Justifying the rape of women

I can't believe that people are seeking to deny or minimise the events of 7th October.
Thank you to the posters who are challenging this with the appropriate evidence.
Is it because of social media?

BTW, if you're referring to the 7 Oct attacks here... do you understand what "collateral damage" means?

Can you explain why you keep insisting on minimising what happened? I'm just a bit baffled.

As mentioned above, the head of Israel's National Centre of Forensic Medicine could not confirm either way whether they had been decapitated with a knife or just accidentally in the process of killing them. I think what gave the impression of deliberate decapitation is that they were stacked in two piles, I suppose the way you'd prepare meat for a BBQ.

Your tone is deeply inappropriate - this is not something to be flippant or point scoring about. Have some respect.

Wow, such paranoia and bitterness. Yes, I absolutely did comment and post in a spirit of shocked sadness at that time. You are bigoted and to be pitied. Your thought patterns are dangerous and will lead to more suffering on both sides. I don't give a fuck about your clever maths re Biden - think of those children and wind your neck in.

The number 40 was the number of dead children (infants/under 2s actually), it was not chosen at random. But you're right, it makes all the difference if we know exactly how many were beheaded. We wouldn't want to accidentally imply that they were all killed with unimaginable savagery, that would be so unfair and inflammatory.

The number 40 was just chosen by a random journalist though. Not that it matters, any child being killed is awful but the way the headlines portrayed it was not right. It could be that 1 baby was killed in collateral damage or 10, but we don't know and we probably won't ever find out.

Yes to this. At least recognise the barbarity people suffered.

I don't think that's hard to understand at all. What I struggle to understand is how so many people can't seem to hold any space at all for the absolute horror of the acts of 7th October. It's a total side issue to them, 'yeah that's bad, but ...'

This puts it so well.

JFC, this is like holocaust denial all over again. Have you seen the video, taken and released by Hamas, of the young woman being pulled from the back of a truck with the bag of her trousers covered in blood? How do you think that happened? They are pulling her into the back seats with the men. Why do you think that is?

Hamas are like Islamic state, and you know how they treated the women they capture. Hamas are deeply misogynistic. They come from a culture of sexual violence. Palestinian police rape gay men as ‘punishment’.

The idea that a group that displays a near naked ( why is she nearly naked?) unconscious young woman to jeering crowds of spitting men, would have the respect not to rape those women is utterly ludicrous.

Read the accounts of the pathologists, of children tied together and burnt alive, of a parent and child tied together and burnt alive, read how this corroborates the accounts of those who collected the bodies for burial. And tell me these are men who would stop short of rape.

Listen to the accounts of the family who Hamas posted photos of their murdered grandmother on their Facebook page and tell me these are men who would stop short of rape.

I cannot imagine how desperate you are to remain ideologically captured to pretend this never happened.

Dr Chen Kugel, head of Israel's National Centre of Forensic Medicine, was asked about this. He said he could not confirm either way whether they were beheaded, only that they had no heads. The remains were so charred that it was difficult to tell whether the heads had been chopped off with a knife or just came off in some kind of explosion or point-blank gunshot.

To be honest, working out why babies' heads have come off is kind of academic.

Well, obviously, I'm not celebrating anything. I'm a peace-loving non-Jewish/Muslim/any-kind-of-religion person living quietly in a small European country (not UK).

As a compassionate human being, I can totally understand why someone who has been brutalised by another culture might be pleased to hear bad news about the other side. In private!

But these huge street celebrations? That guy phoning his parents, who were ecstatic to hear his news about killing 10 Jews? That's something else, it's on another level. The public, shameless depravity is what makes it so shocking. It's clearly cultural, not personal.

Believe it or not, I started off a fortnight ago with a kind of automatic sympathy for the "Palestinians." I had the vague idea that they were the underdog and that Israel, backed by the US, had an unfair advantage.

I'm deeply, deeply ashamed to admit that my first reaction, when I heard that Israelis at a peace festival had been attacked, was partly to just think "Ah well, daft hippies, having a peace party in a war zone, what did they expect." 😨 😢 That's how fucking ignorant I was.

Then I started educating myself.

I was really curious to understand things better and have watched lots of info from both sides, including Al Jazeera.

I've found out that Hamas are mind-numbingly rich, but have always chosen to invest in warfare rather than improving the infrastructure in Gaza. Because their focus is on wiping out Israel. I mean, they don't even make any secret of this! It's their stated goal, enshrined in their covenant. They constantly bombard Israel with missiles, which is why those beautiful souls at the festival took no notice at first.

Hamas play dirty by using their own people as human shields (i.e. basing missile launchers and ammo depots in hospitals, schools, mosques etc), which is a war crime that complicates the picture of fair warfare. They never bothered putting in a missile defence system like Israel's "iron dome." And they steal any aid that gets through.

Against this background, I'd have expected "Palestinians" to be equally keen on destroying Hamas. Everyone's lives would be so much better without them. Surely they don't all share the ambition to wipe out Israel...? Or...??????????

I've been so shocked by the anti-Israeli sentiments expressed on this thread, like the one above saying the global press briefing was just "propaganda." I don't know quite how to describe that level of wilful ignorance.

I think the problem for everyone is this kind of barbarity is spoken about in the way the poster you quoted did.

I think the problem is that Israel does discredit itself often. Like the fake intercepted Hamas call and fake report of 40 babies being beheaded. These claims were widely deemed as being fake.

"In several clips, the Hamas killers fire shots into the heads of people who are already dead"

I suppose it becomes a bit hard to tell at that point whether the intent was to behead or not. For all the difference it makes.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/why-israeli-officials-screened-footage-hamas-attack/675735/

No, I'm saying it's been confirmed (including by the Muslim women's rights activist, Dr Qanta Ahmed) that hundreds and possibly thousands of "civilian" Gazans repeatedly crossed the border on 7 Oct to enjoy their spree. You can actually see them in the Hamas GoPro footage.

"I have already explained why. Please read."
No you didn't.
Just saying something is antisemitic does not make it so. If someone doesn't agree with Israel or thr IDF that does not make them antisemitic.

The level of hatred that has become endemic is appalling if you really think that it's understandable to celebrate privately on hearing of the deaths and rapes of children and women on the other side.

I hope you're not suggesting that Gazan women and children can be killed indiscriminately because you've seen a YouTube video or two in which a Hamas terrorist looked like they might be civilians.

If you genuinely believe myself or other posters have been antisemitic please feel free to report it to mumsnet and I will accept whatever their review determines. I will not have this type of meritless accusation just lobbed at me.

I am bowing out now. The anti- semitism by several posters on this thread is disgusting.

I have already explained why. Please read.

I haven’t read a single post justifying the raping of women but I have read far too many just justifying the killing of children in retaliation.

Oh that is such a relief. Here am I suffering the torments of the damned for the children being killed and maimed, but now I know they are all Hamas fighters, I will be able to rest in peace.

I think it happens because there's misogyny underlying in men and with predominantly male fighters its like they have an excuse to be sexually violent when they're already being physically violent. Similar to the 'excuses' men give themselves to abuse their partners etc. They get into an extreme situation and suddenly all bets are off and normal social boundaries are gone to a more extreme extent because that ugliness was underlying in that individual. So in that respect I think some men who carried out the attacks won't think to rape a woman but the ones with underlying misogynistic tendencies will see it as acceptable. I think much more of it happens in war scenarios globally than what gets reported sadly. From what I've seen there's been a range of responses from hamas fighters, some sparing women and children and some brutally violating and murdering it doesn't seem to be a blanket approach from what footage I've seen.

I don't think I've seen anyone justify the rape and murder of innocent civilians. I've seen people empathise with Palestinian frustration with the Israeli government and their approach to things and worry about the civilian cost in palestine now as things escalate but to me it's two separate issues. War crimes should be called out no matter who is perpetrating them. You can understand that a group of people are unhappy in a non democratic set up and feel the need to resort to violence to feel seen and heard, that's happened in almost every country in the world at some point. But war crimes are still war crimes and can be strongly denounced at the same time.