The 15-minute liaison that 'destroyed' a life

Saber Kushour apologises as he asks his guests to move the plastic chairs on his breeze-block balcony a little closer to the door to his house.

If he were to sit where they are now, he explains, the electronic tag attached to his ankle would set off an alarm.

Kushour's edginess is understandable. He was recalling a 15-minute encounter almost two years ago which he said "has destroyed my life".

Last week the married father of two from east Jerusalem was sentenced to 18 months in jail for the "rape by deception" of a Jewish woman who claimed she would not have had sex with him had she known he was an Arab.

What might have been a tawdry episode - casting neither Kushour nor the woman in a favourable light - exploded into a debate in Israel about racism, sexual mores and justice.

"I am paying the price for a mistake that she made," said Kushour, 30.

"I was shocked at the sentence - it shows a very vivid and clear racism."

The message from the judge, he said, was that "because you are an Arab and you didn't make that clear, we are going to punish you".

In his verdict, Judge Zvi Segal conceded that it was not "a classical rape by force". He added: "If she hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated."

At his home in Sharafat, where he is confined while awaiting an appeal, Kushour told a different story. The woman has not been identified and has not gone public with her account.

Kushour was buying cigarettes in September 2008 when an unexpected opportunity presented itself for a casual sexual encounter. "Any person in my shoes would have done the same thing."

A woman in her 20s struck up a conversation as he left the shop to return to his job delivering legal papers around Jerusalem by scooter.

"She said 'you have a nice bike' and other things which I don't remember."

Within minutes, he said, he realised her interest was not just in small talk.

Kushour speaks fluent, unaccented Hebrew, as do many Palestinians living and working in Jerusalem. The woman asked his name and Kushour replied "Dudu" - a common Israeli name. At no point, he said, did the woman - who gave her name as Maya - ask if he was Jewish, although he has acknowledged that he said he was single.

The pair went to a small roof area in a nearby office block. "When we were having sex, she was worried that someone would see us, but she never told me to stop. She was more than willing - she initiated it."

After the brief encounter, Kushour tapped Maya's mobile number into his phone and left. Unknown to him, Maya contacted the police after the encounter to lodge a complaint. Kushour said he didn't know how or when she realised he was not Jewish.

Six weeks later Kushour rang the number. Three days after that he received a phone call from the police. "They told me I had a problem and to come to the police station." He was interrogated for five to six hours.

Eventually Kushour was taken to a cell. On the third day, he was taken to court and charged with rape.

He spent the next two months in prison and since then has been electronically tagged and confined to his home. The case came to court last week.

Kushour's conviction has transfixed Israel. "This is a most amazing decision by the court,"said Tamar Hermann of the Israel Democracy Institute. "Deception is one thing - but to be convicted of rape?"

Yuval Yonay, a sociology professor at Haifa University, in one of Israel's few mixed cities, said Kushour's behaviour might be improper but it is not rape.

Dana Pugach of the Noga Centre for Victims of Crime told the daily Haaretz: "We all have different characteristics, and it is a person's right to have sexual relations with a person knowing the facts about those characteristics."

Whatever the outcome of his appeal, Kushour's brief encounter has turned his life upside down.

His relationship with his wife has been severely tested. "I asked her last night to forgive me. She said yes, but I can see the pain and hurt in her eyes."

- OBSERVER