Who counts
So why, then, in a moment when statements of solidarity fly fast and furious, have feminists and their progressive allies not been more outspoken about the grotesque sexual violence visited upon Israeli women on Oct. 7?
Many feminist organizations rushed to express support for the Palestinian cause while eliding the plight of Israeli victims. The organization UN Women issued a four-page report last month exclusively addressing the impact of the war on women and girls in Gaza but made only a brief condemnation of the Oct. 7 attack that made no mention of the sexual violence that had been reported. A group of prominent scholars circulated a letter under the title “Feminists for a Free Palestine,” without explicitly condemning the sexual violence against Israeli women.
I guess the thinking is that some women deserve rape?
College campus groups have furnished other examples, such as the women’s students’ groups at Harvard that signed on to a letter holding Israel entirely responsible for the Oct. 7 attacks or the (now-former) director of the University of Alberta’s Sexual Assault Center’s signing on to a letter doubting the veracity of accounts of Israeli rape survivors. Even the office on my own campus that is devoted to helping students “lead social-justice centered lives” issued thousands of words in solidarity with the Palestinians and did not once acknowledge the sexual violence (or murder or abduction) perpetrated by Hamas. And then there are the familiar conversations like those that Miriam Schler, the executive director of a Tel Aviv crisis center, reports having with friends who style themselves “champions of human rights, feminism, and social justice” but who “have been bending over backwards to justify atrocities and rationalize rape.”
So, yes, the thinking is that some women deserve rape. It seems Israeli women are all Karens.
This tragic minimization — or justification, in some cases — of violence against Israeli women appears to be the result of an ideological turn among some feminists and progressives that elevates an “antiracist” agenda above the core feminist commitment to defend the universal right to bodily autonomy for all women. This argument contends that because Israel is a colonial power oppressing the Palestinians, any resistance is a justified dimension of decolonization.
Meanwhile, be sure not to ask any questions about how Hamas treats Palestinian women.
Unfortunately, most organizations are essentially mirroring the US government’s approach–once you pick a side in a conflict between two oppressive regimes, you’re apparently required to ignore all the horrible shit ‘your side’ does. So the US pretends not to see the bombed-out hospitals and the convoys of refugees being targeted by artillery as they are literally attempting to comply with Israeli orders to move, and supporters of Palestine ignore the rapes and the fact that Hamas does, in fact, use those hospitals as shields by tunneling underneath?
And I get it, because if you acknowledge that this is a fight between two deplorable groups (Likud and Hamas), then what do you do? Invade the entire region and force both groups out of power? Walk away from the whole mess, cut funding to anyone, and watch as Israel either is subjected to invasion and a second Holocaust, OR opts to not allow that and fires the nukes we all know it has to make sure ‘no one wins’? There are no good options here, at all.
Freemage, agreed. It’s like the inability to see trans women as predators in women’s spaces, or to see anything done by an oppressed minority if it isn’t good.
And there are never any good options when religion is a driver of conflict. When you have God on your side, who can argue?
The descriptions of the violence done to the women of Israel on that day were so horrific that I was barely able to read through it all the way. I don’t even want to describe it here. The reason that there is a lack of photography of the mutilated corpses was that the rescue workers were busy looking for survivors they could treat, and they did not have time to take photos. They also did not want to take photos out of respect for the dead, and traditional Jewish practice is to bury bodies as soon as possible. Survivors in hiding provide vivid detail. There is no rationalization for this, even if you believe that the Israelis are white colonizers. IDF women were treated with special brutality, and so those who remain in the force trying to root out Hamas in Gaza are especially courageous, as much so as the Yazidi women resisting the Daesh who were trying to capture and take them as brooding slaves.
It’s entirely possible to consider the plight of the Gaza Palestinians without dismissing the specific sexual violence against Jewish Women on Oct 7.
Mike Haubrich@3:
Possible, yes, but infinitely trickier, especially since ANY public statement is going to be dissected and quotes taken out of context. A condemnation of the rapes will be seen as excusing the bombing of a children’s hospital. So if you’re going to be lumped into one ‘side’ or the other, why not just go whole-hog?
The Israeli women aren’t Karens. It’s worse than that. They’re crying”white women’s tears” designed to hide their oppressor status and rile up white men concerned about those brown hoards of “rapists.” It’s Intersectional Feminism, which looks at the whole picture and interprets events using race.
This nasty little heuristic seems to apply even when the White Women’s Tears were caused by actual rapists, and stopped by torture and firearms.
Maybe it’s more analogous to the Nat Turner Rebellion than anything else (there’s significant differences and if we care about what level the power imbalances are, technology involved)?
Members of a more or less aggrieved group visit horrific atrocities on the more powerful group, more powerful group wreaks terrible, disproportionate vengeance out of anger and fear, the source of contention remains.
BKiSA, are you suggesting it’s okay to rape women as long as they are in an oppressor group, and the oppressed group is fighting back against injustices?
That’s not how I read BKiSA’s comment.
The more powerful-less powerful aspect isn’t exhausted by the Israel-Gaza/Palestine comparison though. Women are less powerful than men, for instance, and unarmed people are less powerful than armed ones, and surprised people are less powerful than people who planned, and so on.
No, it’s not ok at all. Atrocities are atrocities… Nat Turner’s followers committed very similar acts in their targeted attack on people they had legitimate grievances with and people today will of course find ways to say that no, in fact what they were doing was heroic and fully justified. So much of what we humans do is finding ways of describing morally indefensible behavior as righteous and good.
Okay, got it. Thanks for the clarification.
This is why the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was seen as necessary. It’s why the Geneva Convention laws were seen as necessary.