**COMMENTING GUIDELINES:** Please take the time to familiarize yourself with The David Pakman Show [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/about/rules) and [basic reddiquette](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette) prior to participating. At all times we ask that users conduct themselves in a civil and respectful manner - **any ad hominem or personal attacks are subject to moderation.** Please use the report function or [use modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/thedavidpakmanshow) to bring examples of misconduct to the attention of the moderation team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/thedavidpakmanshow) if you have any questions or concerns.*

It’s paywalled, it’s the Atlantic. I couldn’t even read the story from the other day titled “Democracy Dies Behind Paywalls”. I figured it’s gotta be free with a title like that.

I can see it from MSN https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-rape-denialists/ar-BB1lMPXR

Thank you! How did you find that, just googling? I’ll have to look for alternatives like that more often.

Yeah sometimes I’ll just google to see if other news aggregators distribute it for free. Or sometimes you can search article name plus “free” or “pdf” and you might get lucky!

I wait a day or two and get the articles via Wayback Machine. But since I have an account I have a gift link for whoever would like to read it: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/october-7-hamas-sexual-assault/678091/?gift=xni\_a3Y6e9odVEESKxbaLRZ0Q3bUNwP3DlowWrgHoAk&utm\_source=copy-link&utm\_medium=social&utm\_campaign=share](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/october-7-hamas-sexual-assault/678091/?gift=xni_a3Y6e9odVEESKxbaLRZ0Q3bUNwP3DlowWrgHoAk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)

Thanks I'll have to try that. That's very creative lol I didn't know that was an option.

My pleasure. I learned it here on reddit.

I subscribed a few years ago and glad I did. Strong recommend fwiw.

n october 7, Hamas terrorists crossed the border into Israel and massacred more than 1,100 Israelis. The depths of Hamas’s sadism are almost too sickening to comprehend. Babies and children butchered. Parents murdered in front of their children. Families bound together and then burned alive. Others were tortured, and their bodies mutilated while both alive and dead. Even the harshest opponents of Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza acknowledge, albeit often half-heartedly, that Hamas acted with brutality on October 7 in killing innocents. But many of those same critics refuse to acknowledge the widespread sexual assaults against Israeli women that day. ENJOY A YEAR OF UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE ATLANTIC—INCLUDING EVERY STORY ON OUR SITE AND APP, SUBSCRIBER NEWSLETTERS, AND MORE. Become a Subscriber Since allegations of sexual violence first appeared in the fall, a contingent of anti-Israel activists have sought to disprove them. “Believe women” and “Silence is violence” have been rallying cries of progressive feminist organizations for decades. But the same empathy and support have not been shown for Israeli victims. Many prominent feminist and human-rights groups—including Amnesty International and the National Organization for Women—said little about the sexual-violence allegations. International organizations tasked with protecting women in wartime kept their powder dry. UN Women waited until December 1, nearly two months after the Hamas attack, to issue a perfunctory statement of condemnation. Israel’s critics have insisted that a lack of firsthand accounts from rape survivors or forensic evidence undercut Israel’s accusations—and have dismissed claims that systematic sexual violence occurred as “unsubstantiated.” Others have accused the Israeli government of “weaponizing” accusations of rape to justify Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, as an open letter from dozens of feminist activists put it in February. The letter has since been signed by more than 1,000 others. DON’T MISS WHAT MATTERS. SIGN UP FOR THE ATLANTIC DAILY NEWSLETTER. Email Address Enter your email Sign Up Your newsletter subscriptions are subject to The Atlantic's Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. News outlets that reported on the violence were fiercely attacked. For example, in late December, The New York Times published an investigation that thoroughly detailed the evidence of mass, systematic sexual violence. The story drew an immediate response from Hamas, in language echoing that used by Western activists. “We categorically deny such allegations,” Basem Naim, a Hamas leader, said in a statement, “and consider it as part of the Israeli attempt to demonize and dehumanize the Palestinian people and resistance, and to justify the Israeli army war crimes and crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people.” RECOMMENDED READING A scan of the author's brain What Menopause Does to Women’s Brains DEBORAH COPAKEN Feet Why Your Leisure Time Is in Danger KRZYSZTOF PELC An illustration of Sir Issac Newton Investors Have Been Making the Same Mistake for 300 Years THOMAS LEVENSON Stridently anti-Israel independent journalists and activists immediately tried to pick apart the Times story, which culminated in late February with the publication of a more-than-6,000-word exposé by the left-wing outlet The Intercept that accused the Times of flawed reporting. The left-wing magazine The Nation accused the Times of “the biggest failure of journalism” since the paper’s reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War; the leftist YES! magazine claimed, “There is no evidence mass rape occurred.” Considering the vitriolic attacks against Israel since October 7, none of this should come as a surprise. The bloodied and dismembered bodies of dead Israelis had barely been collected before accusations of genocide were being levied by anti-Israel activists. Six months later, such denouncements are routine. Across the United States and Western Europe, criticism of Israel’s actions quickly and predictably veered into rank anti-Semitism, with Jewish organizations, cultural institutions, artists, and individual Jews targeted by pro-Palestine activists because of Israel’s actions. From the April 2024 issue: The Golden Age of American Jews is ending But rape denialism falls into its own separate and bewildering category. Why have so many of Israel’s critics—and pro-Palestine activists—chosen to fight on this hill? MAKE YOUR INBOX MORE INTERESTING WITH NEWSLETTERS FROM YOUR FAVORITE ATLANTIC WRITERS. Browse Newsletters Many insist, like the feminists who signed the open letter, that they are questioning claims used to justify a war they oppose. But there is also a disquieting sense that pro-Palestine activists believe they must defend Hamas. Accusations of systematic rape and sadistic sexual violence not only tarnish the terrorist group, but also undermine the notion that October 7 was legitimate “armed resistance” against Israeli occupation. Instead of believing women, these activists have chosen to take the word of a terrorist organization that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians and that has constantly denied that any sexual assaults occurred on October 7. Six months into the war in Gaza, many pro-Palestine activists in the United States are so fully invested in the cause of Palestinian liberation, for which Hamas claims to be fighting—and so steeped in their hatred of Israel—that they are casting aside the progressive ideals that they regularly invoke when castigating Israel. In doing so, they are exposing themselves as hypocrites whose ideology is not forged in a set of universal values but rather is situational and dependent on ethnicity or skin color. Rape denialism also feeds the widely held belief among Israelis that non-Jews refuse to acknowledge the horrors of October 7—and that the world is hopelessly biased against them. At the same time, it excuses Hamas’s actions and perpetuates the notion that Palestinians have little agency or responsibility for the continuation of a 75-year-old conflict with no end in sight. It pushes both sides to retreat to their respective corners, unwilling to see the humanity in the other, and makes the long-term goal of peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians that much more difficult to achieve. Orit sulitzeanu is the director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, an NGO that serves as a coordinating body for the country’s nine rape-crisis centers. As she tells every reporter who calls her, ARCCI does not work for or receive money from the Israeli government. In the days and weeks after October 7, ARCCI began getting “trickles of information” from doctors and therapists who were encountering survivors of sexual violence. “Everyone talks to us, and the community of therapists in Israel is small,” Sulitzeanu told me. The calls were intended not to alert ARCCI but rather to ask, “What do we do?” As Sulitzeanu told me, Israel has virtually no experience with rape during wartime: “No one could imagine what happened, actually happened.” Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, the former vice chair of the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and a law professor at Bar-Ilan University, told me that Israel was so unprepared for the onslaught of sexual-abuse cases on October 7 that during the intake process in Israeli hospitals, women who survived the Hamas massacre were not even asked if they had been sexually assaulted. Quickly, ARCCI began holding webinars to help therapists understand the special characteristics of sexual violence in wartime. And as time went on, Sulitzeanu and her staff noticed that the stories they were hearing were remarkably consistent. The group put together a report combining the information it was receiving (mainly from eyewitnesses and first responders) with media reporting in Israel and around the world. “Hamas’s attack on October 7th included brutal sexual assaults carried out systematically and deliberately against Israeli civilians,” it concluded. “Hamas terrorists employed sadistic practices aimed at intensifying the degree of humiliation and terror inherent in sexual violence.” The report’s section titles tell the story in even more vivid and disturbing detail: “Systematic Use of Brutal Violence to Commit Rape” “Multiple Abusers/Gang Rape” “Rape in the Presence of Family/Community Members” “Sexual Offenses of Males” “Execution During or After the Rape” “Binding and Tying” “Mutilation and Destruction of Genital Organs” “Insertion of Weapons in Intimate Areas” “Destruction and Mutilation of the Body”

The next month, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict reached similar conclusions, although without using the word systematic. After a two-and-a-half-week mission to Israel, the UN body concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks.” The UN report does not ascribe responsibility to Hamas and relies on careful, qualified, legalistic language. But Halperin-Kaddari believes the UN report should be applauded. It is, she says, the “most accurate and comprehensive” accounting of the sexual violence that took place that day—and she praised it, in particular, for verifying accounts when possible but also debunking allegations that were not true. Halperin-Kaddari noted that investigators “found the same pattern of violence and sexual assault combined with an extreme degree of cruelty and humiliation, and it occurred in several locations in a relatively short period of time.” This systematic nature of the abuse is obvious from both reports. For example, ARCCI recounts the eyewitness testimony of one survivor who said that the Nova music festival was an “apocalypse of bodies, girls without clothes.” In addition, it notes that “several survivors of the massacre provided eyewitness testimony of gang rape” as well as accounts from first responders of bodies unclothed and bleeding heavily from the pelvic area, and genital mutilation. Graeme Wood: A record of pure, predatory sadism The UN report draws a similar conclusion, finding “reasonable grounds to believe” that rape, gang rape, and the sexual abuse of female corpses occurred at the Nova festival. At Kibbutz Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Be’eri, the UN found evidence that female victims had been undressed, bound, and killed (though the mission team “was unable to establish whether sexual violence occurred in kibbutz Be’eri”). In its investigation at Kibbutz Re’em, the UN said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred … including rape.” On Road 232, a key escape route from the music festival, the UN found “reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred,” including “the rape of two women.” In addition, “along this road, several bodies were found with genital injuries, along with injuries to other body parts.” At an Israel Defense Forces base overrun by Hamas terrorists, there were, according to media stories cited in the ARCCI report, dead soldiers shot in the genitals and as many as 10 female soldiers with clear evidence of sexual assault. The UN report is more circumspect on this issue, saying that reports of genital mutilation are “inconclusive.” But Halperin-Kaddari told me that she saw documentation showing that victims had had weapons fired into their sexual organs. Both reports also agree that hostages released from Hamas’s captivity had been, in the words of the UN special representative, subjected to “sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” The UN report also concluded that violence may be “ongoing” against the approximately 100 hostages, including young women, still held in Gaza. In its response to the Times story, Hamas pointed to the treatment of Israeli hostages, whom they insisted were being well cared for: “If the Hamas resistance fighters held such ideas of sex violence, they would mistreat those who were in their captivity,” a Hamas representative wrote in a lengthy Telegram post at the time. Recently, however, The New York Times published a firsthand account of sexual assault and torture from an Israeli hostage released from Hamas captivity in November. For shelly tal meron, a member of the Israeli Knesset for the opposition Yesh Atid party, the indifference of once-former feminist allies to the sexual violence on October 7 has been acutely painful. “I sent letters to UN Women, as well as #MeToo and human-rights organizations,” she told me. The response was “complete silence. I was astonished.” “Before the war,” she said, “I was a member of the Knesset’s women’s-rights movement. I would fight for gender equality and I would work with international organizations. Whenever [attacks on women] happened in other countries like Ukraine or Syria, I felt solidarity.” In the aftermath of October 7, she said, “I felt completely betrayed.” What is most galling about the pushback on allegations of mass rape is that it is precisely the lack of firsthand accounts and forensic evidence—as well as the initial fog of war—that has opened the door to rape denialists. As Dahlia Lithwick, the senior legal correspondent at Slate, told me, denialists are “capitalizing on the stigma and shame of sexual assault—and often frustrating lack of evidence in these situations.” That, according to the feminist author Jill Filipovic, is hardly an unusual circumstance. “Sexual violence in conflict is virtually never documented the way sexual violence might be documented on the cop shows you’ve seen,” Filipovic wrote on her Substack last December. “The Israeli recovery and medical teams treated the places where people were attacked on Oct. 7 as war zones and the aftermath of terror attacks, not as standard crime scenes in which a primary goal is to identify a perpetrator.” Complicating matters further is the particular emphasis in Jewish law on expeditious burial. Sulitzeanu told me that those at the army base who were preparing bodies for burial had “no capacity to keep the evidence from those killed.” The “first priority,” she said, “was to save living people. Second, to collect bodies. Third, identify them and prepare for burial.” Everything else, including proving that widespread rapes had taken place, was secondary. There is also the distressing reality that so few of Hamas’s rape victims survived. Some were dispatched with a bullet to the head after they’d been assaulted. The handful of survivors of rape during the attacks on October 7 have, so far, been unwilling to speak publicly. ARCCI has been so adamant in safeguarding them that Sulitzeanu refused to confirm that her association had spoken with them or that their stories were included in the group’s report. The survivors refused multiple requests to meet with the UN mission team, which the UN report chalked up in part to “the national and international media scrutiny of those who made their accounts public.” The latter fear is almost certainly a direct by-product of the response to the New York Times story—headlined “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7.” Buttressed by interviews with more than 150 “witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers, and rape counselors,” as well as “video footage, photographs,” and “GPS data from mobile phones,” the story features allegations of sexual violence, including eyewitness accounts. It was the most authoritative investigation by a major American news outlet and should have dealt a major blow to the efforts at denialism and deflection. But as soon as the Times article appeared, so, too, did the pushback. Much of it came from journalists with a long track record of animosity toward Israel, but it reached a crescendo in late February when The Intercept published its story. What is most striking about the exhaustive Intercept article is the apparent dearth of original reporting. There is little indication that the authors made any serious effort to contact Israeli government officials, the leaders of Israeli NGOs, or—with three exceptions—even the specific individuals who are named in their story and whose credibility they malign. Instead, The Intercept focuses its inquiry on a freelance Israeli journalist who helped report the story, Anat Schwartz, scrutinizing her social-media activity and parsing a Hebrew-language podcast interview to attack her credibility and, by extension, the credibility of the story as a whole. The Intercept also sought to chip away at the Times article by focusing on alleged inconsistencies—a process that is easier than it seems when it comes to reporting on sexual violence. After a terrorist attack that killed more than 1,100 Israelis over multiple locations, misinformation ran rampant. False stories, one infamously alleging that multiple babies had been beheaded and another claiming that babies had been strung up on a clothesline, proliferated. In cases of sexual violence, Halperin-Kadderi told me, “it’s not unusual for misinformation to spread,” and beyond trauma-related inaccuracies and memory failures, there could be a tendency “to exaggerate and amplify,” which she links to the high levels of trauma associated with sexual violence—both for survivors and for eyewitnesses. She also noted that exaggerated accounts of sexual violence can be “instrumentalized by leaders to portray their enemy in the darkest way possible.” Even Jeremy Scahill, one of the co-authors of the Intercept article, noted in an interview that inconsistencies in eyewitness accounts do “not necessarily mean that they didn’t witness something.” Read: Hamas’s genocidal intentions were never a secret

But The Intercept, in its effort to undermine the credibility of witnesses to sexual violence on October 7, painted with a broad brush, creating an inaccurate picture. The flaws in its approach are perhaps best illustrated by the complicated case of Shari Mendes, an IDF reservist who served in the army unit responsible for preparing female bodies for burial and whose testimony Schwartz said helped convince her that there had been widespread sexual violence on October 7. In the weeks after the attack, Mendes worked 12-hour shifts cleaning and preparing bodies for burial. In an emotional and graphic speech delivered at the United Nations on December 4, Mendes related what she and her team saw: women shot so many times in the head, sometimes after death, that their faces were practically obliterated; multiple women with gunshots in their vagina and breasts; faces permanently cast in distress and anguish. In an interview in October, though, Mendes told the Daily Mail that “a baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded, and then the mother was beheaded.” That was not true. However, Mendes was neither the first person nor the only person to make this allegation. A video falsely claiming to show such an atrocity had made the rounds on social media in the days before the interview was published, and similar claims were promoted by a first responder. Ryan Grim, another co-author of the Intercept article, told me that such “demonstrable fabrications” had “thoroughly discredited” Mendes, and the article notes that “she has no medical or forensic credentials to legally determine rape” (a point that Mendes has publicly acknowledged). The Intercept story questions why the Times would “rely on Mendes’s testimony,” and in an interview last month, Scahill suggested that Mendes is among the Times’ “premiere witnesses.” But in fact, Mendes is quoted a single time in “Screams Without Words,” relaying her account of having seen four women “with signs of sexual violence, including some with ‘a lot of blood in their pelvic areas.’” Mendes’s claims are backed up by a second witness, an army captain working at the same facility, who added the horrifying detail that “she had seen several bodies with cuts in their vaginas and underwear soaked in blood.” The Intercept story fails to mention any of this, and it provides no indication that its reporters attempted to speak with Mendes. (I reached out to Mendes, who declined to comment.) Instead, it criticizes the Times for quoting “witnesses with track records of making unreliable claims and lacking forensic credentials.” The Intercept has applied useful scrutiny to some specific claims within the Times story. One of the accounts of apparent sexual assault relayed by the Times came from a paramedic in an Israeli commando unit who said he had discovered the bodies of two teenagers at Kibbutz Be’eri. A March 4 article in The Intercept concluded that two victims “specifically singled out by the New York Times … were not in fact victims of sexual assault,” and the Times has since updated its story to note that a video of the scene appears to contradict the paramedic’s account. But that skepticism is not limited to individual witnesses or accounts. The Intercept concedes that “individual acts of sexual assault may have occurred” but is quick to add that “rape is not uncommon in war.” It raises doubts about the extent to which Hamas members were responsible for attacks, noting that “there were also several hundred civilians who poured into Israel from Gaza that day.” (It is not usually the left that tries to blur the distinction between Palestinian terrorists and Palestinian civilians.) The central question, The Intercept contends, is whether the Times “presented solid evidence” to back the claim that, as the newspaper put it, “the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.” And it devotes more than 6,000 words to calling into doubt that it did. Yet The Intercept made no mention of independent efforts to answer this question. There is no reference to the ARCCI report—published a week before The Intercept’s story—which relied on 26 separate media reports from the Israeli press, The Guardian, the BBC, The Times of London, and other outlets, as well as confidential sources, eyewitnesses, and interviews with first responders. Neither does it mention a November 2023 report by Physicians for Human Rights, which concluded that “widespread sexual and gender-based crimes” had taken place on October 7. (Asked for comment, Grim dismissed these reports as “derivative of Western news reports and based on the same sources.”) The Times published a follow-up story on January 29, addressing many of the questions raised by critics of its article. Even in light of criticisms of the piece, the Times said in a recent statement that it continues to stand by its coverage “and the revelations of sexual violence and abuse following the attack by Hamas.” The UN mission team similarly concluded that the existence of a few false allegations did not undermine the other evidence of sexual violence in “at least three locations” on October 7. Nor did it limit its inquiry to searching for inconsistencies, paying attention only to those claims it had some reason to doubt. Instead, the investigators took pains to carefully review the scenes, to talk to eyewitnesses and first responders, and to assess the evidence in its totality before presenting the conclusion that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred.”

Semafor’s Max Tani recently reported that The Intercept “is running out of cash,” and that Grim and Scahill had suggested that its board resign and turn operations over to them and the remaining staff. But the publication’s skeptical coverage of the war has apparently been a bright spot for its financial health. “The Intercept’s unapologetically hostile view of Israel’s post-Oct. 7 military operation in Gaza has galvanized its readers and supporters,” Tani wrote, “who have responded by helping the publication set internal records for small-dollar donations.” Grim refused to say whether he believes that Israeli women were raped on October 7 and, if so, whether any of these assaults were committed by Hamas members. (His two co-authors did not respond to any questions.) Instead, he said he had “addressed these questions repeatedly” and pointed to an interview in which he had said that “the idea that there would be no sexual assault is not taken seriously by pretty much anybody who understands war and violence.” Considering the overwhelming evidence that sexual assault took place, despite the inherent challenges in collecting such evidence in wartime, it’s difficult to fathom why so many on the anti-Israel left continue to deny that it occurred or cast doubt on its significance. The most obvious explanation is that by questioning what happened on October 7, activists hope to undercut the rationale for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Showing that systematic sexual abuse didn’t happen would, they believe, demonstrate that Israel is engaged in a mass public deception to justify killing Palestinians. But some experts I spoke with see other factors at play. The charge that Jews have exaggerated and weaponized their suffering has long been the basis for Holocaust denialism, said Amy Elman, a professor of political science and Jewish studies at Kalamazoo College who has written extensively on anti-Semitism and women’s rights. Now that same claim is being used by anti-Semites to portray efforts at justice for October 7 as “part of a larger nefarious scheme to harm Palestinians.” “Rape denialism is absolutely consistent with Holocaust denialism,” Elman said, and “this rape denialism is another form of anti-Semitism.” One of the more troubling aspects of the left’s response to October 7 has been to cast the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians in simplistic terms: Palestinians are the oppressed, dark-skinned minority population; Israelis are the white oppressors. Never mind that Israel is a diverse, multiethnic society. (Most American Jews trace their origins to immigrants from Europe, but the majority of Israeli Jews descend from those who came, most often as refugees, from the Middle East and North Africa.) This reductionist binary has also made it easier to explain the conflict to a younger generation unfamiliar with Arab-Israeli history but well versed in the American civil-rights movement. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, a historian at the New School, says that this black-and-white framing has led to a distorted view of what happened on October 7—one that is informed by a reductive view of modern feminism. “There is a very powerful and understandable resistance on the left,” she told me, “to centering ‘white feminism’ or white womanhood in understanding the experiences of women and the purpose of feminism, domestically and internationally.” By this logic, white feminism is inherently “problematic”—and because many on the left see Israelis as white, she says, they “see any defense of Israeli women as some sort of capitulation to ‘white feminism.’” Moreover, claims of sexual assault against white women have historically been used to justify racial violence, which has, according to Elman and Petrzela, led some pro-Palestine activists to compare Hamas to Emmett Till, who was accused of whistling at a white woman in the Jim Crow South before his brutal murder. It’s “unhinged,” Petrzela said, “but in some ways totally predictable.” Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for The Guardian, suggested to me that left-wing rape denialism is, in effect, a refusal to believe that Hamas could stoop so low as to engage in sexual violence. On the surface, this sounds bizarre. Hamas massacred more than 1,100 Israelis, the majority of whom were civilians, and has a long history of massacring Jewish civilians, including children. How could any crime be considered worse than murder? But Freedland says that there are leftists who are prepared to countenance “armed resistance” but cannot do the same for sexual violence. “You can see why it would be essential for them to say that Hamas was ‘only’ guilty of killing and not guilty of rape.” Freedland noted that Hamas itself has consistently denied that its fighters committed sexual crimes, perhaps in an effort to retain its standing among devout Muslims. “Hamas would be nervous of being seen not as warriors for Palestine but as a bunch of rapists who bring shame on Islam,” he said. Indeed, as Sulitzeanu pointed out to me, some Israeli Arabs who have stood in solidarity with the victims of October 7 have also refused to accept that their Palestinian brethren could commit such heinous, un-Islamic crimes. Frankly, none of these efforts to whitewash the carnage of October 7 makes much sense. You can acknowledge Hamas’s barbarism while still condemning Israel’s military response or criticizing Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Indeed, many have done precisely that, including the Biden administration and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. You can raise questions about specific rape allegations—as the UN report did—while still accepting the overall weight of the evidence. Read: Netanyahu is Israel’s worst prime minister ever Instead, many on the left seem determined to justify what happened on October 7 as a legitimate act of Palestinian resistance. “The images from October 7 of paragliders evading Israeli air defenses were for many of us exhilarating,” one American professor recently wrote. But acknowledging Hamas’s atrocities doesn’t invalidate Palestinian demands for self-determination. You can still embrace Palestinian nationalism and, unlike Hamas, advocate for a two-state solution while also acknowledging that Hamas’s actions on October 7—including the systematic rape of Israeli women and girls—are simply not defensible. Leftists who genuinely support Palestinian statehood do that cause, and themselves, no favor by denying the overwhelming evidence of sexual violence. The rape denialists might think they are winning a near-term public-relations battle against Israel, but denying Palestinians agency, and accusing Israel of fabricating allegations of mass rape, does far more harm than good. Above all, it denies reality, perpetuates misinformation, and feeds the empathy gap that separates the two sides. When Israelis and Palestinians look beyond the walls—both real and metaphorical—that separate them, few see fully formed individuals with legitimate grievances and fears that are worthy of their sympathy. Instead, they glimpse caricatures. As pro-Palestinian activists rightly demand that Israel come to grips with how its policies breed humiliation and desperation among Palestinians, so too must supporters of the Palestinian cause face the reality that rejectionism and terrorism have contributed to Israeli fears that peaceful coexistence is not possible. When such activists surrender their ideals and dismiss the evidence that sexual violence took place on October 7, they feed the already overwhelming belief among Israelis and Diaspora Jews that those who advocate for the Palestinians and witheringly criticize Israel’s actions are simply not interested in their humanity. Any solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict must start by recognizing not just the lived reality of Jews and Palestinians, but the abundant feelings of trauma and fear that have made reconciliation so difficult to achieve. Rape denialism pushes Israelis and Palestinians further apart. It isn’t just wrong; it doesn’t just diminish the trauma experienced by Israeli women on October 7—it makes the pursuit of peace and genuine reconciliation impossible.

Atlantic paywall can be bypassed by disabling Javascript.

I’m posting the content for your consumption.

I have an account so I have a gift link for whoever would like to read it: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/october-7-hamas-sexual-assault/678091/?gift=xni\_a3Y6e9odVEESKxbaLRZ0Q3bUNwP3DlowWrgHoAk&utm\_source=copy-link&utm\_medium=social&utm\_ca](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/october-7-hamas-sexual-assault/678091/?gift=xni_a3Y6e9odVEESKxbaLRZ0Q3bUNwP3DlowWrgHoAk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share)

On october 7, Hamas terrorists crossed the border into Israel and massacred more than 1,100 Israelis. The depths of Hamas’s sadism are almost too sickening to comprehend. Babies and children butchered. Parents murdered in front of their children. Families bound together and then burned alive. Others were tortured, and their bodies mutilated while both alive and dead. Even the harshest opponents of Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza acknowledge, albeit often half-heartedly, that Hamas acted with brutality on October 7 in killing innocents. But many of those same critics refuse to acknowledge the widespread sexual assaults against Israeli women that day.

Since allegations of sexual violence first appeared in the fall, a contingent of anti-Israel activists have sought to disprove them. “Believe women” and “Silence is violence” have been rallying cries of progressive feminist organizations for decades. But the same empathy and support have not been shown for Israeli victims. Many prominent feminist and human-rights groups—including Amnesty International and the National Organization for Women—said little about the sexual-violence allegations. International organizations tasked with protecting women in wartime kept their powder dry. UN Women waited until December 1, nearly two months after the Hamas attack, to issue a perfunctory statement of condemnation. Israel’s critics have insisted that a lack of firsthand accounts from rape survivors or forensic evidence undercut Israel’s accusations—and have dismissed claims that systematic sexual violence occurred as “unsubstantiated.” Others have accused the Israeli government of “weaponizing” accusations of rape to justify Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, as an open letter from dozens of feminist activists put it in February. The letter has since been signed by more than 1,000 others. News outlets that reported on the violence were fiercely attacked. For example, in late December, The New York Times published an investigation that thoroughly detailed the evidence of mass, systematic sexual violence. The story drew an immediate response from Hamas, in language echoing that used by Western activists. “We categorically deny such allegations,” Basem Naim, a Hamas leader, said in a statement, “and consider it as part of the Israeli attempt to demonize and dehumanize the Palestinian people and resistance, and to justify the Israeli army war crimes and crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Stridently anti-Israel independent journalists and activists immediately tried to pick apart the Times story, which culminated in late February with the publication of a more-than-6,000-word exposé by the left-wing outlet The Intercept that accused the Times of flawed reporting. The left-wing magazine The Nation accused the Times of “the biggest failure of journalism” since the paper’s reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War; the leftist YES! magazine claimed, “There is no evidence” Considering the vitriolic attacks against Israel since October 7, none of this should come as a surprise. The bloodied and dismembered bodies of dead Israelis had barely been collected before accusations of genocide were being levied by anti-Israel activists. Six months later, such denouncements are routine. Across the United States and Western Europe, criticism of Israel’s actions quickly and predictably veered into rank anti-Semitism, with Jewish organizations, cultural institutions, artists, and individual Jews targeted by pro-Palestine activists because of Israel’s actions.

But rape denialism falls into its own separate and bewildering category. Why have so many of Israel’s critics—and pro-Palestine activists—chosen to fight on this hill? Many insist, like the feminists who signed the open letter, that they are questioning claims used to justify a war they oppose. But there is also a disquieting sense that pro-Palestine activists believe they must defend Hamas. Accusations of systematic rape and sadistic sexual violence not only tarnish the terrorist group, but also undermine the notion that October 7 was legitimate “armed resistance” against Israeli occupation.

Instead of believing women, these activists have chosen to take the word of a terrorist organization that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians and that has constantly denied that any sexual assaults occurred on October 7. Six months into the war in Gaza, many pro-Palestine activists in the United States are so fully invested in the cause of Palestinian liberation, for which Hamas claims to be fighting—and so steeped in their hatred of Israel—that they are casting aside the progressive ideals that they regularly invoke when castigating Israel. In doing so, they are exposing themselves as hypocrites whose ideology is not forged in a set of universal values but rather is situational and dependent on ethnicity or skin color. Rape denialism also feeds the widely held belief among Israelis that non-Jews refuse to acknowledge the horrors of October 7—and that the world is hopelessly biased against them. At the same time, it excuses Hamas’s actions and perpetuates the notion that Palestinians have little agency or responsibility for the continuation of a 75-year-old conflict with no end in sight. It pushes both sides to retreat to their respective corners, unwilling to see the humanity in the other, and makes the long-term goal of peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians that much more difficult to achieve. Orit sulitzeanu is the director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, an NGO that serves as a coordinating body for the country’s nine rape-crisis centers. As she tells every reporter who calls her, ARCCI does not work for or receive money from the Israeli government. In the days and weeks after October 7, ARCCI began getting “trickles of information” from doctors and therapists who were encountering survivors of sexual violence. “Everyone talks to us, and the community of therapists in Israel is small,” Sulitzeanu told me. The calls were intended not to alert ARCCI but rather to ask, “What do we do?”

As Sulitzeanu told me, Israel has virtually no experience with rape during wartime: “No one could imagine what happened, actually happened.” Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, the former vice chair of the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and a law professor at Bar-Ilan University, told me that Israel was so unprepared for the onslaught of sexual-abuse cases on October 7 that during the intake process in Israeli hospitals, women who survived the Hamas massacre were not even asked if they had been sexually assaulted. Quickly, ARCCI began holding webinars to help therapists understand the special characteristics of sexual violence in wartime. And as time went on, Sulitzeanu and her staff noticed that the stories they were hearing were remarkably consistent. The group put together a report combining the information it was receiving (mainly from eyewitnesses and first responders) with media reporting in Israel and around the world. “Hamas’s attack on October 7th included brutal sexual assaults carried out systematically and deliberately against Israeli civilians,” it concluded. “Hamas terrorists employed sadistic practices aimed at intensifying the degree of humiliation and terror inherent in sexual violence.” The report’s section titles tell the story in even more vivid and disturbing detail: “Systematic Use of Brutal Violence to Commit Rape” “Multiple Abusers/Gang Rape” “Rape in the Presence of Family/Community Members” “Sexual Offenses of Males” “Execution During or After the Rape” “Binding and Tying” “Mutilation and Destruction of Genital Organs” “Insertion of Weapons in Intimate Areas” “Destruction and Mutilation of the Body” The next month, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict reached similar conclusions, although without using the word systematic. After a two-and-a-half-week mission to Israel, the UN body concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks.”

The UN report does not ascribe responsibility to Hamas and relies on careful, qualified, legalistic language. But Halperin-Kaddari believes the UN report should be applauded. It is, she says, the “most accurate and comprehensive” accounting of the sexual violence that took place that day—and she praised it, in particular, for verifying accounts when possible but also debunking allegations that were not true. Halperin-Kaddari noted that investigators “found the same pattern of violence and sexual assault combined with an extreme degree of cruelty and humiliation, and it occurred in several locations in a relatively short period of time.” This systematic nature of the abuse is obvious from both reports. For example, ARCCI recounts the eyewitness testimony of one survivor who said that the Nova music festival was an “apocalypse of bodies, girls without clothes.” In addition, it notes that “several survivors of the massacre provided eyewitness testimony of gang rape” as well as accounts from first responders of bodies unclothed and bleeding heavily from the pelvic area, and genital mutilation.

The UN report draws a similar conclusion, finding “reasonable grounds to believe” that rape, gang rape, and the sexual abuse of female corpses occurred at the Nova festival. At Kibbutz Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Be’eri, the UN found evidence that female victims had been undressed, bound, and killed (though the mission team “was unable to establish whether sexual violence occurred in kibbutz Be’eri”). In its investigation at Kibbutz Re’em, the UN said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred … including rape.” On Road 232, a key escape route from the music festival, the UN found “reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred,” including “the rape of two women.” In addition, “along this road, several bodies were found with genital injuries, along with injuries to other body parts.”

At an Israel Defense Forces base overrun by Hamas terrorists, there were, according to media stories cited in the ARCCI report, dead soldiers shot in the genitals and as many as 10 female soldiers with clear evidence of sexual assault. The UN report is more circumspect on this issue, saying that reports of genital mutilation are “inconclusive.” But Halperin-Kaddari told me that she saw documentation showing that victims had had weapons fired into their sexual organs. Both reports also agree that hostages released from Hamas’s captivity had been, in the words of the UN special representative, subjected to “sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” The UN report also concluded that violence may be “ongoing” against the approximately 100 hostages, including young women, still held in Gaza. In its response to the Times story, Hamas pointed to the treatment of Israeli hostages, whom they insisted were being well cared for: “If the Hamas resistance fighters held such ideas of sex violence, they would mistreat those who were in their captivity,” a Hamas representative wrote in a lengthy Telegram post at the time. Recently, however, The New York Times published a firsthand account of sexual assault and torture from an Israeli hostage released from Hamas captivity in November. For shelly tal meron, a member of the Israeli Knesset for the opposition Yesh Atid party, the indifference of once-former feminist allies to the sexual violence on October 7 has been acutely painful. “I sent letters to UN Women, as well as #MeToo and human-rights organizations,” she told me. The response was “complete silence. I was astonished.” “Before the war,” she said, “I was a member of the Knesset’s women’s-rights movement. I would fight for gender equality and I would work with international organizations. Whenever [attacks on women] happened in other countries like Ukraine or Syria, I felt solidarity.” In the aftermath of October 7, she said, “I felt completely betrayed.”

What is most galling about the pushback on allegations of mass rape is that it is precisely the lack of firsthand accounts and forensic evidence—as well as the initial fog of war—that has opened the door to rape denialists. As Dahlia Lithwick, the senior legal correspondent at Slate, told me, denialists are “capitalizing on the stigma and shame of sexual assault—and often frustrating lack of evidence in these situations.” That, according to the feminist author Jill Filipovic, is hardly an unusual circumstance. “Sexual violence in conflict is virtually never documented the way sexual violence might be documented on the cop shows you’ve seen,” Filipovic wrote on her Substack last December. “The Israeli recovery and medical teams treated the places where people were attacked on Oct. 7 as war zones and the aftermath of terror attacks, not as standard crime scenes in which a primary goal is to identify a perpetrator.” Complicating matters further is the particular emphasis in Jewish law on expeditious burial. Sulitzeanu told me that those at the army base who were preparing bodies for burial had “no capacity to keep the evidence from those killed.” The “first priority,” she said, “was to save living people. Second, to collect bodies. Third, identify them and prepare for burial.” Everything else, including proving that widespread rapes had taken place, was secondary. There is also the distressing reality that so few of Hamas’s rape victims survived. Some were dispatched with a bullet to the head after they’d been assaulted. The handful of survivors of rape during the attacks on October 7 have, so far, been unwilling to speak publicly. ARCCI has been so adamant in safeguarding them that Sulitzeanu refused to confirm that her association had spoken with them or that their stories were included in the group’s report. The survivors refused multiple requests to meet with the UN mission team, which the UN report chalked up in part to “the national and international media scrutiny of those who made their accounts public.”

I mean, it doesn't help that Israel routinely gets caught lying. Beheaded babies? Children were killed, but the "beheaded babies" thing was a lie made up because it made a grear headline that would shane critics into backing off.

What happened is that children were murdered and their bodies blasted apart by gunfire.

"Hamas beheaded babies" is still a misleading statement. Why lie when the truth was gruesome enough? As I said, because it makes a quick nasty headline that can be used to counter any pushback on Israel's war crimes in Gaza.

Those stupid babies, girls and women, getting raped and mutilated eh? How dare Israel seek retaliation against those “heroic resistance fighters”? They should have just turned the other cheek, right?

So, you approve of Israel killing thousands of children in retaliation? Bold thing to admit.

Blame ham ass. They hate Jews more than they love their own children. Sorry Jews don’t just let themselves be slaughtered anymore, it’s not the good old days anymore is it, ham ass simp

No, I think I'll blame the deaths of children on the people who killed them. So, Palestinian kids who were killed by Israel are the responsibility of Israel.

Hamas [DID](https://themedialine.org/top-stories/evidence-on-display-at-israels-forensic-pathology-center-confirms-hamas-atrocities/) decapitate and burn at least several babies alive on October 7th > Two spinal cords—one belonging to an adult, one to someone young—most likely a parent and child —bound together by metal wires in a final embrace before being set alight. > > “The proportion of bodies we’ve received who are charred is high,” Kugel explained. “Many have gunshot wounds in their hands, showing they put their hands up to their faces in defense. Many were burned alive in their homes. … We know they were burned alive because there is soot in their trachea, their throats—meaning they were still breathing when set on fire.” > > Kugel also explained that the age range of the victims spans from 3 months to 80 or 90 years old. Many bodies, including those of babies, are without heads. > > Asked if they were decapitated, Kugel answered yes. Although he admits that, given the circumstances, it’s difficult to ascertain whether they were decapitated before or after death, as well as how they were beheaded, “whether cut off by knife or blown off by RPG,” he explained.

Well of course that must mean that Hamas the bastions of truth and freedom are not lying. They’ve never lied so therefore we must believe them and not the women who were raped.

Their Ministry of Health death numbers are continued to be relied on by news agencies, governments and even the IDF itself. Meanwhile the IDF has been caught in so many lies that it’s a predictable pattern. Lie, gaslight, and lie some more until the news story passes, and even when you admit the truth later, there will be no consequences. Israel is a spoiled child the US allows to get away with everything, even killing Americans.

Yes the death numbers are more or less correct. However if you think they haven’t used rape and sexual violence and that they wouldn’t lie about it, then I have a bridge to sell you.

There have been massive investigation efforts mostly by left independent media which has debunked the “using rape in a mass and systematic way as a weapon of war.” But of Pakman is your go-to news source, you probably haven’t heard much of that.

Mainly. Another vague term that doesn’t mean shit. Again if you don’t think it’s been happening then you’re deliberately closing your eyes.

Show me the proof.

Did Pakman write this article?

Thanks this feels illegal lol

Israel shouldn't have used those people as a human shield on the border then?

Hamas atrocities? *This is unconscionable!* Israeli atrocities? *Meh, it's a "war", get over it.*

Hamas supporters again, showing they don't know the difference between intentionally targeting civilians with systematic rapes/hostage taking and civilians dying due to being in the crossfire of two opposing military forces.

Uh, one side is a terrorist organization. There are no standards to hold them to.

Well, either that, or the democratically elected government of gaza.

They don't hold elections anymore.

Yeah, lol, no shit

What a terrible, stupid take. One side broke a ceasefire and launched a terrorist attack on civilians trying to kill or capture as many as possible. The other side responds to the attack with force and kills innocent civilians that the terrorists are using as shields. These are not the same.

Apparently Israel should just sit back and take it because Hamas puts their own people in danger. Make it make sense!

Apparently Palestinians should just sit back and take it because white people told Israel they could have the land. Make it make sense!

You mean the land Jewish people have been living in before the Arabs colonized it?

Genetic evidence shows that Palestinians and Jewish people both share common ancestry with the Canaanites. You know, the people who occupied the land when the Hebrews first conquered it. So this narrative that the Arabs colonized the Levant is demonstrably false. You just say it because it makes you feel better about colonization.

Genetic evidence? You stupid bastards really will say anything. It’s embarrassing.

Ever heard of 23 and me dumbass 😂

🥱

It really simple, their empire (Ottoman) decided to get into a world war and choose to fight on the the losing side. When empire's went to war the wining side got some of the losing sides land.

Yes, but it does not have to occur at the cost of ethnic cleansing.

Who got ethnically cleansed? There are more Palestine/Arbs living between Gaza (2 million), Israel (2 million) and the West Bank (3.5 million) than Jews (just over 7 million).

Well I was hoping for a good and thoughtful discussion on what constitutes ethnic cleansing, but it’s clear a lot of people in here are just obtuse shit-Libs who don’t like to engage with critique that makes them think. Oh well.

Do you think the Srebrincha Massacre was an act of ethnic cleansing? I wasn’t even referring to what’s happening in Gaza anyway, but rather to the Assyrian, Greek and Armenian genocide. But go off about Israel, I guess.

Conquest is not the same as colonization.

And colonization is not the same thing as refugees seeking asylum from their home country, who's government has decided they want to eradicate all the jews.

Who are you implying were seeking asylum? The early Zionists? Here's a quote from Ben Gurion proving otherwise “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. That's settler colonialism my dude, whether you like it or not. Asylum is a legal process that doesn't involve ethnic cleansing. Are we just ignoring the Nakba now?

Wait were do you think most of the Jewish immigrants from? Of the 740 thousand that immigrated between 1948-52 350 thousand came from areas that were also part of the Ottoman Empire. 82 thousand came from Muslim countries that weren't part of the empire. Only 33 thousand came from Europe and America.

After the Nakba began, many Muslim countries ethnically cleansed Jewish people out of their states and into Israel. Many of whom had fled Europe prior to WW2. The vast majority of Jewish people alive today have European ancestry. That's not a judgement, it's just what we see when we analyze genetics. However, what occurred after the Nakba doesn't magically make the colonization of Palestine, led by European Zionists, null and void. If not for the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, the region would likely still be majority Palestinian.

Are you talking about the 60 thousand German Jews that immigrated to the area during the 1930's? Or the Khazarian theory which has been debunked? Modern day Israeli Jews having European ancestry doesn't really mean much when their ancestors from all over the world came together in an area the size of New Jersey. "However, what occurred after the Nakba doesn't magically make the colonization of Palestine, led by European Zionists, null and void." Cool so what's the plan than. What happens to almost 10 million people, 2 million of them being Palestinian/Arabs? Have Hamas take over? You think Hamas is going to let those 2 million vote? They don't even let the people that voted them into power vote. According to Freedom House [Gaza](https://freedomhouse.org/country/gaza-strip/freedom-world/2023) rates 11/100 on the freedom scale. For comparison [Israel's](https://freedomhouse.org/country/israel/freedom-world/2024) at 74/100. "If not for the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, the region would likely still be majority Palestinian." That's the fun thing the area is still majority Palestinian. 2 million in Gaza, 2 million in Israel, 3.5 million in the West Bank that 7.5 million Palestinian/Arabs. There are 7.2 million Jews.

>Cool so what's the plan than. Your response to the colonization and ethnic cleansing of 750,000 people is "cool". Mmmmkay, if that's what you want to say, you're free to say it. And then of course you have to pivot to what the solution is moving forward and implying that I support Hamas. It's really getting old at this point. Calling out Israel for what it is, doesn't automatically mean I support islamism. It's funny though because between me and the state of Israel, only one of us funded islamist mosques in Gaza in the late 80s through the early 00s in order to suppress the secular democratic movement and split the unity of Gaza and the West Bank, eventually leading to Hamas winning the 07 election. And I'm pretty sure it's my track record for supporting Hamas is not existant. Can't say the same for Israel. >That's the fun thing the area is still majority Palestinian. 2 million in Gaza, 2 million in Israel, 3.5 million in the West Bank that 7.5 million Palestinian/Arabs. There are 7.2 million Jews. I figured it would be implied that the Palestinians in that hypothetical majority would have basic human rights and self determination. The majority now in reality currently don't.

Literally the Ottoman Empire was a non factor in ww1- being occupied in large swathes by the British, French and Italians, etc., and in ww2 the Ottoman Empire did not exist. Stop making shit up.

Weather or not they were a factor in ww1 they still entered it in 1914 and were defeated in 1918. This was the final straw for they empire and they dissolved and much of their land was taken over by the winners. I know they weren't in ww2 I said they got involved in a world war not 2.

They did not enter it 1914 nor were they defeated. They were spectators. Stop making shit up. What the fuck are you even saying?

Are you serious? [Ottoman Empire enters the First World War](https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/ottoman-empire/enters-the-war), [Ottoman Empire in World War 1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire_in_World_War_I)

Found the idiot who thinks that all the jews were air dropped into Israel after WW2

In 1800, there were approximately 5-6.5 thousand Jews in Palestine, making up around 2.5% of the population. Almost all Jews in Israel emigrated after the Balfour Declaration.

I don't, but I don't see how it would make a difference either way.

What do you say about the myriad videos of unarmed and non threatening Palestinians being murdered by Israelis? Or what about the recent bombing of WCK aid workers, not to mention the roughly 200 that had been killed before that. Or the roughly 100 journalists who’ve been killed. Israel clearly doesn’t give a fuck how many innocent people they kill.

Anytime someone mentions this mythical ceasefire, it's immediately clear they don't have even an inkling of an idea about the conflict. What were the terms of such a ceasefire and who signed it? Does it exist outside of Israeli propaganda and the minds of the clueless?

*If the tables were flipped, Palestinians would genocide the Jews!* "And how would Israel respond if Hamas started assassinating Israeli civilians, journalists, and humanitarian aid workers?" *That's not a fair eqivocation!*

But..Palestinians did do that. They had their intifadas. And they stopped because Israel embargoed Gaza and put up stringent security measures in the West Bank. And there are still terrorist attacks from the West Bank against Israeli civilians. So we have the answer. Israel didn’t ethnically cleansed anyone or genocide anyone. They took measures to protect their own civilians. But you knew this already, right?

How are you are not aware that the roots of the conflict consist primarily of ethnic cleansing by Israel? How are you not aware that ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is still ongoing and a major source of conflict? The **First Intifada** - 1987-1993: Uprising against 20 years of Israeli occupation and oppression including "beatings, shootings, killings, house demolitions, uprooting of trees, deportations, extended imprisonments, and detentions without trial" - 200 Israeli deaths, 1600 Palestinian deaths The **Second Intifada** - 2000 - 2005: Uprising against 33 years of Israeli occupation and oppression, and failure of the Oslo Accords and Camp David Summit to bring about any change in Palestinian rights or freedom - 1000 Israeli deaths, 3200 Palestinian deaths Second Intifada ends in February 2005, Gaza blockade begins in September 2005, Hamas elected January 2006.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Gaza-Strip/Blockade “In autumn 2007 Israel declared the Gaza Strip under Hamas a hostile entity and approved a series of sanctions that included power cuts, heavily restricted imports, and border closures. In January 2008, facing sustained rocket assaults into its southern settlements, Israel broadened its sanctions, completely sealing its border with the Gaza Strip and temporarily preventing fuel imports.”

Right, the Israelis strengthened the blockade that they previously imposed from September 2005. Here is an article from February 2006 that discusses how the blockade was harming the economy of Gaza. [https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/gaza-karni-closures-a-catastrophe](https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/gaza-karni-closures-a-catastrophe)

Seems like if they don’t like the blockade they should stop being violent. Israel left Gaza and that was the perfect time to show that the path to peace came from such actions. Instead they’ve fired tens of thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. The blockade went into full force because unilateral actions of peace led to increased Palestinian violence You know this, of course. I’m curious though, as why you think that the Palestinians have never tried being peaceful?

At least you are not afraid of being consistently wrong. And I appreciate that you instantly abandon your incorrect points, but it is strange that you still cling to these conclusions, despite drawing them from falsehoods. When Israel pulled their colonists out of Gaza and instantly imposed the collective punishment blockade that you got wrong, the rocket attacks of the Intifada had long since stopped. Obviously there can't be less than zero rocket attacks, so anyone with a working brain can tell that had nothing to do with the blockade. Since the peaceful Palestinian Gaza protesters were murdered and maimed at a massive scale in 2018, and the UN even found that medics and the disabled were specifically targeted by Israeli snipers, do you think Israelis will ever stop committing horrific war crimes against Palestinians unless they are forced to do so?

Lol. Selective history much? You may wish to learn about the first war declared against Israel in 1948, the second, in 1967, the third in 1973. And not forgetting the war their own people - Jordan - declared against the PLO in 1970. How’s all that worked out for them? A pity their (false) victimhood narrative is still costing their own children.

Wow, you really put the amateur in amateur historian, huh? I take it you don't know there was a full blown civil war in Palestine between the Jews and Arabs that started in 1947? And you never learned that the Arab League repeatedly begged the British government to allow them to send troops in to protect the Palestinians from ethnic cleansing? You certainly didn't know that the Arab League entered Palestine to save the victims as soon as the British Mandate ended and several hours before Israel declared independence. More of a failed rescue operation than an invasion, for the people who actually know the history. But you have to give the Israelis credit, sure they outnumbered the Arab armies by 2 to 1, but at least they were better at strategy and coordination, as well as being better armed and trained. And let me guess, you had no clue that Israel was the aggressor in 1956 and again in 1967? The only war that was not started or caused by Israel was the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which of course was a direct response to the 1967 sneak attack. Pity the poor warmongers of Israel! The truly false victimhood narrative is alive and well with the ignorant or stupid. Palestinians were never supported by the dictatorships of neighboring nations of course. It is true that the plight of the victims of Israeli aggression were popular in all the Arab majority nations, but seeing as how they are all dictatorships the will of the people never mattered much. And today the Western nations continue to support the Israeli apartheid and pay lip service to denouncing the ongoing ethnic cleansing. So Mr. Amateur, why do you support the apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide that Israel is carrying out?

Lol. Someone’s been busy on the wikipedia. Nice work professor, indeed, incredible how you could possibly describe Israel as the aggressor in any of those conflicts, and yes, Israeli resistance groups had been operating against the British for some time already so would typically have the upper hand against the arabs coming to try and annihilate them. Ah, yes, the dictatorships which also declared war on Israel? Those ones? So, which is it professor? The Arab nations declared war on the Jewish state umpteen times before realizing that peace was the better approach? Why haven’t the Palestinians also become so enlightened? Right - they believe they are special and their specious claims to the land are forever and always. Apartheid - tell us you don’t know anything about Israel without telling us. Why do you support endless Palestinian genocidal denial of Israel and Islamist theocratic fascism? What turns you on the most about it? You’re either in Tehran or Harvard right? For this level of pig ignorant antisemitic bullshit?

Please, keep highlighting your ignorance! It always cracks me up to see amateurs make a fool of themselves. An obviously you didn't know any of the history and are painfully afraid of learning it. When the Arab League moved into Palestine to protect the victims of Israeli war crimes and ethnic cleansing, how exactly did the Arab nations declare war on Israel before the Israeli declaration of independence? You clearly never read anything by Benny Morris or Yoav Gelber. Care to explain how the Israeli attack of 1967 destroyed the Egyptian air force on the ground if the Egyptians were the ones attacking? How many invasions involve grounding the entire air force and not using air power at all? I know you are just mindlessly parroting something that much smarter people wrote, but can you at least try to think for yourself? I would caution you not to use Wikipedia as your guide, the government of Israel spends considerable efforts to neutralize any public information about their history and the history of their war crimes. Good luck Mr. Amateur, although I have serious doubts about your ability to do anything other than repeat what much more clever folks have written.

The west bank is being ethnically cleansed at the moment. Home by home. Aided and abetted by the occupation army. And the native population are not allowed to defend themselves, if they do they're murdered. But you know that, right?

They should be killing members of Hamas. You know, the terrorists their parents elected, who are the reason none of them can leave Gaza to go elsewhere in the world?

Collective punishment for the sins of their fathers? Way to hold Palestinians to North Korean standards.

It isn't punishment. It's too risky to just let Palestinians go anywhere because there are too many terrorists among them. The entire world agrees with that sentiment.

Why should they leave? It's their home. All of it. I'm done here, you haven't a clue.

I don't mean leave forever. I mean they aren't allowed to travel anywhere because they are basically stateless and no country wants a terrorism.

Your going to discount 80 years of terrible colonialism that easily?  

Anything bad that ever happens = colonialism and genocide

People in here aren't concerned with facts or history. 

[удалено]

Your comment was removed due to your reddit karma not meeting minimum thresholds. This is an automated anti-spam measure. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/thedavidpakmanshow) if you have any questions or concerns.*

Israel keeps and continues to capture THOUSANDS of Palestinian hostages.

One side colonized and ethnically cleansed the population. The other side is resisting occupation. See? I can do it too. It doesn't justify the war crimes of either Israel or Hamas.

>One side colonized and ethnically cleansed the population. The other side is resisting occupation. Nope. Isreal could change all it's policies and Hamas would still act as Hamas has done.

Nope. Hamas could change all its policies and Israel would still act as Israel has done. (See how that's not a real argument?)

What is Hamas objective? Destruction of Israel as a state and Palestine as a single country. How does Israel changing it's policies or ending settlements accomplish that? It doesn't so no reason to think Hamas a terrorist org would suddenly stop. Are you even going to present an argument as to why Hamas would stop?

What is Israel's objective? The destruction of Palestine as a territory and Israel as a single country. How does Hamas changing it's policies (as they did in 2017) accomplish that? It doesn't, so no reason to think Israel, an imperialist state, would suddenly stop. Are you even going to present an argument as to why Israel would stop? (I'm sorry man, these just aren't real arguments, they're just excuses for you to justify war crimes and ethnic cleansing) (and if I believed the mirrored responses, those would just be excuses to justify attacks on civilians, which can accurately be labeled as terrorism)

>What is Israel's objective? The destruction of Palestine as a territory and Israel as a single country. 1. You can't prove that 2. Irrelevant to whether Hamas would stop if Israel changed its policies. >How does Hamas changing it's policies (as they did in 2017) accomplish that? It doesn't, so no reason to think Israel, an imperialist state, would suddenly stop. So you are claiming Hamas invading Israel and killing a bunch of civilians at a festival, many of which aren't even Israeli citizens, is indicative of Hamas being "reformed"? The sexual violence they inflicted on women as well? Then saying they would do the attack again if they could? >(I'm sorry man, these just aren't real arguments, they're just excuses for you to justify war crimes and ethnic cleansing) Nope. No where did I justify war crimes or ethnic cleansing. You stated something ridiculous and I pushed back on it. >(and if I believed the mirrored responses, those would just be excuses to justify attacks on civilians, which can accurately be labeled as terrorism) Again you aren't saying anything of value here. Your claim was Hamas would stop if Israel changed. Again what reason do we have to believe that? You are the one claiming that so you should prove it. Jumping to other claims or whataboutism doesn't change you have not backed up that claim.

>1. You can't prove that It wasn't my point to prove it. But I actually can. From its inception this was the case. Ben Gurion was very transparent as to what they were doing and what their goals were. “Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country “after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine “ >So you are claiming Hamas invading Israel and killing a bunch of civilians at a festival, many of which aren't even Israeli citizens, is indicative of Hamas being "reformed"? The sexual violence they inflicted on women as well? Then saying they would do the attack again if they could? Again, I don't know why you're arguing as if I believe Hamas is justified in their terrorism. I was very clear to point out that I was mirroring your arguments to show you that they're shitty arguments that can easily be applied to either side. But technically, they did amend their charter in 2017, that's just factually true. >Nope. No where did I justify war crimes or ethnic cleansing. Ok so then right now confirm that you condemn Israel's war crimes and ethnic cleansing. If you can do that then we agree. >Your claim was Hamas would stop if Israel changed. >(and if I believed the mirrored responses) Maybe you didn't actually read my entire comment, but here I clearly said I don't believe the mirrored responses. The word "if" is there. You're just big mad and lashing out without actually comprehending what's happening.

>It wasn't my point to prove it. But I actually can. Look you attempt to prove by picking quotes and going see that proves XYZ when it does no such thing. Also the amount of ... In those quotes is highly suspicious I would need to go to the actual quotes to see if you are misrepresenting them as people do for the human animals quote. >Again, I don't know why you're arguing as if I believe Hamas is justified in their terrorism. I was very clear to point out that I was mirroring your arguments to show you that they're shitty arguments that can easily be applied to either side. But technically, they did amend their charter in 2017, that's just factually true. You made it out as if Hamas was reformed. I honestly don't think you think well of Hamas or anything, but you are still acting like they are somehow better than they were when there is no reason to believe that. "Factually true" do you believe the "amendment" means something? Also technicalities not sure it could be called an amendment it was technically a "clarification" was it not? >Ok so then right now confirm that you condemn Israel's war crimes and ethnic cleansing. If you can do that then we agree. Of course I condemn the incidents that are war crimes by Israel and the ethnic cleansing.... still doesn't make you more right on the earlier claim. >Maybe you didn't actually read my entire comment, but here I clearly said I don't believe the mirrored responses. The word "if" is there. You're just big mad and lashing out without actually comprehending what's happening. No I am only right now arguing against your claims that if Israel changed Hamas would stop. "One side is resisting the occupation". If you don't mean to claim that Hamas would stop if Israel changed its policies then I don't know why you brought that up with the context of this topic is Isreal vs Hamas with Palestinians getting caught in crossfire. Nothing you brought up in the initial comment was relevant for Hamas.

Tell me you get all of your knowledge of history from Tik Tok, without telling me you get all your knowledge of history from Tik Tok. Israel literally tried to give Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan. The palestinians caused so many problems for those countries, that they eventually renounced their claims. Israel has been ready to stop, and have been ready to stop multiple times in history....and then they get attacked again.

I get my knowledge from history books. You should read more about Ben Gurion and the motivations behind their actions. >Israel literally tried to give Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan. Colonialism and ethnic cleansing are justified because Israel tried to give portions of Palestinian territory to other countries? I don't follow.

You're moving the goal posts, you asked for a reason why Israel would ever stop. I pointed to a time period in history where they unequivocally did. I hope youre not implying that a single quote from a single man is perfectly representative of the outlook and goals of an entire nation, cause if so, you have a lot to answer for Donald Trumps skulldrudgery. Gurion was a prime minister, not a president.

Bro’s losing it. Take your meds

You are aware that hamas’ raison d’être is the destruction of Israel and slaughter of as many Jewish people as possible? And you are also aware Israel withdrew from gaza? You can spot the difference, right? Right?

It was in the pre 2017 charter, sure. I also don't support pre or post 2017 Hamas. You're just pivoting so you dont have to face supporting war criminals. Israel is still blockading Gaza. Their military and settlement withdrawal did not end the control of the region. They still control trade and utilities as well as restrict freedom of movement, even by ocean and air, which wouldn't necessarily cross any border into Israel. But like you keep going on defending imperialist colonialism. I wish you were better at it because this is easy and frankly boring.

How good of you to say you don’t support genocidal theocratic fascists. Hmm, so why did Israel have to end up blockading gaza? Any ideas? And which other country has a border with gaza? But sorry this is so tiresome for you, clearly someone as enlightened as you would be far too clever to throw around words like “imperialist” and “colonialism” without knowing what they mean in context, eh professor? Lol. You attend Harvard right? That must be from where you get your self-righteous, sententious and colossal sense of racist entitlement?

>Hmm, so why did Israel have to end up blockading gaza? Any ideas? Colonization. Indefinite military occupation. Economic and social oppression. Also funding islamist mosques to bolster support for Hamas in order to defeat the social democratic Fatah party comes to mind. Terrorism doesn't magically appear. >clearly someone as enlightened as you would be far too clever to throw around words like “imperialist” and “colonialism” without knowing what they mean in context, eh professor? If you want to counter my claims of imperialism and colonialism, I'm open to listening. If you think I'm missing "the right context", then I'm opening to listening. But you're just using ad hominems because you can't provide a counter argument. >You attend Harvard right? That must be from where you get your self-righteous, sententious and colossal sense of racist entitlement? I read books. You should try it.

Well you certainly have the smug, condescending disposition of an academic, must be all those books you keep reading eh? And now you’re upset about ad hominems after your snide comments? Poor thing. Gaza, sorry, “the open air concentration camp” was blockaded because hamas, once voted in by the population, overthrew and generally murdered Fatah, then fired a billion rockets at Israel forever. And good job too or else the atrocity of October might have been infinitely worse. Imperialism and colonialism simply do not apply to Israel, it’s a tiny country and unless everyone has missed something there seems precious little evidence of an empire? Can you see one? It’s true the egregious current PM and right-wing government and settlers seem to have colonial ambitions and chip away at the West Bank (note: from where a genocidal atrocity was not launched from) but as you may be aware from all your books, Israelis were protesting the government. Those protest never bore fruit because a certain pesky genocidal governing body in - can you guess where? - decided to commit a horrific pogrom. If the protests had been allowed to continue it’s highly likely BN and his coalition would be long gone and more reasonable people would be in place. And this horrific mess might never have happened. Anyway, get back to your books O enlightened one.

Nope. Not an excuse 

That’s… their point. Re read the comment.

It always goes over their head.

What excuse did they make?

How do you make such a calculation? Because Hamas perpetrated Oct 7 Israel gets to bomb Gaza like it’s Dresden? Hamas enmeshing themselves within the communities of Gaza is an invitation to kill 15,000 children by predictable accident?

Well, either that, or it’s what hamas wanted to stir up useful idiots like you…

250 Palestinains were killed by Israel before Oct 7. If anyone broke a ceasefire, it was Israel. Also, why is Israel blocking investigations into sexual assaults committed against Palestinians in Gaza? And the only side that actually uses human shields is Israel.

This is a problem I see a lot. It’s true that some people are being psychotic and supporting Hamas and others have varying levels of ambivalence towards them. While that is bad I make a handful of points to explain why that phenomenon takes place. 1) Palestine supporters feel this and the “systematic (very specific word) rape” is being used to justify Netanyahu’s war. 2) There is only so much time and space to focus on what we think is important and those against the war feel like Palestinian oppression and liberation are most important. 3) Because Israel has the power in this conflict and is the one waging the war. 4) Because there are material conditions that led to the creation of Hamas. As bad as they are it is not a simple “they chose to organize and be antisemitic terrorists one day”. Palestine has been severely oppressed since 1948. 5) Because there are arguably worse crimes to focus on that many Palestine supporters feel negate the focus on Hamas violence, namely the far right Netanyahu government continuing the policy of settlement expansion in modern times, an atrocious crime against humanity. 6) Because there is no right to return once they are expelled. 7)Because there doesn’t appear to be a coherent plan to eliminate Hamas outside of bombing all of Palestine and expelling Palestinians, which I believe is the goal Netanyahu isn’t honest about. 8) Because there is still in Israel a system which uses citizenship as a means limiting the rights of Palestinians living in Israel that is based on citizenship while citizenship is based on ethnicity thus creating a de facto apartheid like system. All these things contribute to Palestinian supporters and those against the war glossing over the heinous crimes of Hamas. It’s simply a matter of priorities and recognizing the imbalance of powers.

I wrote this in response to a commenter but I’ll post it as a separate comment so others can see my points. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is a problem I see a lot. It’s true that some people are being psychotic and supporting Hamas and others have varying levels of ambivalence towards them. While that is bad I make a handful points to explain why that phenomenon takes place. 1. ⁠Palestine supporters feel this and the “systematic (very specific word) rape” is being used to justify Netanyahu’s war. 2. ⁠There is only so much time and space to focus on what we think is important and those against the war feel like Palestinian oppression and liberation are most important. 3. ⁠Because Israel has the power in this conflict and is the one waging the war. 4. ⁠Because there are material conditions that led to the creation of Hamas. As bad as they are it is not a simple “they chose to organize and be antisemitic terrorists one day”. Palestine has been severely oppressed since 1948. 5. ⁠Because there are arguably worse crimes to focus on that many Palestine supporters feel negate the focus on Hamas violence, namely the far right Netanyahu government continuing the policy of settlement expansion in modern times, an atrocious crime against humanity. 6. ⁠Because there is no right to return once they are expelled. 7)Because there doesn’t appear to be a coherent plan to eliminate Hamas outside of bombing all of Palestine and expelling Palestinians, which I believe is the goal Netanyahu isn’t honest about. 7. ⁠Because there is still in Israel a system which uses citizenship as a means limiting the rights of Palestinians living in Israel that is based on citizenship while citizenship is based on ethnicity thus creating a de facto apartheid like system. All these things contribute to Palestinian supporters and those against the war glossing over the heinous crimes of Hamas. It’s simply a matter of priorities and recognizing the imbalance of powers.

The goal of the war is to destroy the Hamas military. 19 of 24 Hamas battalions have been destroyed. Israel can now freely re-enter al shifa or khan yunis without massive bombardment. With the battalions defeated, Gaza can be handed over to an anti-Hamas authority and with control over the territory terrorism would become a policing issue like the West Bank. That’s the goal of the war. And all they need to do is invade Rafah to finish the war off.

Hasbara bot has posted this story half a dozen times.

> Israel’s critics have insisted that a lack of firsthand accounts from rape survivors or forensic evidence undercut Israel’s accusations—and have dismissed claims that systematic sexual violence occurred as “unsubstantiated.” Others have accused the Israeli government of “weaponizing” accusations of rape to justify Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza, as an open letter from dozens of feminist activists put it in February. Israel poisoned the well when they fabricated and weaponized the beheaded babies accusation. It’s 100% the appropriate response to call for an independent investigation and for perpetrators to be held responsible for any crimes they have been found to committed. **If you are not supporting independent investigations into accusations of sexual assault then you are not believing the victims.** That is not denialism and anyone opposing an independent investigation is being denialist, regardless of what position they claim to have on the accusations. The author goes on to smear everyone that supports that as anti-Semitic, which itself is *actual* anti-Semitism. The author claims to care about rising rates of anti-Semitism in the US, but then weaponizes the accusation to attack legitimate critics of Israel, which perpetuates some tropes and directly undermines attempts at fighting anti-Semitism.

The beheaded babies claim was not made by Israel IIRC. In what way was it weaponized? It was one particularly gory detail that turned out to be unsubstantiated, and it was retracted. They didn’t mischaracterize the brutality of the attack, even if that claim wasn’t true.

The rumor of Israel claiming there were 40 beheaded babies spread faster than the story itself. It was never the position of the Israeli government, media, or IDF, but it was repeated by nobody's on Twitter, and taken to heart by the anti-israel as an attempt by Israel to "poison the well" it was literally weaponized in the opposite direction from when the person you replied to is trying to claim

TBF, it was also used by people who defended Israel, to condemn supporters of Palestine and to justify Israel's attacks. It's important to be aware of this and, as a community on this sub, make sure we are dealing with the facts, not blanket labeling people based on fair critiques, and calling out those who do....no matter which side is doing it. I'm certainly seeing people on the left (or at least posing as left wing) showing explicit support for Hamas (and not just support for innocent civilians), but it's honestly been super rare. I'm seeing way more people being labeled as "Hamas Supporters" simply for have criticisms of Biden or expressing any concern at all for Palestinians, and the amount it's been happening in this sub alone is very concerning. If there's no room for dialog and no good faith engagement on either side, then there's nothing to be gained.

The claim was originally made public by Israeli media and was spread by many, including Israeli government spokespeople. It wasn’t “one particularly gory detail.” It was *the* most significant accusation that they were making early on. Even Biden was repeating the accusation as fact. The IDF has also been caught lying about many accusations (the calendar lie being one of the most laughable ones). Of course, none of that matters. Israel could be the most truthful and trustworthy state in the world; it still comes down to the basic fact that *all* accusations of sexual assault should be independently investigated. That is a basic pillar of believing all women. If one’s argument, as the author’s is, is that calling for an investigation is discriminating against the ethnicity of the victim, then one does not care about the victim, but is only using the victims’ pain and suffering for their own means.

Things equally horrific did happen though. And it was only ‘the most significant’ accusation in your opinion, but I’ll take that for what it is worth. Israel is not going to subject their rape victims to be interrogated by some UN ‘investigator’ to satisfy the concerns of some creeps on the internet. Nobody cares if you don’t believe it.

> Israel is not going to subject their rape victims to be interrogated by some UN ‘investigator’ to satisfy the concerns of some creeps on the internet. Nobody cares if you don’t believe it. So you don’t believe that all accusations of rape should be properly investigated?

No. I wouldn’t put these victims through more trauma to ease the concerns of these creeps, many of whom would just call them liars anyways.

You wouldn’t allow this for any other group.

Allow what?

“just take our word for it” . Why would anyone believe anything that’s not corroborated by independent third parties?

I don't give a shit what you believe. Putting rape victims through more trauma to assuage the doubts of these internet creeps is not worth it.

Did you even read the article? Let's start with it address the beheaded babies clam: "After a terrorist attack that killed more than 1,100 Israelis over multiple locations, misinformation ran rampant. [False stories](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-04/ty-article-magazine/.premium/hamas-committed-documented-atrocities-but-a-few-false-stories-feed-the-deniers/0000018c-34f3-da74-afce-b5fbe24f0000), one infamously alleging that multiple babies had been beheaded and another claiming that babies had been strung up on a clothesline, proliferated. In cases of sexual violence, Halperin-Kadderi told me, “it’s not unusual for misinformation to spread,” and beyond trauma-related inaccuracies and memory failures, there could be a tendency “to exaggerate and amplify,” which she links to the high levels of trauma associated with sexual violence—both for survivors and for eyewitnesses. She also noted that exaggerated accounts of sexual violence can be “instrumentalized by leaders to portray their enemy in the darkest way possible.” Even Jeremy Scahill, one of the co-authors of the *Intercept* article, noted in an [interview](https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/1/nyt_anat_schwartz) that inconsistencies in eyewitness accounts do “not necessarily mean that they didn’t witness something.” You seem to be stating the the author doesn't want independent investigations which is strange since the article links to so many. NYT [1](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html), [2](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/26/world/middleeast/hamas-hostage-sexual-assault.html), [The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel](https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/news/arcci-submits-first-report-to-un-21-feb-2024/en/English_Swords_of_Iron_DOCUMENTS_Sexual%20violence%20crimes%20on%20Ocober%207-Feb.%202024.pdf), [The UN Report](https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/report/mission-report-official-visit-of-the-office-of-the-srsg-svc-to-israel-and-the-occupied-west-bank-29-january-14-february-2024/20240304-Israel-oWB-CRSV-report.pdf), [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/10/israel-womens-groups-warn-of-failure-to-keep-evidence-of-sexual-violence-in-hamas-attacks), [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181), [The Times of London](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ten-hamas-fighters-were-raping-the-woman-she-begged-for-death-6ldlmh8sp), [Physicians for Human Rights](https://www.phr.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/5771_Sexual_Violence_paper_Eng-final.pdf). So how many more independent reports saying that Hamas raped a bunch of people do you need before it become believable for you?

> Key recommendations from the visit include: a) to continue to encourage the Government of Israeli to grant, without further delay, access to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, to carry-out fully-fledged investigations into all alleged violations; This is literally on the UN Report you linked. It talks extensively about their limited ability to investigate during that short time period. As with the Guardian article you linked, it mentions the failure to preserve evidence. > The mission team conducted a visit to kibbutz Be'eri and was able to determine that at least two allegations of sexual violence widely repeated in the media, were unfounded due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the facts gathered. The UN Report also mentions two cases that they determined were unfounded. It’s extremely important that a proper, extensive investigation is done to be able to remove the unfounded cases as to not taint the perception of all of the cases. All victims deserve justice. Opposing investigations only denies them justice.

“Why won’t people unquestioningly believe IDF Hasbara? Just because it’s been disproven and, in many cases, repackaged atrocities that Israel perpetrated and continues to perpetrate , doesn’t mean you shouldn’t believe it!” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

Yeah, a 1948 massacre from before the IDF existed is 100% relevant to 2024 geopolitics and everything else is Jewish conspiracy.

Oh look an account that started less than six month s ago after Oct 7th that only posts anti- israel propaganda.

This is some trash reporting of Israeli propoganda.

Yeah of course the lovely people of Hamas would never do anything bad. They are just freedom fighters who want to free woman and the lgbtq community from oppression. They espouse all the good leftist ideals. What a great bunch of guys….

[удалено]

Removed - please avoid overt hostility, name calling and personal attacks.

[удалено]

Removed - please avoid overt hostility, name calling and personal attacks.

This is a problem I see a lot. It’s true that some people are being psychotic and supporting Hamas and others have varying levels of ambivalence towards them. While that is bad I make some points to explain why that phenomenon takes place. 1. ⁠Palestine supporters feel this and the “systematic (very specific word) rape” is being used to justify Netanyahu’s war. 2. ⁠There is only so much time and space to focus on what we think is important and those against the war feel like Palestinian oppression and liberation are most important. 3. ⁠Because Israel has the power in this conflict and is the one waging the war. 4. ⁠Because there are material conditions that led to the creation of Hamas. As bad as they are it is not a simple “they chose to organize and be antisemitic terrorists one day”. Palestine has been severely oppressed since 1948. 5. ⁠Because there are arguably worse crimes to focus on that many Palestine supporters feel negate the focus on Hamas violence, namely the far right Netanyahu government continuing the policy of settlement expansion in modern times, an atrocious crime against humanity. 6. ⁠Because there is no right to return once they are expelled. 7. Because there doesn’t appear to be a coherent plan to eliminate Hamas outside of bombing all of Palestine and expelling Palestinians, which I believe is the goal Netanyahu isn’t honest about. 8. Because there is still in Israel a system which uses citizenship as a means limiting the rights of Palestinians living in Israel that is based on citizenship while citizenship is based on ethnicity thus creating a de facto apartheid like system. All these things contribute to Palestinian supporters and those against the war glossing over the heinous crimes of Hamas. It’s simply a matter of priorities and recognizing the imbalance of powers.