So-called feminists are silent about use of rape by Hamas – they think Israeli Jewish women are the wrong type of victim
WHEN I was sexually assaulted, aged 16, I didn’t dare report it to the police, because I knew I’d be seen as either a liar or complicit.
By the time I was 17 I was campaigning to end men’s violence towards women and girls, protesting the poor police response to sexual violence and the horrendous victim-blaming prevalent at the time.
All these decades later, I am appalled to see so-called feminists staying silent about the brutal and widespread use of rape by Hamas terrorists, simply because Israeli Jewish women are the wrong type of victim.
Shamefully, the BBC has only just noticed that rape – always a weapon of war – was also happening on October 7.
The UN and other international bodies have dismissed or downplayed reports of sexual violence during the attack, prompting the hashtag #MeTooUnlessUrAJew.
It took the organisation UN Women eight weeks to issue a pathetic statement, saying it was “alarmed” by accounts of sexual violence. The Women’s Rights page on the Human Rights Watch website has countless reports about the war in Gaza – yet nothing about the rapes.
Amnesty International has also stayed silent on this, despite its immediate call for a ceasefire.
Clearly, the victims of Hamas are not the right sort of women.
The BBC now confirms it has heard evidence of the rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Did it apply the same evidential test during the wars in Bosnia and Rwanda?
Owen Jones, the Left’s poster boy, has come under attack for apparently doubting the word of eyewitnesses to sexual brutality, because he didn’t personally see it.
Unfortunately, the Israeli women murdered after being raped are unable to provide personal testimony.
What might this failure to empathise with, or even acknowledge, the rape of Jewish women mean in the UK? As Jewish Women’s Aid set out in its statement, the deafening silence from organisations running domestic violence refuges and sexual assault centres will only exacerbate the isolation and fear women living with violent partners in religious communities already experience.
I am incredulous at the number of women’s groups which rushed to call for an immediate ceasefire, roundly condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza, while failing to show any solidarity with the victimised Israeli women.
Rape is rape, whether or not you like the victim, and a rapist is a rapist, even if you support his cause.
Each and every victim of sexual violence should matter, and no condemnation of rape should ever come with caveats.