RUTHFULLY YOURS

It was a stormy week indeed, both literally and figuratively. Israel’s relations with the Obama administration took a major turn for the worse over the latter’s attempt to make a deal with Iran; Israeli rescue teams headed for the Philippines to assist the population of Tacloban devastated by Typhoon Haiyan; 18-year-old IDF soldier Eden Atias was stabbed to death by a Palestinian teenager on a bus at the central station in Afula; Hamas political and military leaders held a victory parade in the Gaza Strip to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Operation Pillar of Defense, followed by a pair of rocket attacks into Israel; and, in response, the Israeli military retaliated with airstrikes against rocket launchers in northern Gaza.

In spite of all of the above, the story that has dominated the news in Israel for the past 24 hours is the case of a famous singer having sex with a 15-year-old groupie and other minors. Due to a court-imposed gag order, the performer’s name and many other details of the case, such as the identity of another singer involved, have not been published by the press. But because Israel is a tiny country with an extensive grapevine and high-tech gossip mill, the identity of the alleged perpetrator and his colleague was obvious to all. The Hebrew blogs, Facebook forums and Twitter feeds have been filled with discussions about the parties they would throw at apartments rented for the purpose of showing their friends a good time.

In addition, Instagram photos and video clips from these bashes have been on Internet display. Mainstream Israeli media outlets got around the ban on publication by posting blurred versions of these pictures and clips. What they reveal is typical of party scenes: dancing, drinking and flirting. But they also showed a bunch of grown men with their arms around high-school girls.

Organizing such events would be a piece of cake for the host/statutory rapist, since young females naturally welcome attention showered on them by a celebrity they consider to be a heart-throb.

Indeed, the girls in question have asserted that the sex they had with the accused and his buddy was consensual. Apparently, they enjoyed these parties very much. Hobnobbing with the rich and famous was one perk. Gifts of jewelry was another.

Still, the law is clear about discounting the “consent” of a minor, especially one under the age of 16. So, most of the TV coverage and panel discussions with legal experts has focused on whether the “famous singer” can prove that he thought the girls he seduced were older.

The accused is not interested, however. Instead, he is claiming the whole thing is a lie: that he never threw such parties and that he did not have sex with any young girls. His public relations manager added that the accusations were fabricated by “envious” competitors in the entertainment world.

On Thursday evening, he was approached by reporters who asked him a question about the affair. His reaction, caught on camera (with his face blurred and voice distorted), was to yell, “I’m going to break your camera and smash your face in!”

Charming. And really conducive to asserting one’s innocence. But then, any publicity hound who assumes he can shut off the spotlight when it suits him — and any household name who thinks he can keep his sexual exploits a secret in such a small pond — is as stupid as he is arrogant. For this alone, Mr. X deserves to be taken down an octave or two. As does his singing, partying colleague.

The phenomenon of powerful men engaging in sexual improprieties is as old as the hills. Equally expected is the combination of outrage, titillation and schadenfreude that it elicits among the less financially or otherwise fortunate.

Why, then, did this item upstage the hard news — and missiles — with which we were bombarded this week?

The answer is inherently paradoxical. On the one hand, it is a testament to the health of Israeli society. Existential crises are as natural to us as Nobel prizes; getting gripped by the missteps of our celebrities is just as much a part of our routine as combating terrorism.

On the other, it is worrisome when the top story of the day, during a time of war, is sex.

Ruthie Blum is the author of To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’