Justifying the rape of women

There are far, far too many images that people will never get out of their heads if they let them in.

There is no monopoly on suffering and trauma. It started with horrendous terrorist attacks and is being multiplied exponentially as we watch.

Are people justifying rape?

I am not sure that people who are not solely pro Israel are justifying rape - they have a different view of the conflict and understand there will be casualties of war on both sides.

What happened to the Israeli women and children (and men) is horrible. What has happened and is happening to the Palestinian women and children (and men) is horrible. I do not think an Israeli woman's life has more value than a Palestinian woman's life. Or any Israeli life has more value - man or woman. I also think it is horrible that the Israeli soldiers sodomized, beat, urinated on, and burnt the Palestinian men. War is a horrible thing.

Your OP seems to suggest that Palestinians and Hamas are one and the same.

They are not, and it’s very goady of you to imply that.

It’s very possible to support the plight of the Palestinians, be against the way they have been treated over the past few decades and what is happening to them now, without also supporting Hamas.

What Hamas did was horrific, but it doesn’t justify the revenge killing of more Palestinian men, women and children.

Yes, so much of this. “What can you expect, people have been oppressed for years…”, completely glossing over the most horrific, depraved acts.

One has to be absolutely sick in the head, absolutely consumed with hatred to not only carry out such acts but to delight in doing so.

I will never get the image of that young woman in the blood stained joggers being dragged along by her hair out of my head.

Same here. So many posts along those lines.

Rape is always horrendous war or not.

So is thousands of dead children, operations carried out without anaesthetic, slowly dying crushed under the rubble of your home.

Which of these things are worst in some bizarre competition of horror?

There are no winners only a reality that all decent people should be trying to move heaven and earth to try and prevent the further suffering of innocents

The sad truth is, Women are always rape casualties of war. Its a man thing and its never been any different no matter which war

Something I keep coming back to.. for the people whose sympathies lie with the Palestinians and think an eye for an eye as such and that the Palestinians have been pushed to act the way they have, how do you justify the brutal rape of women

I’m not sure I understand? I haven’t see ANY posts saying that Hamas’s behaviour is justified.

Me too. Poor woman.
The sources I looked at were BBC Verify, and Amnesty International, also the Sky News fact checkers.

I agree OP, I don’t struggle to feel sympathy for Gazans right now and I really don’t struggle to feel sympathy for the Israelis who have been raped, tortured and murdered.

I don’t understand how people can have so little sympathy for Israelis here. I was horrified reading about the IDF screening of footage hamas themselves took of their crimes, I can’t imagine what anyone watching it would think and feel.

Theres been this weird dismissal of some truly barbaric acts, genuinely depraved stuff.

I think what Hamas has done is reprehensible. All the atrocities from 7th Oct are reprehensible.
I think the IDF killing children is reprehensible.

Gazan citizens are not Hamas.
Israeli citizens are not their government or the IDF.

Does that make me antisemitic?

Well, @Gruntsandgroans , you must have missed them, because they were plenty.
The first few days were awful. Whataboutery non stop.

I will only be happy when the killings stop

I will be happier when they try to stop
Killing and start talking to each other

Tbh the only people I have seen justifying anything on mumsnet are the people calling children collateral damage and insisting they need to be killed for the protection of Israeli children.

Personally, I don't think anything justifies what Hamas did to civilians. If they wanted to kill people they should have gone for the fuckers in charge of Israel. That might have actually made a difference.

I wonder if the people who demand that Israel, above all, be proportionate would be happier if fewer Palestinians were killed but were killed in the exact same manner as Hamas killed the Israelis?

Me too. Some of the things posted on here in the last couple of weeks have made me shudder. The worst was justifying what happened to that poor woman whose body was paraded round like a hunting trophy. I'll never forget those images and I could not believe what that person posted.

It’s very ugly antisemitism. My eyes have been well and truly opened to the extent of antisemitism over the last couple of weeks.

@Dinkydaisy1 just managed to.

@Dinkydaisy1 really? Again? People saying this is fake. How dare you. Have you heard about the horrific footage that Israel needed to show journalists to prove what happened in this horrific tragedy? How dare you deny this.

FFS no-one is justifying, minimising or dismissing anything!

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 ...'

Rape is horrendous, killing is horrendous. Don’t do either. Don’t condone either. Refuse to support or behave in this way and insist your sons and fathers husbands and uncles do the same.

Anyone interested in reading more about this topic in general, I'd recommend Our Bodies, Their Battlefields: War Through the Lives of Women by Lamb (aside: she's a very interesting panel speaker if you ever get the chance to see her).

Well whatever reports there are, someone will always question their validity because the source is Israeli. But there are many, many reports that these deaths were not 'clean kills', that men, women and children were not 'just' shot, but tortured first. The descriptions of the 45 minutes of footage (some of it filmed by Hamas and retrieved by the Israeli army) that was shown to journalists the other day are absolutely horrific Isis level atrocities, a modern day pogrom. But of course some people will question all that because the source is Israeli. And yet we all saw the images of the naked (dead?) young Jewish woman being paraded around on a truck by Hamas in the immediate aftermath of their attack.