Rape and Hamas and the denial of rape.

@Waxingmoons
supporting the call for ceasefire is supporting the return of hostages imho.

It is also why the families of these young women released this footage. They did it to pressure Israel to go back to the negotiating table and secure their release. And it worked. Thousands of Israelis have been protesting how their own government and military seem to have forgotten about the hostages and they don’t seem to care about getting them out alive.

You can criticise the reaction of the Israeli government to 7 Oct as aggressive, politically misguided, disproportionate etc, but it is a military response to a direct attack. It's not personal in the way Hamas operate; clearly enjoying parading captives/corpses, the sense of glee and excitement. That's what makes these particular rapes different, and why those ignoring/excusing them more contemptible to my mind.

I think that turn towards 'International Socialism' happened inthe 1960's -and is why people such as Jeremy Corbyn seem to spend most of their time developing friendships and relationships with governments and terrorist organisations ( 'freedom fighters') around the world rather than focusing on bread and butter issues in the UK.

The Socialists joined forces with the Baathists ( Saddam Hussain was a Baathist) in their push for an International socialist order that transcended national boundaries; but the idea that Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood is going to run a democratically elected, secular Socialist state is a bit far fetched, even for the gullible.

The main opposition for Western Socilaists is to America and the concept of the West by extension - which is why we now see them side, effectively, with Iran, Russia, Hamas, etc anyone who is an enemy of the West and Western values is a friend of theirs.

This is the politics born out of Western privilege - which is the great irony.

@Sloejelly : It threatens the western liberal perception of Muslims as being oppressed groups.

At some point in the past, the left turned away from the working class and towards the colonialized peoples as the ones driving the revolution. How they ended up with the remnants of one of the biggest and longest living colonial empires as The Oppressed (the arab/islamic one) is unclear to me.

The reason why these crimes are being denied are the same as the reason why the girls in Rochdale or the victims in Cologne were denied - because the wish to ignore the problems of the impact of Islamic culture on women. It threatens the western liberal perception of Muslims as being oppressed groups. A fear of being called ‘islamophobic’ or racist towards immigrants.

Indeed - despite the video and photos of Shani Louk's body dumped in the back of a truck some people still tried to claim that she was being taken care of by the people that murdered her.

Truly, the pictures are terrible. The pictures from the morgues; the pictures taken by those arriving at the scene, and some of the images taken by Hamas themselves. I don't think I should. Women with legs spread and with their head burned to a black stump; young teenage girls raped in their bedroom before being killed; numerous pictures of blackened corpses in bodily positions clearly suggestive of brutal and terrifying deaths; the images of women's bodies being paraded around the streets of Gaza - on the back of trucks, across the back of motorbikes, being dragged by ropes behind motorbikes.

I can imagine if i did - there would still be some who would deny it - or suggest they were made up.

Perhaps you should post them. There is still disbelief that Hamas freedom fighters raped Israeli women. Not to mention the lot who have supported the Oct 7th attacks AND the rapes as 'de-colonization in action'.

Would you consider Bibi could be the one to blame for prolonging these women’s suffering?

I'd consider the men who kidnapped and raped the women to be to blame.

Raping women is a choice. Rapists have full responsibility for their actions.

I think that is a disingenuous argument. We know full well the fervour and zealousness of anti Israel protestors. Denial and minimisation is the order of the day because rape and brutalisation does not fit the desired narrative. I've nowhere ever seen anyone trying to deny or deflect from the rapes and brutalisations of women by Boko Haram, or the Yazidi women, by Isis, in such a way.

And during the Bosnian war I saw no-one excuse or minimise the rapes of the Bosnian women by the Serbs - in fact that particular atrocity sparked widspread campaigns against sexual violence as a weapon of war.

It seems to me that huge swathes of these protesters don't care one iota for what happened to Jewish people and are supporters of this evil ideology. I think it's a mixture of gullibility, lack of critical thinking and people drunk on power of self righteousness. I've heard wet replies in answer to Oct 7th from people saying "but look what happened before..." justification. I think one day these people will be viewed in the same way that some germans enthusiastically supported the nazis.

So many people have been swept up into this conflict via social media. Before October 7th most of these people had next to no knowledege or awareness of the history of the conflict, and they still don't. It has become fashionable and trendy to be anti Israel. It always was in Leftist circles. I know that because i've been in and around them.

Now people only read propaganda that suggests Israel is inherently evil, and narratives about 'brave resisitance fighters'. I walked past an anti Israel student camp at my local university yesterday - and they had posters all around the fence which suggested that Israeli soldiers had been filmed with women's underwear in Gaza, referring to Israelis as " scum; but nowhere did they have any of the images of the burned, brutalised, destroyed bodies of Israeli women and children - for balance.

It suits these people to deny, and to buy into Hamas propoganda - because otherwise they would have to face the reality that this does not fit into the simplistic narrative they have been led to adopt. They want to see themselves as morally good and righteous people - on the side of the victims and oppressed peoples of the world - and unfortunately the disgusting, sickening crimes of October 7th would shatter this bubble; and might actually lead them to question the nature of Hamas - and what it represents.

They might then also have to look into the history of the PLO. -and discover that destruction of Israel has always been the aim. That the PLO conducted campaigns of terror and assassination in Jordan too - after having been given citizenship by that country; and that Egypt wants nothing to do with Hamas or the Palestinians for similar reasons.

You've posted from a site called the Electronic Intifada. I was in Israel a fair amount during the Second Intifada before I moved here, as I had a lot of family here. I know what intifada is first hand, I won't be watching anything from a site that calls itself that.

That's like posting 'proof' that the holocaust didn't happen, from a site called the Electronic Final Solution.

When Owen Jones made a video basically questioning the 'evidence of rape' I literally went hot with rage.

Someone upthread mentioned Boko Haram. When the mass kidnapping happened there was a media campaign in the US and UK, "Bring Back Our Girls". Michelle Obama was the face of it for a while.

Whilst I think it's disgusting that the ongoing atrocities of Boko Haram have vanished from the media, at least there was some attempt to highlight it with a concerted campaign aimed at the general public, running independently of media news and commentary. That's not happened with the victims of 7/10, because in this instance Israeli = they asked for it. Or faked it. And by the way did you know that there were no Jews in the twin towers on 9/11? Yeah they all get a text message in hebrew telling them to stay at home that day. Plus, Israel is just like the Nazis. And speaking of the Nazis, the Holocaust was faked. There just isn't enough evidence of it. Jews control the financial system and the media. From the river to the sea (even though I don't know what river or what sea, or what any of it means.) Am I doing this right?

How do you have a ceasefire with an organisation whose mission statement is literally genocidal, and which openly, and proudly, states it would re-enact October 7th over and over again?

You know women have been sexually abused in the tunnels too, and raped, and that children were given ketamine to keep them quiet and threatened with guns if they spoke. One woman said she was made to dress up in " doll clothes" whilst being raped.

@The Electronic Intifada
Hamas filmed and publicised the rapes and other atrocities. And now they are debunking it?

Yup, have heard it all before. "I was just following orders, you cant hold me accountable for the 1000 people I shot in a Polish forest." Same mindset.

And some people are even supporting them.

women have been considered spoils of war for millennia. It’s bad. Extremely bad, specially for women and children. I pray for their safe return and the end of the slaughter.

supporting the call for ceasefire is supporting the return of hostages imho.

Would you consider Bibi could be the one to blame for prolonging these women’s suffering?

Now there will be narratives to distract and gather support for him, demonising further the enemy. Let him be accountable for the hells he has unleashed.

The the rapes of Ocber are being denied, minimised or ignored because they don't fit the preferred narrative of glorious reistance against oppression. some people clearly still don't want to face that terrble things were done in the name of 'liberation'.

The Rochdale grooming case was purely because peeople were frightened or cowed into denial and minimisation, firstly, because the girls were thought to have "brought it on themselves" ( typical rape apology), but also, and very importantly because the perpertrators were Muslims and the police and other organisations didn't want to stoke community tensions.

Of course, many people people also choose to believe that the raped and brutalised Israeli women, and children, brought it on themselves, or that they somehow deserved it because they belong to a supposed " oppressor group".

And the warrants for Hamas leaders, of course.

or you could read the OP - the thread is in reaction to the footage released by the families of the 5 19 year old girls still being held hostage by Hamas, the violence against whom the world continues to ignore, minimise, deny, or worse, justify, in the name of resistance. The girl stumbling to the vehicle, with her top ripped and bra exposed, blood on her pyjama trousers, Naama Levy's bloodied trousers, the Hamas terrorist looking at the girls and commenting that "these are the ones that can get pregnant" - the footage explicitly highlights what Jewish and Israeli women have been shouting into the wind since October.

https://x.com/drewpavlou/status/1788563608710066267?s=46
Australian students : Today I interviewed two students at the University of Queensland anti-Zionist camp in Brisbane Australia.
I asked: ''How many civilians would it be justified to kill in order to liberate Palestine?'' They answered ''As many as necessary.''
''We 100% support Hamas and their right to resist. We want Hamas to succeed in their resistance movement.''
Or as others have catchily put it "Resistance is justified, when people are occupied".

Or even better, actively calling for October 7th to happen again and again/ standing with Hamas terrorists ""Remember the 7th of October!" shouted a man with a red keffiyeh over his face in a video published by Columbia Sundial editor-in-chief Jonas Du on social media on Friday. "That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1000 more times, but 10,000 times!"
"Never forget the 7th of October," said another masked man wearing a Palestinian flag, standing outside the campus gates on Thursday night. "Are you ready? 7th of October is about to be every day. Every day. 7th of October is going to be every day for you.":
https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-798049

The violence in this video are what these people are justifying, supporting, and calling for.

"These claims have been debunked many times by many different sources." What claims are you saying have been debunked?

It is possible to hold two truths at once. You can support Gaza, and Palestinians, and highlight their plight, but it does not have to be done by standing on the blood of Jewish and Israeli girls.

Sometimes yes it's deliberate. The only other thing I'll say is that we recoil instinctively from such abject horror - nobody wants to believe its true, humans have great capacity for denial, and sometimes whataboutery is part of that. I can notice it in myself looking at the picture in the OP. I don't want to see or believe it, I would prefer to be angry or think about something else.

Because it is just about unbearable to think about what the girls in the picture are going through, have gone through.

Disgusting replies from rape apologists. Not surprised though, given previous posts.

Why not just condemn without whataboutery?

I think we all know the answer to that.

No, it's in response to the videos of the bloodstained female Israeli PoWs and how some people are minimising and excusing what is happening to them