The October 7 attack left victims of brutal violence, but the global feminist movement has remained disturbingly silent. Why are some victims ignored in the name of a political agenda?
By Marina Rosenberg*
On November 25th we commemorate the International Day against Gender Violence, and this year, as a feminist, I feel it in my flesh and in my soul in a heartbreaking way.
On October 7, 2023, Israeli women They were brutally attacked, kidnapped and raped by Hamas terrorists for being women and for being Israelis. This pain has not ceased; it is perpetuated every day in the stories that reveal the horror experienced, in the suffering of the 13 women still held captive, and in the complicit silence of those who have preferred to look the other way.
Part of the aim of this massacre was to humiliate, denigrate and destroy these women with calculated and nefarious brutality. The testimonies are shocking; each one is a reminder of the cruelty unleashed that day. A survivor recounts how she was tied up and repeatedly abused, while her attackers laughed, promising her that “there would be nothing left of her when they were done.” OrAnother rescued woman remembers the cries of her fellow countrymen, mothers and children, begging for their lives, only to be subjected to barbaric acts designed to destroy not only their bodies, but their humanity.
In the documentary Screams Before Silence, which interviews survivors and rescuers about the Hamas attack, shows images of Women found naked and brutally murdered, their bodies used as tools of public humiliation. These images and testimonies demonstrate that the violence was deliberate and planned, a tactic to demoralize not only the victims, but an entire community. As stated in the ARCCI (Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel) report, “Women’s bodies were used as weapons of war.” This testimony should move anyone, but it has been received with indifference or, worse, denial.
An The United Nations published in early 2024 confirmed the occurrence of systematic sexual violence during the attacks of October 7, 2023. The report says there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that women were subjected to rape, gang rape, genital mutilation and sexualized torture.
In addition, it reveals “clear and compelling” information that Some hostages have been victims of sexual violence and that this abuse could continue to occur. These words not only confirm the atrocity of the events, but also force us to face the reality that this suffering continues in the silence of many.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL)We have repeatedly reiterated our request to the UN Secretary-General to include Hamas and Hezbollah in the Annex to the Report on Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict. Such an inclusion would not only underline the gravity of the crimes committed, but would also send a strong message: the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war will be unequivocally recognised and condemned by the international community.
In the days following the attack, some were quick to deny that sexual violence had occurred. When the evidence became compelling, excuses emerged: “isolated cases,” they said. How can they be isolated when the accounts describe a clear pattern of violence? This is where the double standard becomes apparent: in any other context, these testimonies would have prompted a universal outcry. Yet in this case, they have been downplayed, as if the suffering of these women were any less worthy of support.
Downplaying or denying sexual violence against Israeli women not only deeply hurts the victims, but also compromises the global fight against sexual violence and for gender equality. If we allow political biases to determine who we defend and who we ignore, we undermine the core values of feminism: the solidarity and unconditional protection of all women.
It is deeply painful to see how the feminist movement, which should be a refuge for all, has chosen to support only some. Or, rather, all, except the Jewish women. Reading these testimonies, I feel a deep loneliness. It angers me to see that, in the name of a political agenda, Israeli women who have been raped, tortured and murdered have been pushed aside, as if their pain were of less importance.
Feminism should have no borders or conditions. Women who suffer sexual violence, regardless of their nationality, culture or situation, deserve to be heard, supported and defended. Today more than ever, as we commemorate the International Day against Gender Violence, we must open our eyes and defend every woman, without exceptions or excuses.
*Marina Rosenberg is Senior Vice President for International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). (@_MarinaRos)
It is even worse, firstly because quite a few of the victims were communists, some of the most communist of those who defend the Palestinians, those who were in kibbutzim on the border with Gaza further south, kibbutzim like those that welcomed socialist politicians such as Josep Borrell, the foreign representative of the European Union, when in his youth he was a socialist close to communism.
And second, the new communist party Podemos had a political debate TV show on Iranian Spanish-language television, HispanTV. In addition, the new communist party was accused, apparently falsely, of having received funding from Iran, or even Venezuela, which would be illegal in Spain. Although the communists of Podemos are now part of the left-wing coalition government, a government in which the socialists are a mainstream party that fulfils Spain's contractual obligations with the European Union, NATO, etc. or have long since left their crazy youth behind, it is more than quaint that the most left-wing Spaniards, especially the communists, support fundamentalist terrorists such as Hamas or fundamentalist regimes such as Iran. Because the Spaniards are more politically active, they have more influence than they should, with their supporters manipulating a large part of Spanish society. In Iran, women are still forced to wear veils, homosexuals are hanged in public, and religious authorities allow older men to marry girls, sometimes very young girls. The communists never mention that Israel is the only democracy in the region, a country with Western values and laws.
It was years after Israel's War of Independence in 1948, with the very interested support of the then Soviet bloc, that Arafat's Fatah terrorists appeared and called themselves the Palestinian people, adopting a somewhat communist ideology, so much so that they acted on their own in the Kingdom of Jordan, conspiring against this capitalist state and against the monarchy, both political systems hostile to the communists. While the Kingdom of Jordan intended that these self-proclaimed Palestinians be its subjects, Arafat's terrorists were demanding a revolutionary tax from the Jordanians and acting outside the state that welcomed them. The situation became unsustainable, beginning a terrorist conflict between these new communist Palestinians and Jordan, and it was from then on that Jordan no longer wanted to govern the current Palestinians. While Palestinian terrorists in Gaza can be confused with the more moderate Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority today, when Gaza was actually under the control of the Hamas terrorist group through fatwas and Sharia law, it seized power through a bloody coup against the Palestinian Authority, killing Fatah officials, some of whom were thrown off the roof of a building while they were jubilant. Hamas also has a lot of support in the West Bank, and could rule if democratic elections were held.