Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on VAWAG is a fucking disgrace

[CrocsNotDocs]

I had all the goodwill in the world for her with her stance on gender ideology and was disgusted at the behind the scenes attempts to have her removed by my Australian government but she can go get fucked.

She has just stated on X that there is no evidence that rapes took place on October 7. The rapes that were filmed, live-streamed and celebrated by the perpetrators.

x.com/unsrvaw/status/1989315118358745148?s=61

She's not beating the whataboutery allegations.

I feel a bit filthy just reading that.

I've absolutely no idea who is being referred to here-

"Alsalem details how the lie that Israel spun regarding the alleged rapes of Israeli women on 7 October has been completely debunked by an independent body, while noting that the widespread evidence documenting Israel’s pattern of sexual violence towards Palestinian men and women has been completely ignored by Western media and governments."

It's as if she can accept and condemn the rapes of all women apart from Israeli women.

Also appalled.

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

Whereas Hamas has loads of credibility, obvs. Anyone hiding behind political issues to pretend that brutal sexual violence didn’t happen during this terrorist attack is beneath contempt.

'Dr Cochav Elkayam Levy, Chair of The Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes Against Women and Children, has said “We’ll never know everything that has happened to them. We know that most women who were raped and who were sexually assaulted were also murdered.'

The report I link to upthread, from a UK APPG, details extensive evidence of sexual violence, rape, torture, on October the 7th, for those who require it.

Lest we forget the Red Army systematically raped hundreds of German women when they entered Berlin. I remembered some enraptured, captivated Communist woman eulogising about the defeat of Fascism by the wonderful Red Army. Should have been called the Rape Army. Men have always done this in war.

They have.

The depth of anti-semitism still whacks me in the face even two years after the pogrom. Term Alaskan has certainly shown where the main sympathies of the world institutions lie … misogyny and antisemitism.

100% agree with this.

Men using sexual violence against women and girls is (sadly) an eternal human universal. This is really not rocket science.

I'm so disappointed in Reem Alsalem and by the whataboutery and denial on this thread.

I agree, and I find it so worrying. We are talking Nazi levels of open hatred, directed at anyone Jewish, anywhere in the world.

Violence committed by Muslims is apparently nothing to worry about. Do we seriously think that the massacres in Nigeria, Syria and Sudan haven't involved rape on a massive scale?

My DS1's best friend's mother is Jewish. A little bit after October 7 she asked me out for coffee and asked me quietly to please not let anyone know she was. Apparently her son had been having repeated nightmares that someone would 'find out' and take her away to kill her. He did not want to go outside. He did not want to go to school. In Year 7 a year or so before, he had said in class when they were doing the religions that his mum was Jewish and this is what had scared him so much,. That someone would remember it.

Imagine that. In modern day Britain.

Utterly disgraceful.

Assuming that there is a lot of political chess going on behind the scenes in such high-level organizations, I was wondering whether someone is blackmailing her with something?
I know the post is suppposed to be "independent" and I still haven't figured out whether the "rapporteurs" get paid or not - can't really imagine they'd put in so much work and are not paid, but maybe she'll want another job after this one and needs someone's support.

That doesn't negate the blind spot theory and tribal thinking suggestion, btw, rather to add another layer.
Given that some TRAs deploy very radical tactics, it would have to be some force that is much more powerful.

Rapporteurs are not paid but are appointed by the UN as independent experts and paid travel and expenses while on mission work for the UN

Horrible. Just horrible.

I have to say it is a strange hill to die on, simply because OF COURSE rape and sexual assault will have occurred. Huge numbers of violent men crossed the border that day - lots of them will have taken advantage of the situation to rape/sexually abuse women they encountered because that is what violent men do. I'd be straight up astonished if they hadn't, just as I would be astounded if the IDF weren't raping on a pretty grand scale also. Put a gun in a man's hand and tell him the people he is fighting are less than human and sexual violence is pretty well inevitable.

I can never forget the destruction of the Goma prison in the DRC. Rebel forces destroyed a prison wing containing male prisoners, enabling them to escape. The FIRST THING some of them did, in the midst of all the fighting, the fire and the confusion, was to nip next door to the women's wing and rape and murder on a massive scale.

That is what violent men do. So of COURSE the Hamas fighters did it too.

I wonder if then a rapporteur can only be someone who has independent income / wealth, how do you do it?
Expenses: Office staff, equipment, travel costs? And 40 hours a week without income?
If a charity supports them, are they then beholden to the charity with regards to their output?

I'm comparing this to when a company engages an "independent" expert or lawyers to look into a mistake they've made in the past - but these are still paid for by the company, even if the company claims no interference into the output (i.e. harassment on the premises, slavery background from the 18th century etc...).

Then everbody who is supposed to do independent / neutral work couldn't get paid by anyone.

Probably just theoretical musings, but I got into this thought regarding one of the other rapporteurs recently.

This. Denying it just looks callous, tribal and dishonest to most people.

It also seems bizarre to suggest there was no evidence found. Surely a Rapporteur on VAWG read the Roberts Report? Not only does it clearly and in detail lay out (horrific) details of what evidence was found, but it lays out why evidence is hard to find in such a situation - not least because almost all of the women involved were murdered.

I will stop there because any further discussion involves graphic detail I don't want to post on here.

It was written by a UK APPG, so about as independent as one can get.

Not sure your list of sources have reached the standard of proof either. Both sides are alleging rape. The problem about Oct 7th is that there are independent (not UN, not Israeli, not Gazan) reports of rape e.g. from the Dinah Project.
Besides which Israeli soldiers who have been accused of rape have ended up in court. Where are the Gazans in court for what happened to women on Oct 7th?

"No evidence"??? "No evidence"????? The videos were all just clever photoshop jobs? All made within hours of the atrocities?

(Especially ridiculous because Netanyahu's sexist and misogynist leadership didn't even care much about what happened to women. As I recall, it took them weeks and huge shouting on the part of women to acknowledge that oh-yes-there-were-crimes-against-women-going-on. If it really had been some kind of frame up, they would have been at it from the start.)

I know what you mean...but that doesn't mean any treatment of the Palestnians is ethical
.I am still strongly opposed to several of the Likud gov's tactics. Whatever the adults have done, children are not responsible for that. And I doubt (I hope!) that all Palestinians support Hamas. I essentially view the majority as cult members, and on principle, such groups deserve as humane treatment as possible until we can punish those who have committed crimes.

The cheering crowds were abhorrent but I do wonder whether some may have been acting like that because Hamas were presumably scanning them for signs of disloyalty. Most probably were indoctrinated, but I'm thinking of accounts I read of people in Maoist China feigning worship of Mao and cheering atrocities because the slightest sign of disapproval could mean death.

That was unspeakably horrible.

I view the Gazans the same way I would view people indoctrinated by dangerous cults like Manson or Jim Jones. Not everyone is indoctrinated, children are innocent, some may pretend to agree who don't to keep alive (as Hamas surely watch to see who didagrees). I disagree strongly with some of the Israeli government's tactics. What you describe does NOT mean that Israel can do literally anything to Gazans in general.

A 2 state solution is definitely unthinkable right now. Hamas are basically the Arab version of Nazis, and everyone in Gaza needs to be debrainwashed as far as possible before they can go back.

Plans like Trump's to make Gaza a beach resort are hopefully a joke, that would be a moral outrage for countless reasons.

That's what I thought at the beginning but polls carried out in Gaza and in the West Bank show that Hamas is actually more popular than the PA, and while there is more support in Gaza for negotiation than 2 years ago, in the WB "the armed struggle" is actually getting more popular.

Obviously there are Palestinians who are against Hamas, but the only way a terror group would be able to keep such tight control of the population while actually losing a war and fighting for their very survival is if they still have a very significant level of support in Gaza. If a lot of people were geniuinely against them, that's when there'd have been an uprising. There wasn't because too many people still support them.

Sadly - and I was also pro Palestinian before Oct 7 - I think the reality is that a lot of Gazans really did prefer their government to try to destroy Israel rather than build a proper economy. And some of them haven't changed their minds.

This is from October 2025:

"Palestinian opinion is polarized: the Trump Plan is widely known but support is split, with Gazans more favorable than West Bankers. Majorities back Hamas’s response yet reject disarming Hamas; most doubt the plan will end the war or deliver statehood. A leadership crisis endures—dissatisfaction with Abbas and the PA, Marwan Barghouti leading, and Hamas outpolling Fatah.
Since Oct 7, support for the attack persists even as expectations of Hamas victory wane. Gazans are more open to negotiated arrangements;` West Bankers favor armed struggle. Across both, skepticism of external plans coexists with demands for elections and self-defense."

https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/1000

And yes, I was horrified at Reem Alsalem's words. She was so brilliant about MVAWG and transgender women in female spaces, but she seems to have a blind spot about Jewish women.