How much evidence do you need? Hamas’s sexual violence against Israeli women
Much of my writing is long and nuanced. This will be brief and pointed.
I wish I didn’t need to write it, but two facts compel me:
- On October 7, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists savagely raped and mutilated dozens of Israeli women.
- People who ordinarily speak out against sexual violence have been silent, and a range of others doubt the facts or call it a hoax.
The details provided by New York Times reporters are gruesome. So gruesome that I’m not even going to hint at them here, because sometimes my teenage son likes to search for my name online and see what he finds. I don’t want him to read what Hamas did to these women.
The other night, an Israeli war correspondent who has covered Ukraine, Syria, and Sudan spoke at the synagogue up the road from me. She said that the savagery she witnessed as a result of October 7 was worse than anything she had seen in her career, including ISIS’s most horrendous crimes.
All of this is thoroughly documented. In fact, some have called October 7 the most documented massacre in history. Hamas terrorists themselves provided an enormous amount of video and photographic footage.
Yet women’s rights organizations across the globe who ordinarily aren’t shy about condemning sexual violence were, with some exceptions, either silent or vague. When the National Organization for Women (NOW) finally put out a press release on November 30, it didn’t mention Hamas or October 7. Instead it referred to “these widespread crimes against humanity.” Which crimes were they referring to? It’s impossible to tell.
Meanwhile, characters of various ideological stripes raised questions about the validity of the evidence. Some claimed that Israel invented the whole thing to justify its military response. Progressive reporters Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate wrote a piece that, they claim, debunks the New York Times story. I read the article in detail. It doesn’t meet my standard for debunking. To quote a Haaretz columnist’s description of Blumenthal’s writing in general, it’s a masterclass in manipulation. I could ground that assessment, but that’s not what this piece is about, and others are better suited for the task.
What’s going on here? We’re talking about gruesome sexual violence in the most documented massacre in history, and loads of women’s rights advocates and progressives are either silent or skeptical.
How much evidence do you need?
As always in such instances, the answer is rather simple: when you are committed to not believing something — and, perhaps, also undermining the legitimacy of a particular country — no amount of evidence will convince you. In fact, the more evidence others provide, the more opportunity you have to claim it’s all a fabrication, in this case, of Israel.
So, no, the rape and mutilation of Israeli women on October 7 is not up to debate. Nor do I feel the need to bring nuance to the story.
Sure, we can talk about the unhealthy warrior culture present in much of Gaza, the role of UNRWA in seeding Palestinian hatred of Israelis, and other explanations for why these men committed savagery — in a mood of exuberance, no less.
But the sheer fact of what they did and the suffering they caused does not call for nuance. It calls, instead, for clarity. Straightforward assertions of fact backed by evidence — all of which now exists.
May these women’s memories be for a blessing. And may the women currently being held hostage in Gaza find, first, freedom and then support for the long arduous journey of healing from this trauma.
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