As opposed to Israel
Sources such as National Review, Commentary, the Jerusalem Post, The Free Press, and the Middle East Forum generally rate Israel as one of the safer places in the Middle East for women, both for residents and visitors, while emphasizing the sharp contrast with neighboring societies and the specific threats posed by jihadist groups.
Core assessment
• Daily life and street safety: Writers and correspondents at these outlets routinely describe Israeli cities (especially Tel Aviv and Jewish areas of Jerusalem) as places where women can move freely, including at night, with far lower levels of routine sexual harassment and assault than in Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, or large parts of the Arab world. They attribute this to Western-style policing, high female labor-force and military participation, and cultural norms that do not treat women as fair game for predation.
• Crime statistics and enforcement: Analysts note that Israel’s reported rates of rape and serious sexual assault, while not zero, are comparable to or better than many European countries once population and reporting differences are considered. They stress that Israel actually investigates and prosecutes these crimes rather than suppressing data or treating them as private/family matters. This stands in contrast with Pakistan’s documented high rates of gang rape, honor violence, and police inaction, or Iran’s combination of state repression and under-reported street and institutional abuse.
• October 7 and the jihadist threat: These sources place heavy emphasis on the systematic sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023 (rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, and murder of Israeli women). Outlets such as The Free Press, National Review, and Commentary treated the subsequent denial or minimization of these atrocities by parts of the Western left and international organizations as a moral scandal. They argue this episode reveals the real danger to women in the region: not Israeli society, but the Islamist and Palestinian rejectionist forces that target Jewish (and other) women as a weapon of war.
