It is nigh on impossible to find reliable statistics for the number of sexual assaults that take place in Israel’s Arab community. This is partly because no organizations or bodies collate such data but mainly because only a tiny fraction of the cases result in a police complaint being filed – or even a report to one of the organizations offering support for victims of sexual assault. Based on conversations that Shomrim has had with women who suffered sexual assault or harassment – as well as with female researchers and counselors who work in the field – it seems that, while many women in Israel are ‘breaking the silence’ and demanding justice, Arab women continue to live in fear. Oftentimes, they live alongside the person who assaulted them. Their primary concern is that if they were to speak about what happened, they would make themselves more vulnerable to further attacks – in many cases, by the people closest to them.

The outcome of the lack of support from the immediate surroundings, coupled with a lack of faith in the authorities and a lack of professional counselors in the right places, is that thousands of women are not getting the treatment they need. We approached many such women and asked them to tell their stories for this article; very few agreed to be interviewed. Some women agreed to an interview and later regretted doing so. The stories in this article portray a disturbing picture of the reality they live in and highlight how complex but essential it is to do something to change the situation.

Of all the stories, the first one that we present here is almost the exception. Unlike many other women, 24-year-old Ward Salameh. filed a police complaint, wrote about her experience on Facebook and got support from her immediate family. What happened to Ward and her family after the story came out perfectly illustrates why Arab women victims of sexual assault prefer to remain silent. Ward says that her uncle raped her from a young age for many years. She kept this a secret until, many years later, her mental health began to deteriorate. It was only after she received suitable therapy that she broke her silence. When she wrote about what had been done to her in a Facebook post, her parents stood by her side, and other women sent her messages of encouragement. “My father said, ‘I would fight against the whole world for you. I don’t care about my brother, my sister, or my family.’ Many women have told me that they were also abused or assaulted, but they said nothing. They were amazed and asked me how I managed to talk about it.”

Ward's extended family began to exert extreme pressure on her not to file a criminal complaint with the police and to stop writing about her experience on social media. Ward didn’t back down, and some 18 months ago, she filed a complaint. This came at a heavy price for her and her family – her parents and siblings – who were forced to leave their home village and move to Haifa. The uncle who allegedly raped Ward was questioned by police and then released. The case has been bouncing between the State Prosecution and the police for months, but no decision has yet been taken on whether charges will be filed. While the uncle walks around a free man, Ward still describes her life as “a daily battle with the body, a battle against the thoughts in my head.”

“The person who hurt me is alive, free and doing whatever he wants,” she tells Shomrim, “while I’m sitting at home doing nothing and trying to heal the wounds. I don’t study or work; I barely manage to get out of bed. I have no desire to do anything, not even to continue with psychological therapy. I have to take pills just to get a few hours of sleep at night. Every morning, I throw up everything in my stomach. That’s how my body reacts, and I have no control over it. The body absolutely does not forget.”

Ward is fortunate not to be alone in her struggle. Her parents stood by her when she made what, at first glance, appears to be the obvious decision to file a complaint – but which, in her case, was courageous and remarkable. Her father, Saleem Salameh, is now at war with his brother and the rest of his family. After the attempt to begin a process of restorative justice within the family failed, he supported his daughter even when it came to filing a criminal complaint with the police. “One day, my daughter simply couldn’t get out of bed. Her legs were trembling. After a battery of hospital tests, the doctors told us there’s nothing medically wrong with her,” he says of the first few days after the revelation. After she had bounced from one psychosocial treatment to another, it became clear to him that she had been a victim of rape. “My daughter had been suffering for years and didn’t share with anyone. She suffered in silence, alone,” he says sadly.

According to Saleem, he hoped to send a message to Arab society in Israel and to give other women the strength to speak out and talk about sexual assault. “I know why they don’t speak up,” he says in straightforward terms. “They’re afraid of the disgrace it will bring.” In the days after his first post on the issue on Facebook, he says at least eight women contacted him. “They told me, ‘We didn’t have the strength and courage to speak out. We envy your daughter for having a father who embraced her, who stood by her no matter what.”

According to Saleem Salameh, he hoped to send a message to Arab society in Israel and to give other women the strength to speak out and talk about sexual assault. “I know why they don’t speak up,” he says in straightforward terms. “They’re afraid of the disgrace it will bring.”

‘Everyone Knows Everyone, So Women Can’t Speak Out’

In 2021, Israel Police opened 6,922 files for sexual assault. Of them, just 611 – around 9 percent – were filed by non-Jewish citizens. Given that the Arab population of Israel is about 2 million, which makes up 21 percent of the Israeli total, it should be evident that there is extreme under-reporting. This should be even more obvious given that those 611 complaints include other non-Jewish sectors, such as tourists and foreign workers. Professionals in the field all agree that the number of files opened should be at least double the current number.

“The reported cases do not reflect the true numbers. They are a reflection of the ability of the victims and their families to speak out,” says Dr. Nadia Massarweh, a psychologist and researcher from the Haruv Institute, which conducts research into child abuse and neglect. “Women in the Arab community cannot tell the relevant authorities what happened to them because they are worried about the response from society, from their parents and other relatives. In theory, people say that they are opposed to sexual assault, but when such cases are made public, they actually don’t support the victim at all.” Massarweh adds that certain characteristics of the Arab community in Israel exacerbate the problem. “In most Arab communities, everybody knows everybody else. Families live in close proximity. For the most part, the assailant comes from the same community as the victim. When everybody knows everybody else, it prevents the victims from reporting that she’s been assaulted or raped. Usually, when a woman reveals that she has been assaulted by a certain man, they will both then be in danger – both the victim and the perpetrator.”

A report by the Women Against Violence organization appears to back up Massarweh’s argument that the structure of Arab society is a significant factor in women’s decision not to file complaints. The most recent report by the Nazareth-based organization was published in October 2022 and is based on reports by Arab women. According to the organization, in 90 percent of the 1,191 cases reported last year – including rape, attempted rape, sexual harassment, indecent assault, and extortion over intimate photographs – the victims reported having prior acquaintance with the suspect. In 39 percent of the cases, the attacker was a first-degree relative, and in 63 percent of the cases, the victim was assaulted in her own home. According to Women Against Violence, only 20 percent of the women who called their hotline filed a police complaint. That means four out of every five Arab women preferred to say nothing.

In 39 percent of the cases, the attacker was a first-degree relative, and in 63 percent of the cases, the victim was assaulted in her own home. According to Women Against Violence, only 20 percent of the women who called their hotline filed a police complaint.

R., who was raped by a man she met on Facebook, says that she started to blame herself immediately after the incident and decided not to tell her parents because she was convinced that they would also blame her. According to R., she approached one of the organizations that offer help to Arab women but got no assistance from them. Her closest friends told her that she should not have met up with the man. “I remember thinking that I just want it to be over with quickly, let him do what he wants to me, just get it over with and then I could leave,” she tells Shomrim. “I felt terrible about myself. In my head, I kept asking myself, ‘What have you done? Why did you accept his friend request on Facebook to begin with?’”

“I was terrified to tell my parents,” R. adds. “My mother is religious and my father is very traditional. In our family, it’s not even acceptable to meet a man in a café, let alone meet him in Nahariya and in my car. And then he raped me? They would have killed me without giving it a second thought.”

When asked about police involvement, she chuckles wryly. “Of course I couldn’t file a complaint against him. Everyone would know straight away that it was me. There are a lot of officers serving at my nearest station who are from my family and my community.”

With no other options available, R. chose what seemed to her to be the only solution. “I told someone from the criminal underworld and he beat him up,” she says calmly. “They also gave the man strict instructions not to come to our village. I don’t regret not telling my family or the police. They would have blamed me and said that I was asking for it. They wouldn’t have done anything. My parents forced my sister to get married when she was 18 and her husband has raped her dozens of times. Once, he even locked her in a room for the whole day until the neighbors broke it down and rescued her.”

It has been several years since the rape. R. is married now and studying at university – but the scars remain. “I struggle with myself every hour of every day,” she says. Arab society’s attitude toward victims of sexual assault also led her to undergo a radical medical procedure: hymenoplasty, an operation to repair a torn hymen. “When we started to think about the wedding, that was the first thing my mind went to. That was the thing that occupied my thoughts more than anything else,” she says. “A large proportion of Arab society still believes that a women’s honor depends on her hymen being intact. A week before the wedding, I went to the center of the country and I paid a few thousand shekels for the operation. In the end, the surgeon told me it wasn’t even successful.”

‘The Assailant Kept On Threatening Me. I Tried to Kill Myself’

Launched in 2015, a Facebook page called ‘Don’t Be Silent’ became a rare bright spot in the struggle to end the conspiracy of silence surrounding sexual assault in Arab society. The page was set up by Haifa-based activist Khulud Khamis, who asked victims of sexual assault to send her their stories, which she would publish on her page, using fake names but keeping the geographical area in which the attacks took place. The page quickly picked up momentum and ended up publishing the stories of hundreds of women from Arab communities in Israel, as well as from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and neighboring countries. The last such story was published on the page in 2020, and the reasons for the cessation of activity remain unclear. Khamis herself refused to address the issue and declined a request to be interviewed for this article.

The initiative launched by ‘Don’t Be Silent’ raised some hope that the process that the rest of Israeli society is undergoing would finally reach the Arab community. But while the number of Jewish women filing sexual assault complaints climbs yearly, and the medical and psychological establishments are expanding the services and assistance they offer victims, the Arab community remains far behind.

All the activists and researchers we spoke to for this article agree that the official figures relating to sexual assault in Arab society are just the tip of the iceberg. "Women are afraid of being the victim twice," says Wafa Enbatawe from the feminist organization Kayan.

N. was 16 years old when she was raped by a classmate in a school restroom. “We stayed late for extra lessons because we had an English matriculation exam coming up,” she says about that day which, despite the fact that many years have passed, still haunts her. “When I left, one of my classmates ran after me, came up to the third floor, and opened the door to the restroom. He pushed me into one of the stalls and raped me there. I froze. I couldn’t do anything, not even tell him to stop. I didn’t return to class out of shame and panic. I asked my friend to collect my belongings and meet me in the restroom. I told her everything.”

N. friend stood by her and even tried to persuade her to file a complaint with the police. In the days following the rape, N. considered complaining, but her rapist threatened to publish naked photographs of her. “That was his way of pressuring me not to tell anyone he sexually assaulted me. And I didn’t even tell my parents, who are the people I am closest with. After I graduated from high school, I went to study in the center of the country; my main goal was to forget the assault and try to learn to live with it. It's impossible to describe how hard it is to live with an emotional scar of this kind. I had several crazy years, and after a difficult struggle, I decided that the best thing would be to kill myself – and I tried to do just that on more than one occasion.”

In the end, N. sought psychological help through her health maintenance organization, which referred her to an NGO that helps victims of sexual assault. Thanks to her treatment, she decided to tell her parents about the rape. “They accepted it,” she says simply. 

N. says that she considered going to the police, but a series of events, especially the death of her good friend, whom she had told about the rape in real time, led her to the decision not to file a complaint. “She was the only witness. Now there’s no one to back my side of the story,” she says. “I didn’t have any physical examination after the rape, so I can’t file a complaint.”

The director of the feminist organization Kayan, Wafa Enbatawe has been helping victims of sexual assault for many years and the organization she heads has operated a hotline for victims since 2004. She says that thousands of women are in the same situation as N. and suffer their entire lives from sexual trauma and enforced silence. “Victims who keep their attack a secret find themselves living in a helpless situation of despair, fear, and anger,” she says. “The attack can have far-reaching ramifications for the victims; some suffer from eating disorders, some become substance abusers or are diagnosed with personality disorders, which manifest themselves, among other things, in insatiability in personal relations, lack of emotional stability, a chronic sense of emptiness and a tendency to self-harm.”

‘A Woman Who Breaks Through Cultural Obstacles Will Encounter Systemic Obstacles’

All the activists and researchers we spoke to for this article agree that the official figures relating to sexual assault in Arab society are just the tip of the iceberg and that the problems are far more profound. They say that, in order for Arab women to feel safe to file a police complaint, Arab society and the authorities must undergo radical processes of change. “Women are afraid of being the victim twice,” says Enbatawe. “Arab society is patriarchal and traditional and, in addition to the sexual assault and its ramifications, victims are worried about their families and the stigma.”

Having said that, Enbatawe adds that it is impossible not to consider the overall lack of faith in the law-enforcement system and bodies in Israel. “The fact that 84 percent of police complaints about physical and sexual violence end without an indictment reinforces the feeling among women complainants that no one cares about the therapeutic process or appropriate action by the police,” she says, adding that she has personally encountered dismissive attitudes from police investigators when Arab women have filed complaints. “On many occasions that we have accompanied Arab women to a police station, to file a complaint or to give further testimony, we have encountered service that was not accessible – accompanied by cultural and gender insensitivity,” she says. “Sometimes, there isn’t even an Arabic-speaking officer. It takes a lot for an Arab woman to break through the cultural obstacles and to file a police complaint – and, when she does, we, unfortunately, find that she then encounters systemic obstacles.”

According to Enbatawe, even social workers and other professionals sometimes display a similar attitude. “A lack of professionalism and sensitivity can put these women’s lives at risk,” she says. “Over the years, we had also had cases when professionals divulged information about cases to people who had no business knowing. That puts Arab women in grave danger and an unfair situation, so they don’t file complaints at all.”

Saleem Salameh, the father who stood by his daughter from the first moment, still hopes that change will come. “The idea that the victim is to blame is sick. It’s the assailant who should be ashamed. I want every victim to be able to stand up for herself and to speak up about the attack and who attacked her. We cannot be silent.”