is racist when Jews do not rape Arabs. But the most outrageous aspect of the entire scandal is the behavior of the heads of Hebrew University, defending and endorsing this “research” and proving that their institution, despite one of its retired professors having won a Nobel Prize, has jettisoned academic standards and lost interest in seeking academic excellence.