March 15, 2024

Sex crimes against Jewish women: The great silence

topic:	Women's rights
tags:	#Israel, #Palestine, #Hamas, #Gaza, #sexual violence
located:	Israel
by:	Katharina Höftmann Ciobotaru

Editor's note: This article contains graphic references to sexual violence that may be triggering for some readers.

The views expressed in the article belong to the author and do not necessarily represent the position of FairPlanet.

It was in the early afternoon on Saturday, 7 October, when I saw Naama Levy for the first time.

A Hamas terrorist was dragging her out of the trunk of a jeep by her bloodied hair. The machine gun in one hand, Naama in the other. He shouted Allahu Akbar, holding the gun aloft. Naama Levy, who, as I would later learn, is only 19 years old, looked around, fearful and confused. She was barefoot. Her ankles were strangely bent as if they were broken. There was a gaping wound on her head. She was wearing a black T-shirt and light gray jogging pants. Her crotch was soaked in blood. To the cheers of onlookers, the terrorist dragged her around the jeep by her hair. A young man with a backpack and T-shirt filmed the scene on his cell phone.

All of Israel was watching. All of Israel knew what the blood in the crotch meant. And all of Israel thought: they are raping us in front of the world.

But the world looked away.

Imagine being sexually violated and nobody believing you. As it stands, it would not be an unlikely experience. Only around one per cent of women who are raped actually see their perpetrator convicted. A majority of women who are raped do not report the crime from the outset because structural and other hurdles are too high.

But what happens when dozens of women are brutally raped at the same time? When bleeding, seriously injured, murdered women are dragged through the streets and paraded like trophies? What if rape is clearly used as a weapon of war? Nobody would deny that, would they?

A glance at the comment sections of renowned media outlets posting on the subject reveals the extend of denial of sexual violence on 7 October. The systematic rape of Jewish women by Hamas terrorists is denied by multiple demographics and political camps, and, in some cases, is even celebrated. In other instances, it is concealed, trivialised or relativised.

It took more than two months for UN Women to come up with a statement on the sex crimes on 7 October. It took five months for the UN to publish a report on the sexual violence committed by Hamas on 7 October. The report, however, does not address the question of the systematic nature of the acts, and states that "the true extent of the sexual violence on October 7 and its aftermath may be revealed within months, years and may never be fully known."

Celebrities, Human Rights NGOs choose silence  

The lack of condemnation for Hamas' brutal crimes lasted over five months and 41 UN sessions. Many well-known feminists and women's rights activists have remained silent to this day.

Celebrities like Angelina Jolie or Michelle Obama, usually vocal wherever women are wronged, have not said a word. Reputable human rights organisations such as Amnesty International do not want to comment on the issue.

In the German arena, Jewish women are at least experiencing solidarity from Yazidi activists, perhaps because these groups understand better than others the implications of the jihadist movement, especially for women.

Many voices from Ukraine also show solidarity, as sexual violence is also omnipresent in this conflict.

In an interview, Finnish author Sofi Oksanen, who recently published the book "Putin's War on Women," describes how most women in Ukraine have a bucket of excrement in their homes. If they were approached by Russian soldiers, they would tip the bucket over their bodies.

Israeli women did not have buckets. The terrorist attacks came as a complete surprise. While Israel is used to terrorist attacks of all kinds, incidents of mass rape and wide-scale torture of Jewish women and men had never happened before.

Isolated and alone

Gender-based violence is not uncommon in wars, and mass rape of women is often not merely a by-product of armed conflict, but a deliberate military strategy planned in advance. The crimes are intended to instill fear and terror among the civilian population, humiliate the enemy and fray the social cohesion of the community.

This is most clearly the case when women are abducted and raped over long periods and used as sex slaves. This happened in Ukraine, Sudan, Congo, Nigeria and in countless other armed conflicts around the world. But the practice is being questioned when it comes to Israeli women. The ongoing doubt and lack of solidarity make Jewish and Israeli women feel isolated and alone.

International media, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Die Welt, have provided comprehensive evidence in recent weeks, based on numerous witness statements, images and video footage, that sexual violence and mutilation on 7 October was systematic.

In addition, there are countless testimonies by Israeli hostages who have been released indicating that the rape of women held captive by Hamas continues.

Believe all women. Unless they're Israeli.

The great silence is not due to a lack of evidence. It is not that the situation is confusing or unclear. It is that the victims in this case are Israelis. And the world perceives Israelis as perpetrators, and increasingly so since the Jewish State's overwhelming military response to the attacks of 7 October; a campaign that has already claimed more than 30,000 Palestinian lives in Gaza and caused enormous destruction in the strip.

In Israel, the after-shock is pervasive. It is difficult to grapple with the horrors of the 7th while the war continues. The long-term implications on the national psyche are not yet foreseeable.

In the meantime, attempts are being made to concentrate on practical matters - on the women who can still be helped.

According to public opinion in Israel, the fact that Hamas does not want to release many of the young female hostages is due is because they fear the repercussions of their testimonies. The majority of the women who were raped on 7 October were murdered on the spot. According to witness reports, some were even murdered during the sex crimes. 

There is comprehensive, independent evidence attesting to the use of rape as a weapon of war by Hamas. Yet the group denies the rapes to this day, and millions of "ordinary citizens" do the same. The demand "Believe all women," coined by the #MeToo movement, does not seem to apply to Israeli women.

The campaigns "Me too unless you're a Jew," "Believe Israeli women," the Civil Commission set up by the Israeli Dvora Institute and the Sisyphean work of dozens of influencers and thought leaders, including former Facebook boss Sheryl Sandberg, are almost exclusively led by Jewish or Israeli women.

Jewish women all over the world know that these rapes were aimed at all of them. And now it falls upon Jewish women to lead the fight for the truth about these crimes.

An extended version of this article was originally published in der Freitag.

Image by Mika Baumeister.