Israel’s leadership is pushing the allegations that Hamas fighters raped Israeli women during the October 7 attacks for its own political objectives while the government’s ongoing refusal to allow the United Nations to conduct a full investigation into the matter threatens to hinder any evidence, advocates have warned.
I understand the challenges with the NYT expose about the sexual violence that might or might not have happened on 10/7, but why are we posting opinion pieces to world news? This is a blog post with no sources. Shouldn’t we do better?
And that is, in fact, the point.
For Bibi, the propaganda value is far higher - and far more important - than actually seeking any sort of meaningful and rational justice for his citizens.
This is the UN report which found strong evidence that widespread rape occurred during the October 7th attack, as well as debunking one or two particular claims that Israel was putting forth which got published in the news.
This is a press release from the UN about it.
For some reason, the couple of lies Israel told about sexual violence became the entire story, overshadowing the much larger truth about sexual violence by Hamas fighters. Most of the infamous NYT story was true.
Just because Israel is actively engaging in a genocide and are committing atrocities 10 times worse than whatever’s coming back to them doesn’t automatically mean that claims of atrocity by Hamas are automatically false.
The UN report found there is no evidence aside from unverifiable “witness testimonies.” She did confirm that israel had no forensic, video or photo evidence. It all hangs on israeli witnesses which have previously lied. When 10 israeli “witnesses” lie to manufacture rape propaganda there is no reason to believe the 11th.
There is no reason that Pramilla Patten should have classified those israeli provited witnesses are ‘credible’.
The NYT article is completely debunked there is nothing left standing from it. You are straight up spreading propaganda by claiming it holds weight. The reason israel invited Patten to begin with was because the NYT article fell apart.
The claim about NYT is irrelevant too as israel claiming in its interview with BBC that it had video evidence and that there were survivors of rape. Both which are not confirmed fake.
That is the exact opposite of what the UN report did. Did you actually read it, or if not where did you get all this information you’re telling me?
The executive summary is only a few pages and breaks down a high level of what they found pretty well, and then you can skip to particular sections to see more detail. Pages 4 and 5 have a pretty good high-level overview of which allegations in which locations they believe they gathered reasonable grounds to believe, which allegations they believed they debunked, and which ones they weren’t able to verify or debunk one way or another. Warning, it’s slightly graphic.
In particular, they pretty immediately debunked some of the Israeli governments’ accounts which got repeated early on in the media, actually specifically by comparing them against evidence and by doing their own interviews where they were able.
If this was true the UN would be saying Hamas raped people. But alas, the UN does not say that.
Instead the UN calls for an investigation like the post says. Wonder why that is…
Hey, @Linkerbaan@lemmy.world do you provide this much scrutiny when you post articles from your blog websites? Or do you reserve that charitability only for one side?
There’s a thing called a “reputation”. Lying about rape makes future rape claims without evidence less credible.
Well yeah, that’s the point. War crimes always get covered covered up if at all possible. Israel isn’t unique there. They’re the same monsters every militant power is.
That should tell you the answer right there. A state that has overtly lied to cover its own action in their ongoing genocide, that has painted their enemy as fascists have always tried to paint their enemies, is saying one thing and refusing to offer proof and refusing to allow the matter to be investigated.
It didn’t happen.
Not to mention, they were caught pushing the story in the NYT to begin with, which is where the rumor started. I don’t need any more proof that it didn’t happen like they say it did.
Rape happens in war. I don’t believe it was used systemically on Oct. 7, as Israel claims, or at least, there’s no evidence of that.
However, to claim that no one was raped during an attack that long and protracted, and with so many people involved, defies history and the realities of conflict.
What’s worse, anyone claiming “no rapes happened” as a counter to “it was systemically used”, means that a single case of rape invalidates their claim, and by default, bolsters Israel’s lie.
Right. As I was writing, I changed the definitive final sentence to a less definitive “it didn’t happen as they said it happened.” I never said there was no rape whatsoever.
Unfortunately rape is used in war. You’re right about that. Both sides are allegedly using it as a tactic. But their story was systematic rape used as terror on Oct 7 was a lie.
The OP article makes a big deal, too, about this distinction between Israeli women who were raped by Hamas fighters because the Hamas fighters wanted to rape, as opposed to because their commanders told them to go out and rape. I’m not sure that’s a super impactful distinction. Why do you think it’s an important distinction?
(Actually, the OP article says something stupider than that; it says that “some reports have asserted that those acts and other reported atrocities were committed by civilians and those not affiliated” with Hamas, without explaining what the fuck they’re even talking about, but I’m giving the benefit of the doubt and dealing mostly with their treatment that it’s important whether or not Hamas “ordered it” to happen, which is still stupid to me but not transparently absurd like the idea that unaffiliated civilians suddenly started coming in and raping all these Israeli women at the same time that the October 7th attacks were going on.)
This is the other thing that’s weird about the “it was all debunked” side. So, they invaded the music festival, shot a bunch of people including plenty of women and children, hauled away a bunch of hostages, burned up some homes, and yet, nobody raped anybody. Just didn’t happen. That’s a red line that these music-festival-goer-shooters adhered to absolutely without fail.
The Israeli government does much worse, unprovoked, and much more systematically. But that doesn’t mean all of a sudden that you have to say every bad thing about Israel is true and every bad thing about Hamas is false, and these people who invaded a music festival and shot more than a thousand innocent people are these noble paladins you have to protect the right and honor of.
Rape does not happen during an attack it happens after. See israel raping Palestinians in their concentration camps.
Hamas certainly isn’t going to drop their weapons with Apache helicopters and rockets flying overhead to rape a blown up bodies in a car.
If Hamas would be raping people it would be the kidnapped hostages. Yet that rescued hostage from yesterday did not look very pregnant.
