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

Sadly, I expected that to be the case for the majority.

Re being 'pro Palestinian'. What do you mean by that? If you mean, thinking there should be a 2 state solution and that some of Israel's war tactics are immoral, I still think that. I just think it can never happen until they are debrainwashed, which will be a nightmare undertaking.

Every single adult in Gaza could be pure evil. I would still think that some of Israel's war tactics were immoral. You can't just say any tactic automatically becomes moral if the enemy civilians are all evil. Morality towards civilians HAS to apply no matter how bad and evil they may be in majority.

Not to mention that many of the Gazans are under-18s, including many under-10s. I don't view brainwashed under-10s as evil. They are not responsible for this horrendous situation at all.

Measured and conservative magazines like The Critic and Unherd are noting that the rhetoric on both Likud and UK sides from Israel supporters has sometimes dangerously veered to saying any kind of treatment of Palestinians is acceptable. This is extremely dangerous.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=unherd.com/2024/04/what-thatcher-can-teach-the-pro-israel-right/&ved=2ahUKEwiq8Zel5fyQAxWoVkEAHUWmJXkQFnoECBsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3jKlUged6ye1sjxXF8L5pB

https://thecritic.co.uk/against-the-neoconservative-case-for-israel/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2024/time-for-realpolitik-in-israel/&ved=2ahUKEwj6mMrT5fyQAxWnRfEDHeQTE_wQFnoECCwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2OMjOce46p6oBoNxYHs__q

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=thecritic.co.uk/the-organised-anger-of-israels-arab-citizens/&ved=2ahUKEwi09PD65fyQAxWiW0EAHVdIOaMQFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Llys0QkkgjjU295IKdna3

I completely agree that the children are the victims - it also horrifies me to see clips of men, and sometimes women, who grab tiny children to shout at cameras, presumably for propaganda. Tiny children crying. It must be completely traumatising for the children. I have never seen anyone doing that in other disasters, not even in a war.

So yes, they need to be debrainwashed, like Germans were denazified after the war. But I don't think that's going to happen, because so many people in the west seem to think that it's Israel's fault "really", for existing. I'm not Jewish BTW.

I don't know what the solution is. I'm not sure I believe in two states any more. Not as things are now anyway.

And yes, I agree that there have certainly been multiple war crimes by the IDF, and indeed before this war, some of the stuff that went on in the West Bank was completely wrong and immoral too. And the fact that Netanyahu is corrupt and completely unscrupulous, and has put in place a far right government make things worse.

Although OTOH, since Hamas, and Gazan civilians, attacked the kibbutzim and even actual peace activists like Vivian Silver, I think if I were Israeli I would probably conclude that Palestinians had no interest in negotiating with peace makers in Israel and I don't know who I would vote for.

Agreed. Sorry, my response was rather aggressive-sounding- I think discussing it online has made me over suspicious. It's scary how many people seem to justify anything against Palestinians in general (although not as scary as people who think Hamas are not terrorists). I can see you didn't mean that

I think if I were in Israel - well for one thing I don't think I'd be brave enough to stay, those who do are incredibly brave. If I were : I'd almost certainly vote Netanyahu just because I think it's incredibly dangerous to give up on the Hamas war, while hoping that civilians can be safely moved somewhere. As I've said, the Palestinians are a violently radicalised population (exactly why Egypt, Jordan etc will not take them). I don't know how they can be safely deradicalised but I hope beyond hope it can happen.

"The videos were all just clever photoshop jobs? All made within hours of the atrocities?"

Thst is where the narrative falls down. The atrocities were livestreamed. Some of the livestreams were deleted post factum, but enough have been saved by various people all over the world.

Most of the victims are dead. Sexual violence always happens in wars. Men who hated Jews invaded Israel and the mutilated bodies of women were found. What do you think happened to them?

Because of course the Israelis did horrible things. But anything done by Palestinians is 'alleged' because they have victim status.

The report from the UK APPG included refs to witness statemnts and mention of forensic evidence. And yes, absence of victim statements is because most of them were murdered after being raped and/or tortured.

No worries, I get that. I don’t usually post a lot on Mumsnet - I mostly come here to read up on things (like the BFF/Sara Morrison tribunal) where other people know a lot more than me, but I do, or did, post on other websites so I get when someone “new” suddenly rocks up to post on a controversial subject.

The only person I actually know in Israel is a former colleague (Jewish) who moved there about 15 years ago. I only got back in touch with them because of the attack in 2023, to make sure they were ok, so they aren’t best friends or anything. And in fact they were so happy that I was so clear in my support for them that now they do talk to me like best friends! The husband lost someone he thought was one of his best friends from here when he saw what he’d posted on Facebook in the days straight after the attack. He was really crushed by it. Anyway my point is that this family can’t stand Netanyahu, and are (always were and AFAIK still are) strong supporters of the two state solution.

While I don’t know how they’d vote in an election tomorrow, I do know that after the Hamas attack, they told me they had a lot of confidence in Benny Gantz so they were happy when he joined the original National Unity government (I’d never heard of him before that.)

Obviously Gantz has since left that coalition, but I don’t know if my friends would ever vote for Netanyahu. It’s not something we’ve discussed recently, as there’s no election planned and anyway I probably don’t know all the parties. But I imagine that a lot of people there are probably very unsure what the right direction is for the country.

But at no point did they ever say the sort of thing that I’ve seen people accuse Israelis of saying/thinking, expressing hate for Palestinians or anything like that. What they want is peace.