Israeli Hostage - I hope she can deal with her mental wounds

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68891217

I am glad at least some journalists have not forgotten what the Hamas hostages went through and this woman's experience is terrifying. It is incredibly brave for her to speak out and I think the narrative that hostages were and are being treated well needs to end.

Let's hope the remaining hostages get home 🇮🇱

threat was real and ever present for 54 days was a trauma akin to actually being raped. - I find this disgusting and minimising to rape victims. There is no way to compare being held hostage with being raped. They are both awful crimes and very different to each other.

You find the words of woman who was held hostage for months and who was sexually assaulted and who is trying to explain her trauma "disgusting"?

It’s all about the politics for @AdamRyan so don’t expect to feel any empathy from his/her posts.

What's your agenda, @Blackcats7 ?

@AdamRyan is making valid points that are well articulated.

@AdamRyan is not making valid points- he is trying to discredit the account of a hostage victim by critiquing her words and misrepresenting her account as untrustworthy

I don’t think you are interested in “truth and accuracy “ as much as undermining the account of a hostage’s ordeal.
@Limesodaagain

I wrote my comment about truth and accuracy in response to comments from various PPs that suggest we shouldn't be allowed to comment on her words, that we are asking a rape victim to reframe their narrative, that because she has been a victim of crime it is somehow wrong to understand the placing of newspaper articles in the context of Israel's war effort, and that we must keep our thoughts to ourselves in case we offend jews or Israelis.

That is not a view I share. I do, in fact, value truth, accuracy, critical thinking and similar values. If my posts are horrific to you then might I suggest it is you with an agenda here.

As a person who's worked in serious sexual assault cases (legal) for 20+ years, attended endless conferences, countless interviews, I can honestly say it's always best to listen to the victim. We can never understand, but we can listen/

As already well documented, both sides will continue to use (and excuse) rape and sexual assault. They both have a long history of it. I'd recommend reading:
Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lambb

There will continue to be minimizing of the experiences of victims.

I do have an agenda to defend this woman’s account against attempts to discredit and distort it

@AdamRyan

OK - would you like to deny or minimise this woman account of rape?

nypost.com/2024/03/27/opinion/ex-hostage-bravely-confirms-hamas-rapes-and-shames-deniers-like-rep-jamaal-bowman/amp/

Or would you like to deny or minimise the UN report finding reasonable grounds that Hamas committed sexual attacks.

www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/3/4/reasonable-grounds-to-believe-hamas-committed-sexual-violence-un

I have deliberately used an Al Jazeera link to make it easier for you to believe.

adam has not for one second said that Israeli women have not been raped or sexually assaulted or even had sexual threats made against them

I think Moran gave her account as an honest attempt to describe the terror and helplessness and humiliation she felt in captivity. She used the word because conveyed the trauma of her experience. I don’t believe she meant to minimise the trauma of anybody who has suffered rape. I think she was in terror of rape for every day of her 54 days of captivity and has been scarred by that memory

this

Because I don't think many women would choose to describe a man staring at them aggressively as "a rape".
They might if they were in a hostage situation and the man staring at them had the power of life and death over them - stop making excuses.

I do have an agenda to defend this woman’s account against attempts to discredit and distort it @Limesodaagain

Presumably if this were actually true you'd take issue with the way 'Moran's account' is actually written up by a BBC journalist complete with an edited interview which excludes the line of questioning she was subjected to.

This was actually the original point being made by adamryan: how did she end up saying something nonsensical and out of context? was pressure put on her to say it? They were reasonable questions and we don't know the answers to them precisely because there isn't the transparency to know if her account was distorted. We do know that Israel has been pushing this element of its war narrative hard, so no wonder people read this article and question whether this is an extension of their previous PR campaign to frame the israel vs palestine conflict as a womens rights vs rapists conflict.

No. I find what limesoda said disgusting.
Rape has a specific meaning. Rape victims have a hard time getting taken seriously. I don't think applying the term "rape" to a wide range of non contact aggression from men to women is helpful.

Equally @AdamRyan has no said for one second that Israeli women have indeed been subject to sexual assault and rapes during the 7th October attacks and as hostages.

But has sought to minimise this particular woman's account of what happened.

I think the point was that Moran wasn't raped, so it's jarring to find sexual violence as part of her narrative. Different to cases when it did occur.

What?

I have said exactly that on other threads. This thread is about this specific interview.

Exactly this, thank you.

I think the implication that female hostages are somehow making false allegations to act as Israeli propaganda disturbing and sinister.

The BBC have a duty to allow hostages a voice; a voice that was taken away and for many won't be heard.

It is a voice that can declaim depravity and all hostages deserve the opportunity to speak out and describe the true nature of Hamas.

Thank you. I understand what you are saying and I will never deny the suffering of any human being, man or woman. I just feel that the threat of rape and the act of being raped are two different things.
I don't know why she used the term in this context and I won't speculate why either. I don't think we will ever know and she is entitled to refuse to explain why. I hope she finds peace.

Given her overall experience, of all possible examples it's a strange example to pick for rape minimising. I suspect it's more to do with his pro-Palestine/anti-Israeli position thus will leap on an opportunity to discredit an Israeli's account of the war.

How are the hostages kidnappers going to be brought to justice though?

It must be hard to think that those who perpetrated the crimes against hostages may not be held accountable? The kidnappers presumably are still in Gaza.

That's because sexual harassment and assault was something she went through.

"Unwanted sexual advances are a form of sexual harassment. This might include 'leering' or unwanted and inappropriate sexual propositions, whether in person, over the phone, by email or online.13 Nov 2023

Sexual harassment - Victim Support

Victim Support
www.victimsupport.org.uk › types-crime › sexua...

In here case it was much more than that. She was completely at the mercy of her kidnappers.

I think it is important that victims have a voice. This lady went through a terrible ordeal that never should have happened. There have been some awful, disgusting posts on social media with people speculating about what the female hostages have been through, some of them very graphic and imo bordering on sexual fantasy. I can't imagine what it must be like for the hostages themselves to read the things that people have been saying so it must feel good for them to get their actual stories out there.

Perhaps the language she used wasn't the best choice but I presume she isn't a native English speaker and language is used differently in different parts of the world so I think it would be kind for people to give her the benefit of the doubt there.

@mids2019 as you should well know rapists are very seldom prosecuted and found guilty. I don't see why this situation would be any different.

Rape and sexual assault, as well documented in the past, will continue to be used by both Israeli and various anti-Israeli organizations. There will be no justice for these victims.

it seems the hostages have become an uncomfortable reality for those that protest for the Palestinian cause.

this is nonsense. Many feel great sympathy both for the victims of Hamas and the victims of death and destruction caused by the Israeli authorities.

It’s not unusual to believe that it is wrong for humans to suffer in these ways, regardless of “which side” the victims are on. In my view, anyone who thinks otherwise is morally broken.

I think Adamryran is making an interesting point but ultimately she was interviewed by a independent journalist and that her words are not influenced by Israeli propaganda. I can only take it at face value - she is entitled to describe her trauma in whatever way she likes.