Feminism, rape, and Israel. Content warning.

[ArthurbellaScott]

https://unherd.com/2023/11/metoo-unless-youre-a-jew/

I skipped parts of this article, specifically the first person account.

The rest of it I think is an important read.

I've just read that.

Only do it if you have a strong stomach and are not prone to nightmares, is all I can say.

Those poor, poor women and girls. And terrible for those who witnessed events but survived, and for those found them and had to handle their bodies, men and women alike.

The baby! I hope, at least, the family are being kept together

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/11/27/hamas-youngest-israeli-hostage-kfir-handed-over-khan-yunis/

Well done you for reading that

I can't stomach it like the poster

It really is as bad as people say then

Some posters on mumsnet keep going on about how well the hostages look and how well Hamas must have treated them. It makes me want to vomit. Goodness only knows what some of the hostages will have gone through. The ones that Hamas will be less keen to hand over alive, if they still are alive that is.

It is worrying. A baby like that could just disappear and he isn't old enough to tell anyone who he is or remember who his parents are after a period of time. Fingers crossed he is still with his mother and sibling. That they get out of there together.

Have you seen Owen Jones discussing the videos of the tortured Israelis, it's unbelievable. He says we see see no evidence of sexual assault or rape. I loathed him as a misogynist but this man has no moral center. Even his demeanor is strange, utterly unaffected by what he saw...
Owen Jones Twitter

Hm, I went to look, but (unless my laptop is playing up) it's gone.

LOJ should read that report linked yesterday by @deepbluebell

It might make him think again, but somehow I doubt it.

It's still there, my link works and I went to his Twitter, scroll down a bit it's right there.
I read that report; it was horrible. But it wouldn't bother him...

https://twitter.com/UN_Women/status/1729747066283282474

I was on the UN Women page on twitter, and it struck me looking through that the way they use language is very careful. The two statements side by side from the secretary general are very telling:

In the first, he stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In the second, he comments that he has been clear in condemning the terror attacks by Hamas on October 7th, but does not use the word Israel, or Israeli people.

Similarly, his statement on the 27th Nov "The dialogue that led to the release of hostages held by Hamas & Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails must continue. Countries must use their influence for a humanitarian ceasefire & support irreversible steps towards the only sustainable future for the region: a two-state solution."

He does not say Israeli hostages held by Hamas, but will say Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Then on October 25th "The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the horrific attacks by Hamas. Those horrendous attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people." Not mentioning the attacks were on Israelis.

When reading through I can see they have occasionally used the word Israel, but mostly, they condemn 'Hamas attacks', or 'October 7th'. I don't necessarily disagree with the content of what they are saying by they way, it just feels very dissonant. I find this careful use of language very reminiscent of language use by trans allies, with the way the word 'woman' is erased by trans allies, and carefully stepped around, while at the same time freely using the word 'transwoman'.

Foul 😡

It's probably because I'm not on Twitter

Owen Jones' filmed response to the footage viewing carefully and slowly addressed each point regarding claims made about the Hamas attacks, caveating, noting converse possibilities, etc. It was all reasonable, cautious, journalistic reporting. He questioned sources, noted that absence of evidence was not evidence of absence, etc.

Then he took a breath and said that 20,000 Palestinians had been killed. No naming of what source he took that from, no caveats, not a second thought.

I found the contrast jaw dropping. And yes, the bit about it being 'reasonable' to ask for video evidence of rape was sociopathic, Owen.

I haven’t watched the Owen Jones video but I understand that he says there is no evidence of rape or sexual assault because he didn’t see any video footage of it happening.

He discounts images of a dead woman with her underwear removed.

Perhaps that he doesn’t see this as evidence of rape because as a gay man he has never actually considered the experiences of women which would make others automatically link the removal of underwear by a man with ill intent towards a woman with sexual assault.

Which would fit with his normal lack of consideration towards the experiences of women.

He's so obsessed with his pet ideologies and fixed positions that he must have gone in to the viewing with an attitude in place. An attitude that would allow him to perform any psychic function which allowed him to maintain his pre-existing stance.

It is vile that he should use the video evidence of atrocities committed against real people to bolster his non negotiable anti zionism/anti Israel views. How morally bankrupt to make the effort to go to such a screening, having been given permission by the families of the massacred, to see these crimes in real time - only to dismiss them and cast aspersion upon the veracity of what happened.

The self righteous can enact and be guilty of such ugliness and evil when they think they are actually being good.

I think the footage in the video was carefully chosen to try to get the agreement of the victims, where possible, and to avoid revictimising those who were not able to give consent, still abducted or, more likely, murdered. Owen wanted to see a 'porno' of an Israeli woman or child actually in the process of being raped did he?

There's another article in the Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/11/29/the-uns-silence-on-the-rape-of-israeli-women-makes-a-mocker/

https://archive.ph/KJgPB archive link

The petition, mentioned in the article, is linked upthread.

Israel: People were brutally massacred.
Useful Idiots: Didn't happen.
Israel : We didn't want to further demean the victims by releasing this, but here is the evidence.
Useful Idiots: Ok, so it did happen but it wasn't that bad.
Israel : Rape, beheadings and burning people alive, not that bad?
Useful Idiots: OMG, you're obsessed with demonising the most marginalised people in the world.

The arguments are so familiar and it's no surprise that Owen Jones has picked a side and is sticking to it no matter what.

Even if he saw a picture of a woman or child being raped he would still find a caveat. Maybe it was consensual?

I went back to listen again, just in case I had misremembered. Nope. My transcript - content warning for the descriptions.

In fact I'll try to add in some more paras/space:

Taken from Jones' video:

‘if there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don't see this on the footage either. Now a warning here for a deeply distressing description - the clip of an Israeli woman inspecting a badly burned woman's corpse to see if she was a relative, um, she had no underwear, this has been offered as evidence of rape - that's not what you would consider conclusive evidence.‘

...

‘… let me just read this from a Rolling Stone article, describing a screening of the United States. Someone at the end, they say, yelled ‘show the rape, show the beheading of babies, the world needs to see it’, he bellowed while leaving. ‘Shut up, go outside’ a woman answered - another woman angrily replied ‘he's right’.

Well, clearly they, as presumably supporters of Israel's onslaught felt it was important for these details we have all been told to be substantiated on video evidence. It's not unreasonable to agree with them, as macabre as that is.’

Brenda's O'Neil in Spiked on LOJ

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/29/we-mustnt-let-the-left-erase-the-truth-of-7-october/

I admit I have not watched Jones's critique of the 43 min film. I don't want to.

I hadn't realised being beheaded by a terrorist required such nuance.

17.58 on the BBC’s live feed today: Guterres says that the sexual violence inflicted by Hamas must be investigated. He speaks of the dead, the hostages, and also the thousands of people left injured. At last, someone from the UN recognising the gravity of the offences against Israel

Only took them, what, seven weeks?

Bloody hell - talk about metoo unless you're a Jew. Mind you, I don't think LOJ ever believes women, or sees them as fully human. I don't think any amount of evidence would be enough for him because he just doesn't value the word of a woman.

His words suggest he has quite a bit in common with Hamas, seemingly.

Just read Hamas said baby Kfir, his 4 year old brother and their mother are all dead
May their memory be a blessing

though some say it could be a ploy of psychological torture...

Excellent article, the rapes on Nye in Cologne were ignored though (appreciate that wasn't a terrorist attack).

No words.

At least one of the hostages was held hostage by a UN worker. When it comes to the Israel and Palestine issue the UN is deeply corrupted and compromised.